“You sound like it was something new.”
“There's no trouble, Rosa,” Johnny told her.
“Honest?”
“Honest. I just wanted to talk to Jerry. I know it's late, and I didn't mean to upset you-”
“Don't you pay any attention to me, Johnny. It's just my nerves aren't good. I shouldn't yell at him like that, I know. Just so he's not in trouble-”
Jerry smiled his easygoing smile at the edge of doubt in her tone. “Haven't raped a soul in six, eight weeks now, hon.”
“You!” she said. “That's not the kind of trouble you find-”
“Maybe I been overlooking something? Coffee, Johnny?”
“Sounds good. Black.”
Rosa moved immediately toward the kitchen in the rear of the apartment, and Jerry waved after her. “We might as well sit in there ourselves, Johnny. It's just as comfortable, and it'll save Rosa running back and forth to listen in.” He grinned at his wife in the doorway.
Johnny followed him into the small kitchen, where Jerry pulled chairs up to the table and looked over at him expectantly as they sat down. Rosa measured level tablespoons of coffee for the percolater and kept her attention upon the table.
“I need a little information that's none of my business, Jerry,” Johnny told him.
“You tell him, you hear me?” Rosa said immediately. “You tell him, Jerry Romero.”
Jerry laughed. “I remember my father used to tell me 'Jerry, you want to watch out for a man tells you he's the boss in his house, because pretty soon he's gonna be lyin' to you about something else.'”
“You tell him,” Rosa repeated.
“I might,” Jerry agreed, “if you'll give the man a chance to ask his question, Rosa. You been doing all the talking so far.”
“It's about the manager down at the place,” Johnny said, and his host made a wry face. “He got you under the gun?”
“No more'n you'd expect. What's on your mind?”
“He asked you to do any special little jobs for him since he's been down there?”
“I don't know how you taped it, but he did.”
“Can you tell me about it? I guess he had a lever.”
Jerry nodded slowly. “He had a lever. Been there about a week and called me into his office one morning. 'Jerry,' says he, chipper as an English sparrow, 'let's have a look at your ticket.' Oh, oh, I thought to myself. Now you know and I know, Johnny, that I'm no engineer. I don't have the education for the job I'm doin' down there. I just kinda grew into it, and after old Hubert left I just kept goin' through the motions. I can do the job; I've proved that ever since the old man left, but hell, you know as well as I do that as soon as someone raises the question, I'm out.”
“So Freddie put the arm on you?”
“Not directly. He was just showin' me where I stood. This little piece of paper says you're not packin' the weight for the job,' he says to me. 'I got twelve years aboard here says I am, Mr. Frederic,' I give it back to him. 'We could get in trouble over this if something went wrong, Jerry.' 'So what's to go wrong, Mr. Frederick?' 'Well, let's hold it in abeyance for the time bein', shall we?' he says. 'Meantime I have a thing or two I'd like you to do for me if you have the time.'”
Jerry's grin was mirthless. “If I had the time. He knew damn well I'd make the time with that sword over my head. He did surprise me, though; when I finished the work for him, he slipped me a hundred.”
“The frosting on the cake to keep you quiet?”
“Well, I didn't figure to do any broadcastin' anyway, but that century didn't make it any harder to button up.” He looked over at Johnny. “You got priority, boy, but I hope-”
“You don't need to worry, Jerry.”
“If you say so, that's good enough for me. After we got it settled whose side I was on, he asked to see the hotel blueprints.”
Johnny whistled. “Now I know I underestimated him.”
“Yeah? Well, I told him the official set was down at the architect's office, but that I had a spare set downstairs was almost as good since I made my own changes on them. I brought them up, and I mean he really went over them with a fine tooth comb, with special attention to his office and his suite upstairs. He let go the office in a hurry; you know that was thrown up on the mezzanine as an extra, and no wall of it touches any other wall. When he left that, I could see right away that what bothered him was what contacted him upstairs. He's some kind of a left-handed engineer himself, I guess, because he put his finger right on things. Like that walkway outside one wall of his living room where there was a little leftover space when we converted the corner room beyond him. I told him nothing but a midget could get in there, but he wasn't satisfied till he'd seen it for himself. Then he wasn't satisfied, either, because he came right out and told me what he wanted.”
Johnny grimaced. “I think I'm way ahead of you.”
“Probably. He wanted something to let him know if someone was prowling him, trying to look in or listen in. There was three spots that bothered him: his front door, the bathroom, which adjoined another, like they all do down there, and the wall with the walkway. It was easy enough to do. I put a plate at the door, a strip under the floor of the adjoining wall in the bathroom, and a strip under the walkway. I hooked up three little bulbs inside that light up when anyone hits the plate or the strips. I wanted to put in a buzzer, but he didn't want no buzzer. The bathroom was the toughest, account of the tile. Took me about a week, I guess, workin' an hour or so in the mornings, and when I had him all wired up he thanked me pretty as you please and slipped me the hundred.”
Rosa was doing a little rapid feminine arithmetic. “That's when I was in the hospital for four days. I was afraid to ask you where you'd gotten the money.” She walked over to him and sat down on his lap, leaned over and kissed him, hard. He ran a hand up under the blue dressing gown, and she jumped up and slapped him halfheartedly. “I don't get that kind of attention when we're alone, Mr. Romero. You have to shame in front of Johnny?”
He reached for her again, but she evaded him and smiled apologetically at Johnny. “I was scared simple when you walked in here, after that last time. God knows he's not worth much, but I'm used to having him around.” She unplugged the percolator, waited for it to stop its rhythmic thumping, and filled three cups. “When I think of tie last time you were here-”
“He's reformed, Rosa.”
“Damn right he's reformed, Jerry said breezily. “Those characters sure made a Christian out of ol' Jerry. I can't see now how I could have been so crazy. Any damn fool can gamble with money in his pocket, but it takes a special kind to do it without it.”
“So you learned.”
“So I learned. Just this side of City General. I never did ask you what you had to do to get me off the hook with that bunch-”
“Stop it!” Rosa said sharply. Her coffee slopped over into her saucer. “Let's not even talk about it. How are you going to get back downtown, Johnny?”
“I'll catch a cab up at the corner.”
“Not this time of the morning you won't, not in this neighborhood. Jerry, you put on a shirt and drive him down.”
“There's no need for that-” Johnny protested.
“I guess you didn't hear the boss talking,” Jerry told him. He stood up and walked into the other room and returned in a moment shrugging into a sports shirt.
Johnny stood up at the table. “Thanks for the coffee, Rosa. And for the information, Jerry.”
“No thanks due, and you know it,” Jerry said. “We all set? I won't be long, hon.”
“You be careful. Goodnight, Johnny. You come by and see us anytime.”
On the drive downtown in Jerry's fender-dented vehicle, Johnny responded absentmindedly to the engineer's steady chatter. Mentally he shifted pieces in the jigsaw mosaic in his mind, and found himself still dissatisfied with the blurred picture that resulted. A couple of key pieces were still missing, and he had a little digging to do.