“Another bottle of beer,” said Kirby.
“And give me the check,” added Morengo.
Ed Kirby shrugged. Morengo vanished.
Chapter II
Up a Step
The Blackmoor Hotel on Twenty-eighth Street was dull and ugly as seen from the street. It was even more ugly in the lobby. There were four leather chairs facing the front windows. A short counter with a grilled ironwork protecting the cashier’s desk. A rack for keys. Some mail boxes, and a single telephone booth. There was an elevator and a spiral staircase leading upstairs.
Ed Kirby came in about eight o’clock. The night clerk, a man with a pock-marked face, took a key from the rack and handed it to him without a word. Kirby saw that the elevator wasn’t in the shaft, so he went up to the third floor by the stairs.
His room, 309, was at the front end of the building facing the street. In it was a bed, a bureau, a small table, a connecting bath, and two chairs.
He took off his work clothes and stepped under the shower. Then he shaved and put on a dark suit. The coat proved too warm. He took it off. In his shirt sleeves he sat down at the table, took a deck of cards from a small drawer, and dealt himself a hand of Canfield.
After a time he had six bottles of beer sent up. He drank the beverage slowly, flicking the cardboards in their appointed places. He knew that his chief in the Field Office would be waiting for a report. But Kirby wasn’t ready to make any. Not yet.
It was close to nine when he heard the clang of the elevator door in the hall outside. It occurred to him that he was going to have a visitor. Without a word having been said, he knew that Morengo would come to the hotel.
Steps sounded outside the door and stopped. Someone knocked. Kirby’s eyes raised. “Come in,” he called.
He was still holding cards in his hand when Morengo and a stocky man with a cherubic face entered.
Ed Kirby looked surprised at seeing Morengo. “Hello,” he said. “You again?”
“Yeah,” said Morengo. “It’s me — and a friend. A guy you ought to know. He can do things for you.”
Kirby flipped the cards to the table. “So.”
Morengo made the introduction. “Kirby, this is a good friend of mine — Joe Wyman, owner of the best gyp joint in town — the Golden Mirror.”
“Glad to meet you, Wyman,” said Ed. “Heard about your place in Denver, New Orleans and Detroit.”
Joe Wyman’s cherubic face broke into a wooden smile. “You must move around a lot, Kirby.”
“I do. Have to the way I’m fixed.”
“Working?”
“Was — if I haven’t lost my job with the Starret people. Someone might have turned me in for getting sore and slugging, two cops. There were plenty of men around who knew me by sight.”
“How’d you like to work for me as a bouncer? I need someone, who is tough and can take it.”
“Thanks,” said Ed, shaking his head. “It’d bore me stiff. I don’t get any kick handling suckers and drunks.”
“Spoken like a gentleman,” broke in a strange voice. The hall door had opened. Framed in the opening stood a tall man in a dress suit. His face was flushed. “Drunks and suckers. That’s me. Hi, Joe, you old bandit you. Rye. I want rye. Get a bottle of it. Get a case!”
Joe Wyman sighed. “Monty, what the hell you doing here?”
“I saw you come in from the street. ’Scuse the hiccups! Followed. Thought you were opening a new place. Didn’t want to be left out. Not Monty.” He turned and bowed low from the hips towards Ed Kirby.
Had the other two men seen Monty’s face, they might have wondered why his left eyelid drooped ever so cunningly in a wink.
Monty straightened. He was a perfect gentleman at all times. “Sorry to intrude, sir. Truly. My mistake. The liquor they serve nowadays is abominable.” He grinned. “Off we go. See you later, Joe.” He turned around in the door opening, weaved, belched and went humming down the hall to the elevator.
But Ed had not forgotten Monty’s drooping eyelid, and the meaning it conveyed. “Nice boy friend,” he observed. “Where’d you pick him up?”
“He just happened,” said Wyman. “One of those playboys you hear about. But he spends plenty in my place as well as in other night clubs, so I put up with his foolishness He’s a nut I guess. Well, I think I’ll move on. No harm in offering you that job, Kirby?”
“Not a bit, Wyman. Thanks.”
“I’m staying for a few minutes, Joe,” said Morengo as he opened the door for his friends. “See you later.”
He closed the door after the owner of the night club had left, and took the chair Wyman had vacated. “You turned down a good job, Kirby. There’s plenty of gravy in being a bouncer at the Golden Mirror — plenty of rich gravy.”
“I’m not looking for gravy,” said Kirby. “What I want is meat.”
“Tough pickings in this town.”
“I can wait.”
“Know any big shots around here, Kirby?”
Ed shook his head. “I’ve been away for a couple years and I just got back. No, I don’t seem to be acquainted no more.”
“Who did you work for on the West Coast?”
“What is this — an inquisition?”
“I’m trying to get a line on you. Maybe you’re regular. Maybe you’re a damned Federal...”
Ed Kirby got to his feet. His eyes were shot with danger signals. He grabbed Morengo by the collar, lifted him bodily from the chair and struck him in the face. Morengo jerked free and backed away.
Morengo’s right hand whipped beneath the lapel of his coat. But before he could get within touching distance of his armpit holster Ed Kirby’s left hand streaked forward. And Morengo found himself staring into the black muzzle of an automatic.
A faint smile of derision parted Kirby’s lips. “When you start calling me names, Morengo — learn to smile. Now, put the notion out of your head that you’re going to pump lead into me. It won’t work. For I should hate to leave this hotel just because I shot a guy. That’s how it stands between us, Morengo. And I don’t hold no grudge.”
There was something close to admiration in Morengo’s slitted eyes. “You’ll do, Kirby,” he said. “If the boss wants someone to vouch for you, I’ll do it myself.” His hand emerged from under his coat — empty.
“Boss?” Ed Kirby’s eyebrows lifted. “You mean Joe Wyman?”
“Hell, no!” Morengo laughed. “I’m talking about the Big Guy.”
“Oh!” Ed Kirby sat down and poured himself a glass of beer. “Help yourself, Morengo. I don’t know who the Big Guy is you’re talking about. I’m not asking you. I don’t give a damn. See? I’m open for business with this Big Guy. But I do things my own way. And I work at my trade. My job is my alibi. Dicks never bother a guy with a steady job.”
“Yeah,” nodded Morengo. “I feel the same way. Right now I’m working on the tunnel job under the East River. Timekeeper. I’m in strong with the office superintendent. If you get canned from the Starret job, come down to the river. And I’ll see that you’re taken care of.”
“Thanks,” said Ed. “Maybe I’ll do that little thing.”
Dip Morengo rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I wish,” he mumbled, “I knew what those two cops wanted of me. It’s got me worried. They ain’t got nothing on me. I’m in the clear.”
“You and me are never in the clear. What do you care what they wanted of you? It would have been plenty if they once got you down to headquarters.”
Dip Morengo shook his head. “Not with the mouthpiece the Big Guy would furnish me. I’ve been through the mill before. But it gets me — what in hell did those cops want when they nailed me?”
“Don’t ask me.”
Morengo didn’t, again. Nor did he say anything more about the Big Guy. Between them they finished the beer, talked about various jackets, women and firearms, then Morengo got to his feet.