Detective James Rogers nodded and took out his ever-present notebook. “Long time, Johnny.”
“Yeah. How's the only straight man works out of 54th Street?”
“Shhh-” the sandyhaired man warned. “The boss'll hear you.”
“He should hear me.” Johnny reached over and tapped Joe Dameron on the knee. “How come you let this boy work with the rest of the bastards you've got up there? He supposed to leaven the loaf?”
“He beats his wife,” Joe Dameron said amiably. “That qualifies him. You ready, Jimmy?”
“Yes, sir.” He bent over the notebook. “Name: John Killain-”
“'D you ever know he had an alias, Jimmy?” the lieutenant interrupted. “Sure. Ask him. Or never mind asking him, ask me. Poetic, too. Manos Muertas.”
Johnny stiffened in his chair, and Detective Rogers looked from him to the lieutenant and back again. “Muertas,” he repeated slowly. “Odd name. Manos Muertas. Translates a bit grimly. The hands of death.”
Lieutenant Dameron laughed. “You see the advantages of an education, Johnny? Jimmy went to school.”
Johnny's voice was thick and heavy. “There's a nice, quiet alley outside, Joe.”
The lieutenant eyed him placidly. “My mother didn't raise any foolish children to my age.”
“Just one. The one trying to push me around.” “Nobody's pushing you around, you thick idiot. Will you get off that button?”
“I'll get off it when you put away flat needle you've had out lately. I don't like it.”
“So you don't like it. Drop dead.” The chair creaked as Johnny's weight shifted. “Don't do it,” Lieutenant Dameron continued softly. The redrimmed eyes stared frostily. “Don't even think of it, Johnny. You're no privileged character. I gave you a chance to do me a favor, and you turned me down. I can use you, but I don't need you, so don't get out of line. That's a warning. Now let's catch Jimmy here up on a little ancient history.”
He leaned back in his chair, unheeding the smoldering glance from across the desk. “A few years back, Jimmy, when you were still trying to get the pants off the high-school cheerleaders in your home town, this character and I were running around southern Europe for Uncle. I imagine quite a few people over there would remember that name, even today.”
He exhaled a cloud of smoke and idly dabbled the tip of his cigarette in it before replacing it in his mouth. “He was a specialist, Jimmy. No machinery. No guns, no knives, no blackjacks; all he had to do was reach you. He can give any circus strong man you ever saw cards and spades, and when he gets mad you wouldn't believe it. He warms up on brick walls.”
The cigarette's tip glowed redly. “Willie brought him back here with him… that's Willie Martin, the owner of this place. Our sourpussed friend here was Willie's hatchet man, and he pulled Willie through a couple of mighty snug knotholes. Willie stuck him in a uniform here and gave him the run of the place, and he developed a sideline. Women. What I hear, they had to enlarge the place a couple of times to get them all in.” He studied the growing ash on his cigarette. “This Willie Martin's a story himself. He was head oddball in a strictly oddball outfit; he inherited some money, and while I never did hear of him making any, he'll probably always be able to buy and sell the crowd here. He's the type that lives every minute like it's going to be his last on earth; a little frantic for the pedestrian caliber like me, geared a little lower.”
Lieutenant Dameron leaned forward in his chair, head turned up sidewise to the listening detective. “I'm telling you this, Jimmy, because I know that he's what happened to Max and Co.; his brand was stamped all over them. All except the bullet, the way I see it now. With the buzz we'd had on this deal, I offered him in; he was on the ground, and he's got a nose for this kind of thing. He thought I was holding the Armistead thing over his head, and he wouldn't buy. I figure he's lonewolfing it now; none of us knows what we're doing here anyway, and he thinks he might find a spot to cash in. Right, Johnny?” He shrugged at the glowering silence. “All right, then. What happened here tonight?”
“You tell me, you're so goddamn smart.”
“Temper, temper.” The lieutenant turned back to his assistant. “I forgot to say, Jimmy, that Armistead had braced him first, before I did, but he didn't like Armistead. When Max tried to push it a little, Johnny dropped him in the alley on the second bounce, and whoever was behind Max figured he could do without him.” He turned back to Johnny. “All right. Let's hear it.”
Johnny drew a deep breath, and for the first time in minutes wrenched his eyes away from the red-faced man. He looked up at Jimmy Rogers. “I can tell you what you already know. Whoever it was, they had a key to something. No sign of forcible entry. They just didn't know old Dutch had insomnia and often sat here nights. When they stumbled over him, the one on the floor got nervous and started after him, probably wavin' a gun. He violated the number one rule for drawing your social security; never go after a chef in his own kitchen. Dutch split him like a chicken from a dozen feet away with the cleaver he always had on this desk. The boy that caught the cleaver put two out of two into Dutch, which was pretty good shootin' under the circumstances. That was a little noisier than his partner liked to work, so the partner pumped in a couple of convincers alongside the cleaver to make sure no talkee and blew. Game, set, and match.”
“How'd you know the man the chef got was shot, too?” Detective Rogers asked him curiously.
“I looked. He wasn't layin' right for a knife wound, even a smash like that. A knife, they got time to get down easy, usually. A gun belts 'em down hard. This guy was belted.”
“He was, for a fact.”
“Now I'll tell you something you didn't know. The guy on the floor was registered into 1421 here last night under the name of Dumas. He was visitin' a guy named Lustig up in 938 early this morning; I brought him up some beer. Dumas checked out at nine thirty this morning. Lustig turned out to be a no-pay; room clean and no sign of him.”
“You can see why I thought he might be useful, Jimmy,” Lieutenant Dameron said briskly. “He has a nose for trouble.”
“He also has a nose for facts; he laid out a pretty straight story.” Rogers frowned down at his notebook. “The bar boy heard the first two shots and started right in here. On the way he heard a pop-pop; silencer on the second gun, evidently. He ran right back out when he got a look around and says he didn't pass anyone either way.”
“How do you figure the second bird got out of here, then?” Lieutenant Dameron asked him.
“Same key he came in with, I'd say, sir. Mighty cool character. Changed horses at flood tide and never batted an eye.” He closed his notebook. “I'll talk to a few more of the help now, if we've finished here.”
The ruddyfaced man stood up slowly. “You go ahead; I'm running along. Begins to look like one of those things around here; this is the second stone wall we've hit.”
Johnny looked at Detective Rogers. “Manuel tell you what Dutch said?”
The slender man nodded and looked at the lieutenant. “The kid said that the chef said something that sounded like 'clocks.'”
“Clocks?” The big man circled the room with his eyes and stopped at the big kitchen clock. He pointed to it. “Have the lab boys dismantle that and go over it. There won't be anything to it, bat we might as well make a noise like we knew what we were doing, especially since it doesn't look like the rush of witnesses is going to knock us down.” He led the way out to the bar, stopped, and turned to Johnny. “You have a key to this thing?”
“Yeah, but Willie's a little fussy who he sets them up for.”
The apple cheeks darkened, but the lieutenant bit off any reply he might have been going to make. He turned and strode out through the lobby, his heels hitting heavily, — and Jimmy Rogers shook his head disapprovingly at Johnny. “What does it get you, man?”