1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead (15 page)

T
he bellhop was lean and grey-faced and about thirty-three, and his uniform was too tight for him. He took us up the stairs and along a dim corridor. He had a kind of dancing walk, and his behind stuck out either because his trousers were so tight or because that was the way he was made. I couldn’t make up my mind about this; not that it mattered.

The rattled a key in the lock, opened the door and sneered at the room beyond. Kerman and I sneered at it too. There were two beds, a bamboo table, an armchair that looked as if an elephant had once sat in it, a carpet that once had some pile, but had long since lost its self-respect. In places it showed its canvas backing: by the bed, by the window and by the armchair; the three places where people used their feet the most. Over one of the beds there was a coloured print of a pretty girl on a ladder. There was a dog at the foot of the ladder and it was looking up at the girl and it had a leer in its eyes. The girl was pretending to look embarrassed, but she wasn’t making much of a job of it. Over the other bed there was another print of the same girl. This time she was standing on a chair, holding her dress up round her neck, and it was a mouse and not a dog that was leering at her.

‘Shower cabinet in there,’ the bellhop said, jerking his thumb. He crossed to the window, pulled down the blind and let it snap up with a bang. ‘Everything works if you handle it right,’ he said. ‘Careful how you use the shower. The system’s a mite old, and it’s got to be handled right.’

He ran his rat’s eyes along the ceiling, down the wall on to our feet and up to our faces.

‘Got all you want?’ he went on, hopefully expectant.

‘What else have you got?’ Kerman asked, edging his way into the room.

‘Liquor or women or dope,’ the bellhop said, eyeing us speculatively. ‘So long as you can pay for it I can fix it. I know a blonde who can be over here in three minutes.’

We settled for liquor.

When he had gone, Kerman said, ‘Do we have to get fixed up in a joint like this? Couldn’t our expense sheet run to something a little less murky?’

I went over to the window and beckoned. When he joined me I pointed to a building across the street, exactly opposite the hotel. The first floors were dingy-looking dwelling apartments. The ground floor was a photographer’s shop. The word LOUIS was spelt out across the facia in black letters against a yellow background.

‘See that,’ I said. ‘That’s where Ed started his investigation. Wait a minute. Let me show you.’ I opened my suitcase, produced from the bottom of it the photograph of Anita Cerf I had found in Barclay’s bedroom. ‘You haven’t caught up with this yet,’ I said, and told him how I had got it. ‘The first thing Ed said he would do when he got here was to check on the photo. I had a copy made for him before he caught the plane.’ I turned the photograph over and showed Kerman the rubber-stamped name and address on the back. ‘That’s why we’re here.’ I jerked my head to the shop across the way. ‘That’s it.’

‘Not much of a joint,’ Kerman said, studying it.

I put the photograph back in the suitcase and sat on the bed. My head was aching badly now, and I wanted a drink. I hoped the bellhop wouldn’t take all night.

D.D.C. Dunnigan had asked a lot of questions, but our story was that Ed had come up here for a weekend of sight-seeing and we had no idea why he should have landed up in Indian Basin, and we stuck to it.

I felt sorry for Dunnigan. He obviously wanted to find the killer. But we couldn’t help him without giving Cerf away, so we had to sit around in the yellow-walled room and lie ourselves black in the face. He told us he was checking all the hotels, and that worried me. Sooner or later he would find out Ed stayed in this joint, and that might lead him to the photographer’s shop across the way. It might, but I doubted it, although some coppers get a break, and he might be one of them.

‘What are we going to do?’ Kerman asked. He lowered himself carefully into the armchair. It held him, but only just.

‘There’s nothing we can do tonight,’ I said. ‘The shops shut; everything’s shut, but first thing tomorrow we’ll get going. We have no more to work on than Ed had. Somewhere along the line he stepped out of turn and tipped his hand. That’s something we have to watch. The quickest way to work this, Jack, is for me to go to work exactly the way Ed did, and for you to lurk in the background. Tomorrow morning I’ll go over to that shop and show this guy Louis the photo. I don’t know what will happen, but you can bet something will happen. Your job is to stick to me like glue without being seen. If I run into trouble, you’ll be on the spot to get me out of it. I’m going straight ahead as if Ed had never been here. Maybe I’ll end up in the Basin too, only this time you’ll be around to fish me out. Do you get it?’

Kerman stroked his dapper moustache and said he did.

He said, ‘I’d just as soon do the job and you did the body-guard business, but if that’s the way you want to play it, okay.’

A tap sounded on the door at this moment, and the bellhop slid into the room. He brought with him two bottles of whisky, some ginger-ale and glasses. These he set down on the bamboo table.

Kerman looked the assignment over and asked, ‘What’s the third glass for?’

The bellhop leered at him.

‘You might bust one or you might want to give a guy a drink. A third glass is always useful, mister. The drinks I’ve missed because there ain’t been a third glass.’

‘We’ll all have a drink,’ I said. ‘Make them big ones, Jack.’”

I said to the bellhop, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Carter,’ he told me, and fetched out a crumpled cigarette from inside his pillbox hat, wrapped his lips around it and set fire to it.

‘Been here long?’ I asked, leaning back on my elbows and looking beyond him at the girl on the ladder. I wondered what the dog could see that I couldn’t that made him leer.

‘Ten years,’ the bellhop said. ‘When I first came the joint wasn’t bad. But the war knocked it. The war knocked everything.’

Kerman gave him a drink you could have floated a duck on. He sniffed at it, poured a little of it into his mouth, and rinsed his teeth with it.

