Johnny looked at his friend in astonishment, then he stepped back to the window and peered across the air shaft again. “I don’t see the girl.”
Sam groaned. “Johnny, never mind what’s going on over there; think of us — me. I need pants and I need ’em bad. By twelve o’clock.”
Johnny’s eyes still searched the room across the air shaft. “There’s no hurry. We’re not moving at twelve o’clock.”
“Why not? We got Peabody’s third and positively final ultimatum, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but I just paid ten dollars on account. We’re good until...” Then Johnny caught himself. But it was too late. Sam came around the beds and caught Johnny’s arm.
“Where’d you get the ten bucks?”
Johnny pulled his arm free of Sam’s savage grip. “Why do you suppose I got up so early this morning? I went out and raised the money. Twelve dollars. I gave the hotel ten and—”
“You pawned my suit!” Sam howled. “You hocked the clothes off my back.”
Johnny swallowed hard. “Take it easy, Sam. It’s only for a couple of hours. I’m going down to Mort Murray’s this afternoon and put the bite on him.”
“Why didn’t you see Mort this morning?”
“I tried. He wasn’t at his place—”
“At eight in the morning? Of course not.”
“That’s what I said... You know Peabody; he hates my guts. On the stroke of twelve he’d lock us out. That’s why I thought I’d be on the safe side...”
“But we couldda gone out and sold some books before twelve.”
“If we had any books, which we haven’t.”
Sam staggered back to the bed and sat down heavily. A sob shook his massive torso. “Johnny, we’ve been through thick and thin together. But stealin’ my clothes is the last straw...”
“I didn’t steal them.”
“It’s the same as stealin’. Why didn’t you sell your clothes?”
“How could I? I couldn’t walk the streets without any clothes on, could I?”
“Can I?”
“You don’t have to. You can stay in here until I get your outfit back.”
“But what if you don’t get it back?”
“Have I ever let you down, Sam?”
“Yes!” cried Sam. “You’ve let me down a hundred times.”
“So it’s come to this.” Johnny sighed wearily. “All right, I’ll get you back your suit this afternoon and then we’re through — finished.”
Sam gasped. “What? What’d you say, Johnny?”
“I said we were through. You can go your way and I’ll go mine.”
Sam sprang to his feet. “Johnny, don’t talk like that. For Pete’s sake...” He grabbed Johnny’s wrist and looked sharply into Johnny’s face. “For a minute I thought you were serious.” He tried a weak grin. “I never know when you’re kiddin’.”
“I’m not kidding.”
Sam let go of Johnny’s wrist and slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I take it back, Johnny. I apologize. Give me a swift kick, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“It wouldn’t,” Johnny shook his head sadly. “You hurt my feelings.”
“Jeez, Johnny!”
The door resounded to the rapping of knuckles. Johnny leaped away from the window. “Get in bed, Sam,” he whispered tautly, “and here, put this under the covers with you...” He handed Sam the metal disk and started toward door.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Fletcher,” called back the voice of Mr. Peabody, the manager of the Forty-fifth Street Hotel, “I’d like a word with you.”
Johnny turned, saw that Sam was scrambling into bed, then went to the door. He pulled it open. There was somebody with Mr. Peabody, a big, truculent-looking man of about forty.
Johnny handed Mr. Peabody a little slip of paper. “Sorry, old boy.”
Peabody looked at the slip. “I just checked with the desk. All right, you’re good for another week. But that’s not why I’m here...” He stepped around Johnny and saw Sam in the bed.
“Hi!” Sam said.
Mr. Peabody nodded curtly, disapprovingly, then turned back to Johnny. “Mr. Fletcher, this is Lieutenant Rook of the Police Department...”
“Crook?”
The lieutenant smiled without humor. “Rook.”
“Rook as in rook?”
Rook’s smile faded. “A wise guy!”
He came fairly into the room and surveyed Sam, sitting up in bed. “A rough night?”
“I ain’t feelin’ so good,” Sam retorted, “so I thought I’d sleep late this morning.”
“You sleep with your shirt and necktie on?”
“Any law against it?”
“For all of me,” shrugged Rook, “you can sleep with your shoes on.”
Sam brought his feet out from under the covers. “Well, I got them on, too.”
He’d forgotten about Mr. Peabody being present. The hotel manager stormed forward. “Mr. Cragg — our sheets!”
“He wanted to feel at home,” Johnny said, “he sleeps with his shoes on at home...”
“There’ll be an extra charge for those sheets...”
Sam sprang to his feet. “Oh yeah?”
Lieutenant Rook suddenly chopped the air with his right hand. “Just a minute, I’m here investigating a homicide—”
Johnny recoiled. “Not that good-looking blonde!” His eyes went to the window. “Over there?”
“You knew her?”
Johnny shook his head. “Only from seeing her through the window. And I saw her in the lobby once...”
“She never even spoke to you!” cried Peabody.
Rook gave the hotel manager a dirty look. “Please — I’ll do the talking.”
“Go ahead,” invited Johnny. He exhaled heavily. “That’s a real jolt.”
“Why?” snapped Rook.
“Are you kidding? A girl who looked like that... The only reason I didn’t make her acquaintance was, well...” He cleared his throat and looked at Peabody. “I’ve been a bit short of...”
“Money!” snapped Peabody.
Johnny smiled. “You took the word out of my mouth.”
Lieutenant Rook stabbed a stubby forefinger at Johnny. “All right, we’ve wasted enough time. Let’s get down to cases.”
“Shoot!” Then Johnny coughed. “I guess I shouldn’t have used that word.”
“Why not?”
Johnny nodded to the window.
“She wasn’t shot,” Rook snapped. The lieutenant took a huge object from his pocket, which on closer examination turned out to be a watch. “It’s nine-thirty-five,” he said. “Where were you between seven-thirty and nine o’clock this morning?”
“At seven-thirty,” Johnny said, “I was standing outside Uncle Ben’s Loan Shop on Eighth Avenue...”
“What for?”
“I was waiting for the place to open.” Johnny smiled at Mr. Peabody and took a pawn ticket from his pocket and held it up. “See...?”
“It didn’t take you from seven-thirty to nine-thirty to pawn whatever you pawned,” Rook snapped.
“Right. But the shop didn’t open until eight-thirty. I was the first customer in the store and I was in there for about fifteen minutes...”
“Why should it take fifteen minutes to pawn something?”
“Because there was a difference of opinion. Uncle Ben had one idea of the value of the, ah, merchandise and I had another. It took fifteen minutes to reconcile our viewpoints — reach a meeting point, so to speak.”
Lieutenant Rook glowered. “All right, that’s eight-forty-five. It didn’t take you over five or ten minutes to come back to the hotel...”
“I stopped off at the Automat on Broadway and had some corned beef hash... They have the best corned beef hash in town at the Automat...”
“All right, what time did you reach the hotel?” Rook snarled.
“About nine-twenty. You can check that because I stopped at the desk downstairs to pay my bill...”