watched me with that sparkling friendliness, her dark eyes softer than before, with that unfathomable mystery at the back of them. A man could get lost in them, I thought, but that wasn’t for me. Not yet. There were other, more important things to be taking care of.
Otherwise, Johnny Merak would find himself up to the neck in a murder rap and other things beside.
I took off my coat and shirt, pulled off my shoes, and took the soft blanket she handed to me before lying on the couch. While she was in the other room, I slipped the .38 from my pocket and pushed it beneath the pillow. No point in taking any chances. The heavy German automatic I’d taken from the hoodlum I unloaded and left in my pocket.
“You all right, Johnny?” Her voice reached me through the open doorway.
“Sure. I’m fine.”
“Good night, Johnny.”
There was a strange loneliness in her voice. I closed my eyes and there came the soft click of a door closing somewhere at the back of my consciousness.
It was the morning when I opened my eyes again. A grey light was spreading out of the east, lighting the objects in the room with a kind of halo. I got up, quietly, wondering where Dawn was. She came in a minute later with coffee.
“I thought you’d be up early,” she said, placing it on the small table in the centre of the room.
The meal was one of silences, soon over. All the way through it she looked at me patiently, as if wondering why I did the things I did. Finally, she asked the question that had obviously been bothering her and it was a tough one.
“Would you really have killed that man last night, if you’d had the chance, Johnny?”
I thought a minute, and then decided not to lie to her. Time enough for that when I had to. “Yes,” I said. “I’d have killed him. He deserves everything he got. If there was anything dirty to be done, Maxie Temple was in it up to the neck, close to the dirt.”
“You must have known him well in the old days to have hated him so much.” There was no accusation in her voice.
“Sure. I knew him. Now that he’s dead, I’ll have to kill the others. It can’t be done any other way.”
“But why, Johnny? You want to go through life with a dozen murder charges hanging over your head—running from the police, waiting for the other mobsters to catch up with you in some stupid, senseless vendetta?”
“I guess it’ll have to be that way. Ever seen a rat when he’s cornered? Well, take a good look at one now, while you’ve got the chance.”
“I don’t understand, Johnny.”
“I thought I’d finished with dirty deals, Dawn. I thought maybe I could get out and turn into something decent and respectable. But I can’t. These men like Clancy Snow and Dutch McKnight, they’re rotten to the core.”
A low voice saying big things, but the brain knowing full well that I lacked the courage or the ability to carry them out.
“But why do you have to take all the risks, get yourself beaten up and shot up?”
“I’m the only one who can do it, don’t you see? There’s blood on my shadow already. Maxie’s blood. They’ve got me framed so tight I can’t wriggle out. Maxie’s gone, but I’m still around. They won’t leave it to the cops to pick me up, that would be too uncertain. They’ll come looking for me themselves. Now I have to get out of here. Maybe you don’t know how they treat women. I do.”
“They don’t scare me.” Her face was uplifted towards mine, her eyes shining as they had the night before.
“No, I guess you don’t scare so easily,” I said. There was a quick, deep look. She came to me quietly, put her arms around me, lifting her mouth to mine. That was when I really found her, and it was like nothing I had ever known before.
“Do you realise how powerful these people really are I’m trying to fight?” I asked. “Do you know that they’d cut your pretty face into little ribbons and laugh while they were doing it?”
“It’s odd,” she said quietly. “You seem to be more concerned about me than I am myself.” She smiled. “I know them. I’ve met their type before and they don’t frighten me.” Her mouth twisted in contempt.
“Don’t underestimate them, Dawn. Never do that.” I was deadly serious.
Dawn looked at me, her eyes deep and black, her lips half-open. Her face was without expression.
“What do you intend to do?”
“There’s only one way of meeting trouble,” I said, “and that’s halfway. No sense in running away from it. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since Maxie left. The first thing I’ve got to do is get a lead of some kind. There must have been somebody who saw what happened last night.”
“Do you think they’ll talk? Especially to you.”
“I’ll find some way of making them,” I said seriously, and meant it. Time was running out for me.
“Take my car, if you like,” said Dawn, placing her hand on my arm. “But watch yourself.” She went over to the window overlooking the street, pulled back the curtain gently and peered out.
“Anybody there?” I asked pointedly.
She shook her head. “The street looks deserted. Nobody in sight.”
I drank another cup of coffee, found a half-full bottle of whiskey in the small kitchen, and had that best of all morning drinks.
The little thoughts in my mind had a final chance to scamper around my brain as I made my way down the garden path and slid myself behind the wheel of Dawn’s car. Usually, girls like Dawn Grahame don’t act this way towards strangers, particularly a man with a record like mine. There was something more behind it. Something I meant to find out as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
CHAPTER THREE
THE BLIND ALLEY
I turned the ignition key, pushed the starter. The car was warm-hearted and started up immediately with a sudden whir of power. She slid forward easily, and the last glimpse of Dawn I had was a slight figure out the window waving her hand a little uncertainly. Then I turned the car into the street and headed downtown.
Ahead of me there was nothing but trouble, and behind me nothing but a lifetime of bitterness and regrets. A hell of a way to start the day.
The flashy bars in the east end of town would be open even at this early hour, and many of them well patronised. Perhaps there I might be able to pick up some shred of information, which would give me the lead I needed so desperately.
Frenchie’s was open and busy as I drew up alongside the kerb. I threw a swift glance up and down the street before climbing out of the car. A few characters were lounging at the corner of an intersection twenty yards away, but they were the usual touts looking for handouts.
The barman looked at me as I went inside, didn’t recognise me as one of the regulars, and nodded in a friendly
