“What the hell is this?” Lonnie Turner's voice cut like the rasp of a file. “What's the matter with you, Monk?” His hard stare shifted to the tweed-suited man. “You, Zip! Get the hell back on the door!” Zip departed hurriedly without ever having said a word, and the promoter turned back to the furious Monk. “Well? Can you talk?”
“He had a little accident outside just now,” Johnny interjected easily. He removed Monk's revolver from his pocket, tossed it lightly in the air, caught it by the short barrel and returned it to the pocket.
The squat man crouched. “I'll show you, you wise-”
“Monk!” The promoter's voice was a roar. “What the bell happened?”
Unconsciously Monk's hand went to his neck. “This-this character conned me outta my gun.”
His employer looked at him. “He conned you, Monk?”
“So he dropped me!” Monk flared irascibly. “He couldn't do it again in a thousand years!” He whirled on Johnny. “Gimme that gun, Killain!”
“Where I'll give it to you they'll do the extraction with forceps,” Johnny told him positively, and came up on the arms of his chair as Monk started for him.
“Hold it!” Lonnie Turner's voice rang with authority. He looked across his desk at the dapper little doctor, who was staring at Johnny as though at some strange animal. “Doc,” the promoter said glibly, “you delivered the message to Garcia, and I thank you.” He waited.
“Ah… yes,” Dr. McDevitt said reluctantly. He replaced the rimless glasses and examined Johnny again. “I'll be- ah-running along.” He smiled carefully. “I trust I'll not be missing anything.” At the door he turned for a final look around before departing, and when it closed after him Johnny was on his feet, watching Monk.
“None of that in here!” the promoter ordered flatly. “You hear me, Monk?”
“I hear you,” Monk mumbled sulkily.
“All right, then.” Lonnie Turner's tone turned silky. “Now what's your business here, Killain, besides troublemaking?”
Johnny's voice had a honed-down razor edge. “I want the check for the kid's end of the Williams fight.”
“I see.” The staccato tone softened still further as the promoter leaned back in his chair and looked up at Johnny from beneath semiclosed eyelids. “That purse money could be held up.”
“Don't give me that crap, Turner.” Johnny edged forward. “Purse money is held up when the commission acts immediately. Any investigation now will be at the criminal level.”
Lonnie Turner nodded slowly. “Nice of you to instruct me in my business,” he said pleasantly. He slid open a desk drawer and removed a green check, which he placed face down on the side of his desk. “Gidlow had a claim against this check, of course; his estate will have it now. I believe he'd advanced Roketenetz money, also.”
“He's got paper for it, of course,” Johnny said ironically.
“Some transactions in this business are a little informal,” the promoter said smoothly. “Between manager and fighter.”
“I'll personally guarantee Gidlow's estate no payoff on anything that isn't in writing,” Johnny informed him harshly.
Lonnie Turner slid still more deeply into his chair and locked his hands behind his head. “Do I detect a note of hostility in your tone, Killain?”
“You sure as hell do.”
“May I ask why?”
“Ask Monk here. Ask Munson.”
The promoter's face was bland. “I believe there was a little misunderstanding originally. It's been straightened out.”
“Sure. I'll take that check now.”
“You have status that would permit my turning it over to you?”
“Oh, of course,” Johnny said cheerfully. He removed a power of attorney from his pocket and flipped it at the desk. “I had excellent instructors.”
Lonnie Turner picked up the document and ran through it briefly. When he set it down on the desk he placed the check on top of it casually. “This is small potatoes, Killain. When Gidlow's papers are examined there could be ramifications.”
“There'd better not be,” Johnny said steadily.
A harsh edge crept back into the white-haired man's voice. “And what do you mean by that, exactly?”
Johnny's temper went off-leash. “Exactly this, wise guy. Somebody put the kid in the tank on that fight. Somebody had him killed because they were afraid of his testimony in an investigation. It could have been you. I know a couple of things the police don't, yet, an' if Miss Fontaine has any trouble that I can trace back to you-like this mornin'-I'll do some talkin' in places that'll fetch you right up to the teeth of the buzz saw.”
The man behind the desk stood up slowly, his mouth a slit, his expression withdrawn. He slammed the butt of his cigar into the wastebasket beside his desk, his cold eyes never leaving Johnny's face. “You've somehow got a completely false impression of the situation, Killain. I don't fix fights. My business is promoting them, and any loose talk about fixed fights doesn't help my business. It's just as simple as that.” He pushed the power of attorney and the check across the desk to Johnny. “I'd suggest you take this and get out of here and stop meddling in something that's none of your business.”
“Sally Fontaine's apartment at six in the morning is your business?”
“I've already explained that that was a mistake. A misunderstanding.” The voice deepened. “You've acquired a little dangerous knowledge, Killain. Don't abuse it. Keep your nose out of my affairs.”
“You keep your goddam affairs outta my nose, then,” Johnny told him. He picked up the power of attorney and the check.
Lonnie Turner's eyes narrowed. “You strike me as a pusher, Killain. You don't know when to leave well enough alone. You get in my way and I'll be right in the front row when you get it.”
“Don't get too close to the action, pretty boy. You might get your nose caught in the flywheel.” Johnny turned leisurely to the door, his eyes on Monk, whose eyes were on the man behind the desk. Disappointed, Monk stepped aside.
On the way through the green-walled inspection station Johnny waved to the unseen tweed suit he knew would be behind the one-way window in the wall.
Paul held out the phone to him as Johnny swung off the elevator. “The detective-”
“Rogers?” Johnny picked up the phone. “Yeah, Jimmy?”
“Come on upstairs.”
“Upstairs where, for God's sake?”
“Gidlow's suite. In going through his papers we found a couple of bankbooks, joint accounts in the names of Gidlow and Roketenetz. One of them shows a balance of six hundred and seventy-five dollars.”
“Well, it'll bury him, that and the check I brought back from Turner's,” Johnny said philosophically. “I don't know if he had any insurance or not. I should ask Sally, but I don't like-”
“The second bankbook,” Detective Rogers interrupted, “shows a balance of one hundred and eighty-nine thousand dollars.”
There was a silence. “Take another look at the decimal point, Jimmy,” Johnny said finally.
“I've looked, four times. One hundred and eighty-nine thousand dollars.”
“Well, what do you know?” Johnny murmured softly. “What in the hell do you know? Shove over, investigator — I'm on the way.”
CHAPTER V
Johnny sat alongside Detective Rogers on the luxurious divan in Jake Gidlow's suite, with Lieutenant Dameron's beet-red, silver-stubbled features studying them impassively from across the room.
“You need a new make-up man, Joe,” Johnny informed the big man solicitously. “You're showin' your age lately.”
“I'm off today,” the lieutenant replied. “Officially. The taxpayers be damned.” He leaned forward in his chair. “What about these bankbooks?”
“They're on the level?” Johnny queried, still not quite believing, and at the lieutenant's confirming nod he shook his head slowly. “Who gets the gelt?”
Lieutenant Dameron glanced at the silent Detective Rogers. “I've made a couple of telephone calls,” the latter admitted. “The lawyers are going to make a fortune on this one. It comes down to the time of death of the two deceased, Gidlow and Roketenetz. The police timetable at the moment is that Gidlow died first, by roughly twelve hours. If that held up in civil court, the joint account rights revert to Roketenetz and, upon his subsequent death, to Roketenetz's heirs.”