A Key to the Suite (19 page)

Brewhane nodded. “But the woman is local. That could be something else again, couldn’t it?”

Amory spoke slowly, selecting his wording with extreme care. “I took the liberty of helping Lieutenant Farrier check her out, Captain. She was working on a freelance magazine assignment. She was a divorcée, living alone.”

“Next of kin?”

“I took the liberty of making a phone call, with Lt. Farrier’s permission. I called a woman I had reason to believe might know her. A Mrs. Alma Bender.”

The Captain’s eyes widened. “Well, well, well,” he said softly.

“Mrs. Bender says that as far as she knows there’s no next of kin close enough to have any particular interest in the Barlund woman, dead or alive. Mrs. Bender says that the Barlund woman was only a casual acquaintance, but that she would be willing to … take over the arrangements for burial and so forth,
provided
it’s just a routine case of accidental death. Because she was
only an acquaintance, Mrs. Bender doesn’t feel that she should get involved in anything which might get too much attention in the papers. She might not even be able to identify the body, if that’s the case. She’s waiting to hear.”

Brewhane looked at Alan Amory with a small gleam of humor. “Because of this relationship with Alma Bender, which you just
happen
to know about, Amory, would you care to make any guess about motive—if we got all carried away?”

Amory swallowed. “I don’t know what to say. It wouldn’t be robbery. Mr. Daniels was a successful man. And it could hardly be a rape murder, could it?”

Detective Farrier said, “The thing is, Bill, nobody is going to push.”

Peter Lipe spoke in a young, petulant voice. “It’s all very neat, isn’t it? You don’t even
want
to find out what actually happened, Captain, do you? Maybe somebody on the newspapers will be a little more anxious to add your two and two and see what …”

“We can go into it very thoroughly, young man,” Captain Brewhane said.

Amory had the horrid feeling that Lipe had spoiled it all. Rice Emper smiled and said, “You seem to be accusing Captain Brewhane of incompetence, Mr. Lipe. There’s a formal procedure you can follow, you know. Before you embark on anything so … so very dangerous, I suggest you take it up with your superior, John Swazey. I have every confidence he will give you sound advice. He is one of my oldest and closest friends.”

“All I meant was …”

“Nobody on any newspaper is going to get eager,” Amory said. “I kid you not. They know it wouldn’t get into print. Big
hotels do too much advertising, Mr. Lipe. We do a hell of a lot more local advertising than makes sense—except in situations like this.”

“In a big hotel like this one,” Sergeant Milton Manning said in a heavy self-conscious voice, “the way I see it, you got two accidental deaths in one night, right? So it’s only natural to try to tie them up in one package, and there’s maybe twenty ways you could try to do it, but where the hell would you be even if it worked? Who gets jailed? Daniels has kids and a wife. Hubbard has got a wife and kids. He’s in the clear because he was sacked up with the blonde broad while whatever was going on was going on, but he would have to be brought into it on account of the key. So you end up with a hell of a lot of fuss and heartbreak over one dead flooze. That’s the way I see it. And, like the Captain said, maybe after all the fireworks, we can’t get any place anyway, after filling up the newspapers all over the country.”

Rick DiLarra cleared his throat and said uncertainly, “I may have made a terrible mistake. I really didn’t know there was any chance of it turning into some kind of an investigation. You see, I’ve had Mr. Hubbard’s things moved to a different room, and I had the woman’s things packed and sent down to the police morgue, and I told the housekeeper on eight to get some maids and clean up 847. I … I suppose they’re done by now.”

Amory managed to keep his sigh from being audible. He knew it was over. He knew by the expression on Captain Brewhane’s face. The Captain stood up and said, “We don’t have to go any further with this. I see no connection between the two accidental deaths. Amory, let’s go make a verbal statement to those reporters out there. Al, you go talk to your friend Frick and the others, tell them they’re free to go and put the fear of
God into them about giving any interviews. Thanks for the drink and the cooperation, gentlemen.”

Hubbard looked up when Al Farrier walked into the office. Farrier was a burly man with small delicate features. He paused just inside the door and relighted a cigar and grinned at them.

“What’s the word, Al?” Fred Frick asked eagerly.

“Everything is all settled down nice. We got an accidental on both of them, and with the report I’ll write, the confirmation is automatic.”

“I gave him the key,” Hubbard said in a hopeless voice.

“So what? So maybe he used it. Maybe he didn’t. The thing is, she borrowed your room to get cleaned up, right? Twenty thousand people a year fall and kill themselves in bathrooms. It isn’t an unusual thing. And it’s all figured out that he couldn’t have landed where he did if he came off the terrace of 847.”

“What?” Hubbard asked. “What was that?”

“You don’t come into it in any way, Mister,” Farrier said.

“But I …”

“Shut up,” the blonde girl said. “Leave it alone. Honest to God, Floyd, for hours and hours you’ve been trying to put your ass in a sling. You want trouble? I sure don’t. I don’t want any part of anything. I want to go home. So kindly keep your fat mouth shut.”

“That’s a smart girl talking,” Fred said. “We all should leave it just the way it is. Right, Jesse?”

“Absolutely,” Jesse Mulaney said.

