Blonde Bait for the Murder Master

There is more than enough dough laying around for Johnny to take it very easy indeed, but his favorite indoor sport is tending his own bar and kidding with the men he’s known all his life and pretending that he’s no better off than they are. But they all know that Johnny Naga is rolling in it.

I pushed my way into the bar, and he saw me immediately and gave a little jerk of his head toward the back room. I picked up a beer on the way and carried it back in there with me. The back room was empty. I drank the beer and put the empty glass on the table.

In a few minutes, Johnny came puffing back, wiping his hands on his white apron.

“How you doin’, Brine?” he asked in his high voice. He can’t seem to say Brian.

“Just fair, Johnny. What’s new?”

“Brine, you know this Skippy Jorio?”

“One of the route boys, isn’t he? Used to be a fighter?”

“That’s a one, Brine. This week I got to put in his dough myself. He tell me to go to hell. Seventy-one bucks he owes, Brine. You get it?”

“Oh, fine!” I said in disgust.

“Brock, he says you help, Brine. Your job. Brock, he says one route man goes out of line, maybe all of them do.”

I sighed. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs at 519 Fonda. With a woman. She gets the money I think.”

The opening was as good as any. I said, “Sometimes, Johnny, I think we’d be further ahead if we ran this show ourselves and paid out the big winners and cut out the darn syndicate. Then we could afford to write off a lousy little seventy-one bucks.”

He looked at me and suddenly he wasn’t smiling. “Don’t talk like that, Brine. Bad talk, I know. Don’t mess with those boys. Out of town. Rough. You don’t mean.”

I gave him a close look. Either he was as good as Lynn Fontaine, or he was seriously jarred by my idea. I decided it was the latter. Scratch one prospect.

“I was just kidding, Johnny,” I said.

His smile came back. “Good thing,” he said, slugging me on the shoulder and nearly paralyzing my arm.

Before calling on Skippy Jorio, I made the usual precautions. It took me fifteen minutes to locate our local eagle, Mr. Wallace Rome. Finally I caught him at the Coral Club. Rome is one of those tall, swarthy young men with feline grace, a sunlamp tan, a small black mustache and startling white teeth. He has made a very good thing out of close-to-the-line practices, sucking up to the politicos, and playing the social game.

He answered the phone with liquid charm, and then shifted to bored irritability when he found out who he was talking to. “All right, all right. You don’t have to draw pictures,” he said. “Any trouble and I’ll cover you. You’re working for me while you make the collection.”

“Don’t forget to put all this on the bill,” I said.

He hung up.

Five nineteen Fonda was in the middle of a row of buildings facing the freight yards. They seemed to lean against each other for support. A cheap restaurant, with white tile across the front, looked like a clean bandage on a dirty wound.

The way up was locked, but the wood was rotten and a little steady pressure tore the lock free. I went quietly up the stairs, crouched and listened at the door. A thread of light came from under it, and I heard a woman’s drunken giggle. I backed up three steps, then hit the door with my shoulder. It crashed open and Skippy Jorio, in the act of pouring a drink, whirled, dropping the glass. A plump girl in a rather dull state of undress sat on a couch. She didn’t stop giggling; her eyes were shut.

Skippy threw the bottle at my head, and came in fast. I sidestepped the bottle, yanked my gun free and slammed him in the side of the head as he reached me. Then I had to sidestep him; he tried to knock the side off the building with his skull.

Fatty still giggled insanely, but her eyes were open. I found some loose bills in Skippy’s side pocket, and among them was a fifty and two twenties. Fatty stopped giggling when she saw the cash.

I took all he had and, as he started to moan, I went down the stairs fast, walked quickly to the car and drove away. Object lesson. The news would get around fast enough, thereby discouraging the next citizen who tried to hang onto the funds.

Johnny Naga took his seventy-one with beaming thanks and I tucked the collection fee into my wallet.

An hour later I was full of steak, and streached out on my bed in my room at the Murrisberg House, but sleep wouldn’t come. Somewhere on the road Brock Sentano was headed back toward Murrisberg. Anna Garron was probably back in her room at Sentano’s place, the blank tickets carefully hidden away. And somewhere, some monied citizen was licking his chops in anticipation of the riches to come.

The plan was rolling, and it couldn’t be stopped. There was trouble ahead, but it would be trouble for somebody else — I hoped. I remembered the look on Quinn’s face as he stood with his big hands on my car door. Contempt and pity. I’d show Quinn. I’d show them all. I began to think of myself as the biggest man in Murrisberg.