Sally's in the Alley by Norbert Davis (best color ereader .txt) 📕

waving the yellow envelope crumpled in one hand. “But I can’t tell you what it says! But I didn’t want to! I mean—Oh, Mr. Doan!”

“Pit it out in papa’s hand,” Doan advised. “What’s the matter?”

Harriet pointed an accusing finger at Carstairs. “It’s all his fault— the nasty, dirty thing!”

“What did he do this time?” Doan asked.

“Well, we were in that restaurant, and that theatrical person and her manager—ha! manager, indeed!—insisted enjoining Mr. Blue and myself in spite of the fact that it was very obvious we didn’t want her to and making sarcastic remarks when I was explaining the Air Force to Mr. Blue, and then he”—her finger stabbed at Carstairs again—“kept walking back and forth under the table and tipping over Mr. Blue’s beer and snorting and making nasty sounds!”

“Shame, shame,” Doan said to Carstairs.

Carstairs burped at him.

“There!” Harriet cried. “Just like that! Right under the table! And that theatrical person said it was because he wanted to go for a walk! Only she didn’t say walk, and she’s just nothing but vulgar!”

“Yes,” Doan said dreamily. “I mean, isn’t she, though? Was there anything else?”

Harriet gasped suddenly. “Oh, yes! I mean, I’m so excited—this telegram… I mean, I got so angry that I just took this awful animal right out of the restaurant and to the hotel, and I was going to lock him in your room! And when I opened the door I saw a duh-duh-duh—”

“Duck?” Doan hazarded.

“No! A dead man!”

Doan groaned. “Oh, no! Not another!”

Harriet gaped at him. “What?”

“A slip of the tongue,” Doan said quickly. “This is terrible. Are you sure he was dead?”

“I certainly am! I’ll have you know that I graduated at the top of my—”

“Red Cross class in first aid,” Doan finished. “Yes, yes. I know. Did you recognize deceased?”

“I think he’s that awful little man who sold blondes and brunettes.”

“Oh,” said Doan in a sick voice. “Just hold still for a minute.” He put the palms of his hands against his ears and listened to his brain grind like a rusty cogwheel running around in a rain barrel. He looked up. “All right. Listen closely. Does the name Captain Meredith mean anything to you?”

Harriet opened her mouth and shut it again.

Doan nodded, tapped himself on the chest. “I’m Secret Agent Z-15.”

“You!” Harriet said breathlessly.

“In person,” Doan agreed. “I had you contacted through headquarters so there wouldn’t be any doubt in your mind.” He lowered his voice a few dramatic notches. “Are you ready to do, and perhaps die, in the service of your country?”

Harriet stood up straight. “I am.”

“Good,” said Doan. “Maybe we can arrange it. In the meantime go and sit in the Cadillac. Wait there for me. Take Carstairs with you.” He jerked his thumb at Carstairs. “Scram, stupid.”

Carstairs eyed him, unmoving.

Doan took a step toward him. “Get!”

Carstairs went, looking back over his shoulder with his upper lip lifted malignantly.

Doan took a deep breath and trudged back up the street and into the lobby of the Double-Eagle.

“Well, good evening!” said Gerald.

Doan didn’t bother to answer. He went wearily up the stairs and down the hall. Harriet had used a passkey, and had left it in the lock of the door. Doan opened it, took another deep breath, and looked inside.

The light was on, and Free-Look Jones was laid out neatly on the bed. His hands were folded across his chest, his feet pointed precisely at the ceiling, and he had a knife with a green handle stuck in the side of his throat.

Doan went over and looked at him. He hadn’t been mussed up at all. He hadn’t even bled on his dapper brown suit or even on the bedspread. His eyes were closed. Doan put his thumb on one of the lids and pushed it open. The pupil of the eye was dilated enormously. Someone had been kind enough to give Free-Look Jones a big slug of morphine before they had operated on him.

Doan went back to the door, looked up and down the hall and listened carefully. After a moment, he took the passkey out of the lock and stepped across the hall to the door opposite and knocked.

The door jerked open, and a red, sullen face peered out at him.

“Well, what?”

