Johnny grunted. “You know that?”
She nodded. “He's not only in town, he's in the hotel. I've had Vivian Fuller-she's the new day housekeeper- watching Mrs. Muller's room ever since you said you were interested in it. She called me a half hour ago and said that he'd just checked in. Same address, Bremerhaven. He doesn't speak as good English as his wife. He asked if a Mr.-” she checked the telephone pad ”-Samud was registered or had left a message for him. Seemed surprised when they said no and made the desk check again. They opened up the connecting door between 1224 and 1226 and made a suite out of it; you know, with the bathroom in between. End of report.”
Johnny stared at the white summer curtains moving gently in the early morning breeze. “He's meeting someone. Or planning to. Probably doesn't have a thing in the world to do with this other skirmish-” He stood up restlessly and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Think I'll go out for awhile.”
“You just got here. Barely.”
“I'll call you, ma.”
He ran lightly down the single flight of stairs to the street level, his mind on Carl Muller. Now if somehow there should be a connection-
He noticed the man in the hallway but brushed past him to open the door. His hand barely touched the knob when a hard object was jammed into his right side and a voice spoke curtly in his ear. “Take the second cab at the stand, bud. No tricks.”
Gun and voice were at his right; Johnny turned left. “I beg your pardon?” he said politely over his left shoulder, then continued to turn in apparent surprise at not finding anyone there. In the middle of his turn the pressure in his right side lessened as the man with the gun tried in vain to follow his movement, and Johnny accelerated. He came out of the turn with a stiffened left forearm that clubbed the squat body viciously at the beltline, and the man gasped and doubled up, face screwed up in agony.
Johnny chopped a rabbit punch to the exposed neck, and the man pitched forward to his knees. Johnny bent swiftly and removed the gun from the nerveless hand as the squat man fell over on his side; with a firm grip he grabbed the slack shirt collar and towed the limp figure along the parqueted floor toward the basement entrance just down the corridor from him. Five minutes privacy with this one, and he would have the answers to a few questions.
Johnny speeded up as he heard steps descending the stairs. The overhang partly hid him, and he didn't know whether he had been seen or not. He was not long in doubt; the voice behind him was heavy and demanding. “Just a minute, mister.”
Johnny halted and turned slowly. A stout man with hard gray eyes advanced from the foot of the stairs and stopped a dozen feet away. Johnny blinked; there was no gun in his hand. That was an improvement. He estimated the distance between them, and then it came to him. “You Dameron's stakeout here?”
“That's right, fella.” He gestured at the figure on the floor. “I'll take over now. I saw the whole thing from the top of the stairs. That's a real nice move, Killain. Like to show it to me sometime on my day off?”
“I'll make a deal with you, Jack. You go get lost upstairs for ten minutes. When you come back down I give you this and I show you the move any time you say.”
The fat man shook his head regretfully. “I can't do it. I got my orders, and they say to keep an eye on that door upstairs, and to break up any scrimmage you get into around here. What I hear, if I took you up on that offer I'd need a basket to get him downtown.”
“It bothers you, Jack?”
“It bothers the people that sent me here. Comprends?” Johnny sighed and released the collar to which he had been holding. There was a hollow sound as the dead weight struck the floor, and the fat man clucked in disapproval. “You're gonna spoil him, Killain.”
Johnny started to reply and then remembered. “This bastard said the second cab at the stand-” He ran lightly to the door with the fat man outdistanced. Behind the first cab at the stand was an empty space. “Damn-!”
“Gone, huh?” the stout man sympathized. “Too bad. I think I'll call and get the meat wagon for your boy here.”
“Here.” Johnny handed him the gun. “This goes with him.”
“Well, thanks, now. I appreciate it. Sorry I can't do you that other favor, but you know how it is. I sure would like to learn that move, too.”
“You keep the stairs here clean, and you learn the move.”
“Yeah? Mister, nobody gets up those stairs without a blood test.”
Johnny nodded, and turned to the door.
He ran into Jimmy Rogers just inside the door of the stationhouse, and the sandyhaired man cocked a quizzical eyebrow at the sight of him. “The lieutenant get hold of you? He's been calling all around.”
“First I heard of it. What's up?”
“Put up your lightning rod.”
“Like that, huh? What's chewin' him?” Johnny followed the detective inside to the private offices, and a billow of sound rolled through the corridor.
“Rogers!”
Johnny grinned at Jimmy Rogers' sardonic glance. “The bull moose is in rut, huh? Let's go in an' give him a hotfoot.”
“You don't have to work for him.” Detective Rogers made no objection to Johnny entering behind him into the same office he had left with Willie Martin not so many hours ago.
“Mornin', Joe.”
“You!” It was an epithet the way it was uttered as the red-faced man's head jerked up and focused on Johnny. “I want a few words with you right now!”
“You expect to enjoy yourself while you're havin' 'em, furl your sails a little,” Johnny suggested. He seated himself comfortably as he eyed the irate lieutenant. “You'd have a little trouble bustin' me back to a post, Joe.” Detective Rogers' expression as he sat down across from Johnny was carefully blank.
“You can skip the wise remarks. I want a straight answer from you. Have you had anything to do with this Myrna Hansen, the telephone operator?”
It surprised Johnny. “I had a little talk with her,” he said cautiously.
The lieutenant's hands came up from his lap and gripped the edges of his desk, hard. “You had a little talk with her,” he mimicked heavily. “She's only a certain witness and a possible confederate to some of these goings on, but you had a little talk with her.” He raised himself up in his chair, and the angry face was dark red. “Just who the hell do you think you are? This is a police investigation. I don't want you-”
“Ahh, knock it off, Joe,” Johnny interrupted him. “You talked to her for two hours, and you got a big, fat nothing. I just tried to throw a little scare into her, that's all.”
“God give me strength.” The lieutenant looked up at the ceiling before again boring Johnny with his eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that just possibly we might know what we're doing? We wanted to know where that woman went, whom she contacted. You had your little talk with her and scared her underground. My man lost her yesterday afternoon and hasn't seen her since.”
“The people she's been playin' with, you'll be lucky if you don't find her underground,” Johnny said thoughtfully. “Or she'll be lucky. Personally, I couldn't care less; in my book she's been livin' on borrowed time a while already, the way she operates. Are you listenin' today, Joe, or just talkin'? I got a couple of things.”
The big man glowered at him silently, and Johnny shifted his remarks to Detective Rogers. “I was just stuck up at the door of that apartment where you have the stakeout. Gun-in-my-ribs said, 'Get into the second cab at the cab stand.'”
“Where the hell was Mulleavy while all that was going on?” the sandyhaired man demanded sharply.
“Mulleavy your man? He was at the head of the stairs, watching.”
“Oh, great-!”
“I'm kiddin' you. He didn't have time to blow his nose. I didn't even know he was there, so when I took out the guy in the doorway I had just started to lug him down into the basement for a private interview when Mulleavy declared himself in. Said private interviews were verboten.”