‘See what I mean about the third glass?’ he said when he finally got it down.

I shook four aspirins into my hand, washed them down with whisky. He watched me without interest.

‘How would you like to earn a little money?’ I asked.

‘Doing what?’

‘Exercising your memory?’

He took another pull at his glass, went through his rinsing movements and swallowed.

‘What’s my memory got to do with it?’

I took out my wallet, produced a photograph of Ed Benny and handed it to him.

‘Ever seen this guy?’

He didn’t take the photograph, but leaned forward and peered at it. The seams of his trousers creaked but held.

Then he straightened, poured the rest of the whisky down his throat, put the glass on the bamboo table and slid to the door.

‘All right, guys,’ he said, his hand on the doorknob. ‘It was a beautiful act while it lasted, and you certainly fooled me. Coppers buying a guy a drink! Ain’t that something? For crying out loud! Who would believe it? But you don’t get anything from me. I don’t talk to coppers.’

Kerman hauled himself out of his chair, grabbed the bellhop by the scruff of the neck and sat him on the bed by my side.

‘Do we look like coppers?’ he demanded furiously. ‘I’ve a mind to shove that ugly snout of yours through the back of your neck!’

‘Well ain’t you coppers?’

I took a twenty-dollar bill out of my wallet and laid it on the bed between us.

‘Do we act like coppers?’

He eyed the bill avidly.

‘Can’t say you do,’ he said, and licked his lips. ‘They were here this afternoon asking questions. He’s dead, isn’t he? They showed me a photo of him: a morgue photo.’

‘So he did stay here?’

His hand strayed towards the bill.

‘Yeah, he stayed here all right. The manager didn’t want the cops tramping over the joint. He told them he didn’t know the guy.’

I picked up the bill and gave it to him.

‘Give him another drink,’ I said to Kerman. ‘Can’t you see he’s thirsty?’

‘You’ll keep this to yourselves?’ the bellhop said, a little anxiously. ‘I wouldn’t like to get the sack.’

‘You surprise me,’ Kerman said. ‘By the way you talk I should have thought it was the one thing you prayed for.’ He thrust another man’s-sized drink into the bellhop’s hand.

‘Look,’ I said, as he started to go through his rinsing movements again, ‘this guy was a friend of ours. Someone sapped him and threw him into the Basin. We’re trying to find out why. Have you any ideas?’

The bellhop shook his head.

‘I guess not. He booked in at five o’clock yesterday afternoon. He took the room next to this one. He went out almost immediately after, and that’s the last we saw of him.’

‘Did he leave a bag?’

The bellhop’s eyes shifted.

‘Yeah, but the manager’s got that. He’s entitled to it. The guy didn’t pay for his room.’

‘Go and get it,’ I said.

The bellhop stared at me.

‘I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘If the managers saw me with it…’

‘Go and get it or I’ll talk to the manager myself.’

‘You mean - now?’

‘Yes; now.’

He put the half-finished whisky down on the overmantel and after giving me a long, thoughtful stare, eased himself towards the door.

‘Do I make anything out of it? Or does that twenty cover it?’

‘You make another ten.’

When he had gone Kerman said, ‘That was a lucky break. How did you guess Ed came here?’

‘Why did we come here? Give me another drink. Talking to that rat makes my headache.’

While he was fixing me a drink, I opened the suitcase again and took out Anita’s photograph. I put it face down on the bed.

Kerman said, ‘Do you think he’ll know her?’

‘It’s worth trying. He’s been here ten years.’

The pain in my head was a little better, but still not right.

I washed down two more aspirins.

‘You’re taking too much of that stuff,’ Kerman said, frowning. ‘And you’d better lay off whisky. You should have seen a doctor.’

The bellhop came in with the suitcase and put it on the bed.

‘I’ve gotta take it back,’ he said, a worried look on his rat face. ‘I don’t want to get into trouble.’

I went through the suitcase. I didn’t expect to find anything and I wasn’t disappointed. It was just an ordinary suitcase a guy would pack who is going away for the weekend.

The only thing in it that was missing was Anita’s photograph. I put the things back, closed the case and shoved it on to the floor.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Take it back.’ I took a ten-dollar bill out of my wallet and dropped it on the bed. ‘Take that too, and keep your mouth shut. Okay?’

He picked up the note and the bag.

‘Is that all I can do for you?’ he asked, suddenly reluctant to leave us.

I turned Anita’s photograph over and flicked it towards him.

‘Ever seen this dame before?’

He put the bill in his pocket, set the bag on the floor and picked up the photograph. He held it at arm’s length, squinting at it.

‘Looks like Anita Gay to me,’ he said, and shot me an inquiring look. ‘It’s her, ain’t it? Jeepers! The times I’ve seen her. Sure, it’s Anita Gay.’

Don’t act coy,’ I said. ‘Who’s Anita Gay? What does she do? Where can I find her?’

‘I don’t know where you’ll find her,’ he said regretfully, and laid the photograph on the bed. ‘I haven’t seen her for months. She used to do a turn at the Brass Rail. And, boy, was she a sensation! That fur glove routine of hers certainly packed them in.’

‘What’s the Brass Rail?’

‘You don’t know the Brass Rail?’ He looked astonished.

‘Why, it’s a big beer-dill-pickle hippodrome on Bayshore Boulevard. It hasn’t had my custom since Anita quit. She wouldn’t be coming back, would she?’

I thought of the face framed in blood with the hole in the forehead big enough to poke my finger in.

‘No,’ I said. ‘She won’t be coming back.’