“I’m offering a short correspondence course in authorized classics of English Literature—”

“Go away!” the red face snarled. “Shud-up!”

The door slammed emphatically. Doan went to the next one and rapped again. A feminine voice called coyly, “I’m busy right now, dearie.”

Doan went on to the next door and tried again. No one answered this time. He rapped again, more loudly. Still he got no results. He tried the passkey in the lock, and it opened at once. He pushed the door open, reached around and flipped the switch.

The room was empty, and the bed was made up. There were no clothes or other odds and ends to indicate that the room had an immediate occupant. Doan went back to his own room and picked up Free-Look Jones as carefully as a mother cradling a baby.

Free-Look Jones wasn’t very heavy, and he didn’t make any trouble at all as Doan carried him across the hall and deposited him on the bed in the empty room. With his thumb and forefinger, Doan took hold of the green knife handle and pulled the blade free. The skin on Free-Look Jones’ neck puckered slightly and then loosened and a few dark drops of blood trickled down on his shirt collar.

The knife looked remarkably like the one that Doan had left appended to Tonto Charlie, and for all he knew it might really be the same one. He was taking no chances. He closed the thin, slanting blade and put the knife in his pocket.

“Nighty-night,” he said to Free-Look Jones.

He went out and locked the door. He made another trip into his own room and retrieved the .25 automatic from under the mattress and picked up his suitcases. Carrying them, he went downstairs to the lobby.

“Oh, my,” said Gerald. “You’re not leaving us so soon?”

“Urgent business,” said Doan.

“Well, I hardly feel that we can charge you the full rate for the use of the room for such a short time. Would two dollars be too much?”

“Yes,” said Doan. “But here it is. Where’s Joshua?”

“Do you want him to carry your bags? I’ll call him.”

“No. I just forgot to tip him. Where is he?”

“You’ll find him in the broom closet at the end of the back hall.”

Doan went through the rear door and down a long bare hall. The door at the end of it was ajar, and one of Joshua’s feet protruded out of it in a casual fashion.

Doan opened the door wider. Joshua was sitting on the floor, leaning back languorously on a varied assortment of mops that served him for a pillow. He opened his eyes and blinked at Doan without seeing him at all.

“Hi, Joshua,” Doan said. “Lend me your pencil, will you? I want to sharpen my knife.”

“Sure,” said Joshua. He fumbled around in the pockets of his jacket and came up with a stub of pencil.

Doan made a few passes at it with the green handled knife, and then put the pencil in his own pocket and handed the knife to Joshua.

“Thanks,” he said.

Joshua put the knife in his pocket. “Think nothing of it, pal. Want a drink of root beer?”

“No,” said Doan. “You take one. In fact, maybe you’d better take two.”

He went back to the lobby and picked up his suitcases.

“By the way,” he said to Gerald, “that Joshua is rather a strange character, isn’t he?”

“Quite,” said Gerald.

“Do you ever have any—ah—trouble with him?”

“Oh, no.”

“I’m a psychologist,” Doan said. “I detect certain traits of homicidal nature there. I’d remember that if I were you, if anything should— happen.”

Gerald smiled soothingly. “Oh, nothing will happen here.”

“That’s what you think,” said Doan, going out the door.

He lugged the suitcases over to the Cadillac. Harriet was standing beside it, biting her lower lip and making little jerky, angry motions with her clenched fists.

“Now he won’t even let me in! He just growls at me!”

Doan opened both a rear and front door. “In front,” he said to Carstairs. “And no acts if you don’t want a pop in the puss. I’m a busy man at this point.”

Carstairs took his time about crawling out of the back seat and into the front. He sat on the floor, with his nose pushed against the windshield and glowered sullenly.

“Can you drive this?” Doan asked Harriet.

“With him in there?”

“He won’t bother you. He’s sulking now.”

“Well, why?”

“He has to associate with me because I own him,” Doan explained. “But he picks his own friends.”

“But I don’t want to sit close to him!”

“Are you refusing an order from your superior officer?” Doan demanded severely.

“Well, no.”

“Drive,” said Doan.

Harriet gulped bravely. “Well, where?”

“To Hollywood. Wake me up when we get there if I don’t die in my sleep, I hope.”