The Fatal Frails

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Johnny Killain stepped briskly from the narrow service elevator into the after-midnight half-darkness of the Hotel Duarte's main lobby. He took in the lean, slope-shouldered man in the Burberry topcoat standing by the registration desk and nipping through a stack of mail Vic Barnes, the night front-desk man, had handed him. Then, from his bell-captain's desk between the passenger elevators, Johnny glanced out through the foyer's glass doors to the chill rain drenching Forty-fifth Street. A cab was pulled in to the curb, and Paul Sassella was jockeying airplane luggage from its trunk. Johnny was barely in time to hold the door as the stocky Swiss entered the lobby loaded down with bags. Paul was Johnny's right-hand man on the night shift.

The man in the expensive topcoat turned around as he heard Paul set the bags down behind him. “Supposed to be summer when I got back here,” he said accusingly. His harsh voice echoed in the hushed lobby.

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