Sallys in the Alley

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Sally's In the Alley
Norbert Davis
1943
Chapter 1
THIS WILL PROBABLY STRIKE YOU AS HIGHLY improbable if you know your Hollywood, but the lobby of the Orna Apartment Hotel, off Rossmore south of Melrose, is done in very nice taste. It is neat and narrow and dignified, with a conservative blue carpet on the floor and a small black reception desk on a line straight back from the unadorned plate glass door.
At this particular moment its only occupant was the desk clerk. He was small and very young-looking, and he had dark curly hair and a snub nose with freckles across the bridge. His blue eyes were staring with a look of fierce, crosshatched concentration at the pictured diagram of a radio hookup he had spread out on the desk.
The plate glass door opened, and a man came into the lobby with a quietly purposeful air. He was blond and a little better than medium height, and he was wearing an inconspicuous blue business suit. He looked so much like an attorney or an accountant or the better class of insurance broker that it was perfectly obvious what he really was.
He walked up to the desk and said, "Have you a party by the name of Pocus staying here?"
The desk clerk was following the whirligig line that indicated a coil on his diagram with the point of a well-chewed pencil. The pencil point hesitated for a split second and then moved on again.
"No," he said. He didn't have to bother about being courteous because he intended to quit the apartment hotel any minute now and get a job at a fabulous salary in a war plant installing radios in fighter planes.
The blond man took a leather folder from his pocket, opened it, and spread it out on the radio diagram. "Take a look at this."
The clerk studied the big gold badge for a second and then looked up slowly. "You're a G-man."
The blond man winced slightly. "I'm a special agent of the Department of Justice. Let's start over again. What's your name?"
"Edmund."
"All right, Edmund. Have you got a party by the name of Pocus staying here? H. Pocus or Hocus Pocus?"
"No," said Edmund. He cleared his throat. "Will you excuse me for a second? I've got to call and wake up one of our tenants. He works on the swing shift, and he has to get waked up and eat before--"
The blond man punched him suddenly and expertly in the chest with a stiffened forefinger. "Get away from the switchboard. You're not tipping anybody off." He whistled shrilly through his teeth.
Another man came in the front door. He was short and stocky, and he had sleepy brown eyes and a scar on his nose. A third man came in from the hall that led to the back door. He was very tall and thin, stooped a little. He wore a light topcoat, and he kept his hands in its pockets.
"They're here," said the blond man. "Come on, Edmund. Give. Which apartment are they in?"
Edmund stood mute.
The blond man watched him curiously. "Are you scared of them?"
"Yes," said Edmund.
"Listen, son," said the blond man. "This is the government you're talking to now. If either one of them even made a pass at you, we'd put them away in Alcatraz."
"How do I know they'd stay there?" Edmund asked.
"All right," said the blond man. "Come on out from behind that desk. Sit down in that chair and rest your feet. Look up the tenant index, Curtis."
The stocky man went behind the desk, found the file of register cards, and ran through them expertly.
"In two-two-nine," he said. He looked under the desk. "Here's the pass key." He flipped it to the blond man.
"Okay," said the blond man. "Stay here and watch the board, Curtis. If anybody comes down the elevator, they wait in the lobby. If anyone comes in the front, they wait, too."
"Sure," said Curtis.
"You come with me, Barstow," the blond man said. "We'll take the stairs. Go easy."
They went up to the second floor and along a hall that was carpeted in the same dark blue as the lobby, and stopped in front of the door numbered 229. The blond man fitted the passkey in the lock and turned it without making the slightest sound. He opened the door just as silently.
It was a single apartment, and the big combination living room-bedroom was bright and cheery with the sun coming in a warm, slatted flood through the Venetian blinds. There was no one in sight, but a door to the left was slightly open and through it came the pleasantly languid gurgle and splash of bathwater.
The blond man and his tall companion came into the apartment and shut the front door. The blond man nodded meaningly and then, with the tall man close behind him,