“None to me,” said Johnny. “Personally, I’ve sent a few bookies’ sons to Harvard and a few daughters to Vassar and Smith.”
“You’re going to snitch to Towner?”
“Tell me just one thing — and this I can and will prove. Was Al Piper cutting you in for a percentage, for the privilege of taking bets?”
“No,” said Johnson bluntly.
“But he was paying some one?”
Hal Johnson did not answer that. Johnny shook his head. “You knew that Carmella was trying to muscle in on the business?”
“The hell with Carmella,” snarled Johnson. “And the hell with you, Fletcher.” He started to turn away, but whirled back. “And you,” stabbing a thick forefinger at Sam Cragg. “If you’re working here, get back to your bench, or go down and draw your pay.”
“I’m fired?” Sam asked, eagerly.
“Either I’m foreman here,” Johnson said, doggedly, “or I’m not. You’re fired.”
“Great!” exulted Sam.
Johnson looked at Johnny. “Is he fired?”
“You’re the foreman, Hal,” Johnny said, quietly.
“All right, then he isn’t fired.”
“No!” howled Sam. “You can’t go back on it. You said I was fired...”
“Ah,” said Johnson in disgust and walked off.
Sam appealed to Johnny. “Let me be fired, Johnny. I feel silly sitting at a bench like this, squeezing them little hunks of leather. It ain’t no kind of a job for a grown man.”
Instead of replying Johnny stepped to Johnson’s desk and picked up the phone. “Hi, Taffy,” he said into the mouthpiece. “This is Johnny...”
“I’m sorry, Johnny,” Nancy exclaimed. “I couldn’t say anything with Mr. Towner present, but I... I’m terribly sorry about last night. What... what happened?”
“Nothing much,” said Johnny. “I only got beaten within an inch of my life. That I’m not dead isn’t your boy friend’s fault.”
“Don’t say that, Johnny. Carmella isn’t my boy friend. He never has been.”
“How about Elliott Towner?”
There was silence on the phone for a full second. Then Nancy said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Johnny...”
“A bellboy at the Lakeside Athletic Club,” Johnny said, “night before last...”
This time there were two full seconds of silence before Nancy said: “You knew that — last night?”
“I knew. Wait, Nancy, it won’t do you any good to try to leave the building. There’s someone outside...”
“I have no intentions of leaving the building.” Nancy Miller said, steadily. “I’m merely going to get back to my work...”
“Get me the police department,” Johnny said. “Homicide Squad — Lieutenant Lindstrom...”
“Lieutenant Lindstrom is in Mr. Towner’s office right now.”
“Get him for me.”
A moment later Lindstrom’s voice snapped: “Lindstrom talking.”
“Fletcher up in the counter department. Get Carmella Vitali at once.”
“Who’s this?” exclaimed Lindstrom. “Commissioner Fletcher?”
“Johnny Fletcher, not Commissioner Fletcher.”
“Oh, is that so? Well, le’me tell you something, Fletcher. I don’t take orders—”
“That isn’t an order,” cut in Johnny, “but if you don’t pick up Carmella Vitali, you’d better not read the newspapers this evening. And you’d better start looking over the vacation folders, because you’ll be going on a good long suspension.”
Johnny slammed down the receiver, then picked it up again. “Don’t bother calling Carmella, Taffy!”
“Why you...” began Nancy Miller. Johnny hung up.
Sam Cragg came forward. “What’d you wanna have the cops pick up Carmella for, Johnny? I thought you’d let me have that pleasure. I wasn’t really gonna kill him. Only halfway...”
“You may still get your chance.” Johnny looked toward the rows of barrels behind the counter department. “Sam, I want you to go back to the spot where Al Piper was found...”
Sam shuddered. “Aw, Johnny,” he protested. “It’s dark back there. I get the shivers when I even look...”
“This’ll just be for a minute.”
“What’d you want me to do?”
“Just stand there and call me — but not too loud. About like this: ‘Say, Johnny.’ ”
Sam hesitated, then shaking his head went off. Johnny followed him for part of the distance, but when Sam cut into the aisle between the barrels Johnny continued down the line to Elliott Towner’s bench.
Elliott watched him approach, his face dark and smoldering.
“Hi, Elly,” Johnny said, as he came up.
“Keep away from me, Fletcher,” Elliott snarled. “I’m in no mood for your—”
Behind the barrels, Sam Cragg called: “Hey, Johnny...!”
And then there was a tremendous crash!
Johnny gasped and started running from a standing start. He reached the aisle leading to the rear of the barrels, hurtled down it and skidded into a left turn.
In several swift bounds he reached the death aisle. Sam Cragg was climbing over a heap of wreckage in the aisle, wood and several thousand counters scattered on the floor.
“Jeez, Johnny!” he cried. “Somebody gave this pile of barrels a shove from the other side. Almost hit me with them.”
“I should have warned you, Sam,” Johnny said, through clenched teeth.
“You knew somebody was gonna do it?”
“No, I didn’t know but I should have suspected it. Here...” He leaned over the wreckage, gave Sam his hand and helped him clear. When they reached the aisle, several spectators were looking in. Hal Johnson, Karl Kessler, Elliott Towner and two or three counter sorters.
“Somebody just tried to kill Sam,” Johnny said, grimly. “They fixed up a pile of barrels so they could be pushed over easily...”
“You’ve been inviting it, Fletcher,” snapped the foreman. “You hang around here much longer and somebody else will be killed.”
“No,” said Johnny. “I’ve had enough. I’m going to spill what I know — now. Down in Harry Towner’s office. I think you ought to hear it, Hal. And you, Karl...” He nodded to Elliott. “And you, Elliott...”
“I’m not interested,” Elliott Towner said.
“You’d better be. Come on, all of you...”
“He giving the orders now, Hal?” Karl Kessler asked, quietly.
“I’m giving the orders,” cried Johnson. “And that’s one of them. Downstairs to The Duke’s — I mean, Mr. Towner’s office...”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The men from the counter department filed from the elevator into the office: Hal Johnson, the foreman, Karl Kessler, the assistant foreman, Elliott Towner, son of the factory owner, then Sam Cragg and last, Johnny Fletcher. In that formation they headed for Hal Johnson’s private office.
Johnny paused at the switchboard. “The showdown, Taffy. Better join us.”
“No,” said Nancy Miller stubbornly.
Elliott Towner stepped out of the single file formation. “Let her alone,” he said ominously.
“You’re the boss’s son,” said Johnny, shrugging. He continued on after the others. But at the door of Towner’s office he looked back. Nancy Miller was getting up from her switchboard desk. And as Johnny waited, she came forward.
Harry Towner watched the entry of his visitors. In the office already were his daughter Linda and her fiancé, Freddie Wendland.
“What’s this?” The Leather Duke asked. “A shop grievance committee?”
“The last act,” Johnny said, “the finale, in which you will learn everything... well, almost everything. Remember what I said to you yesterday when I took on this job?”