“Now all of you get one thing squared away,” Farrier said. “And this includes you, Fred. Anybody asks questions about this, you three men have been questioned on account of being
with the same company as Daniels. Beyond that, you know nothing.”

“So what am I doing here?” the girl demanded. “I was with Floyd, that’s all. And I won’t make a mistake like that again in a hurry.” She stood up, gave a hitch to her pink dress and said, “I’m walking right out of here right now.”

“Go ahead, darling,” Farrier said.

She looked at him blankly. “Huh?”

“Goodnight and good luck.”

She hesitated one more moment and then walked out.

When they went out into the larger office, DiLarra was there, waiting for Hubbard. They went together to the main desk. DiLarra apologized for any inconvenience, told him his things had been moved to a new room, and gave him a key to 609, in the south wing.

Floyd Hubbard went to his new room. It was one-fifteen in the morning. His possessions were in good order. He had a headache. His eyes felt sandy, and his mouth tasted vile. He sat on the bed. He felt too dispirited to make the first effort toward undressing and going to bed.

After a long time there was a knock on the door. He let Jesse Mulaney in. Jesse looked big and ancient and dog tired.

“We better go over this some,” Jesse said.

“Sit down.”

Jessie sat in the armchair. Hubbard sat on the bed, facing him. They did not look directly at each other, except in fleeting glances, and never at the same instant.

“I talked to Fred,” Jesse said. “And Cass Beatty and Connie. It won’t look good to keep on being jolly for the two days left. I gave orders to close the suite. We’ll keep the exhibit going, without the twins. Dave was a pretty good boy. It wouldn’t
look right to keep on with it, not this year. We’ll go to New York tomorrow, and I’ll go to the funeral in Chicago.”

“Do you want me to tell you it’s a good plan?”

“I just thought you’d like to know how things are.”

“It would be nice to find out how things are. I wish I could find out.”

Jesse stirred in the chair, recrossed his legs. “I can understand how this hit you hard, Floyd boy. I guess you got pretty close to that pretty little girl in a short time. Hard to imagine her dead all of a sudden.”

Hubbard looked listlessly at the older man, feeling no animosity. “She told me you and Fred hired her to make a damn fool of me. It would have worked, Jesse, up to a point. I mean, she would have pulled something obvious enough in some place where enough people would have seen it. But it wouldn’t have made any difference in the recommendation I’ll make on you.”

He watched Mulaney, expecting protestations of innocence. Mulaney sighed and loosened the knot of his vivid tie and said, “It was a lousy idea, I guess.”

“It certainly was.”

“When things start to go wrong, I guess your ideas get worse and worse. Funny she told you, though.”

“She wasn’t well. She wasn’t reliable.”

“I’m not trying to duck it, Floyd boy, but it was Fred’s idea to start with. And ever since I told him to go ahead with it, I’ve felt ashamed. But I wasn’t going to call it off. I have to tell you that. I fired Fred tonight. He’s always been like a part of me walking around, the part I don’t like very much. That’s why I’ve been nicer to him all these years than I would have been—if I couldn’t see part of me in him. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“He cried like a little kid. He said it wouldn’t save my job for me, by firing him. I said I didn’t mean for it to. I said I wanted to fire him before they take away my authority to fire anybody. I told him I wanted that chance. But I guess I was punishing myself.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Connie told me what you said about me. You didn’t have to say that to her. You could have said it to me.”

“I’m ashamed I said it to her, Jesse. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think you told her anything she didn’t know. But I think she knows some things you don’t know. They aren’t the kind of things that you’d look for in a sales manager, but I have the idea they’re worth something.”

Hubbard stared down at the floor and said, “Did we kill her, Jesse? Did we kill Cory? You and me and Fred Frick?”

“She fell while she was taking a shower.”

“Daniels was after her.”

“And he beat it out of Fred, what the actual deal was. Funny how happy Connie was about me firing Fred. I can’t get it out of my mind. I knew she didn’t like him very much, but I didn’t know she felt that way.”

“Jesse, I keep wondering what would have happened if I’d refused to tell Daniels anything about Cory.”

“I guess he would have knocked you down, taken your room key and gone looking to see if she was in your room.”

“That’s the salesman’s knack, isn’t it? You tell people what they want most to hear.”

“You know what she was, boy. So she took Dave on and sent him on his way and then took a shower. What’s one more guy to one of those girls?”

“You’re a great salesman, Jesse.”

Jesse leaned forward. “One idea I wish I could sell you. But now you’ve got more reason than ever to throw me out. You’ve got a good personal reason now. I could stay out of the way for two years. I mean just hold the job and not get in anybody’s way. I’d even draw no pay, but nobody would have to know that. Just to keep the name, boy, until my time is up.”

“Isn’t there any threat to go with it?”

Jesse shrugged. “There’ll be rumors. I can’t stop them. Fred found you in the sack with one of the twins from our exhibit. You and Daniels were squabbling over a little whore before he fell off the hotel. You were walking around pretty tight tonight. A lot of people saw that.”

“You can’t stop them, but you could build them up a little.”

“I didn’t say that, now did I?”

Hubbard sat quietly and felt as if a hollow place in the middle of his chest was slowly filling up with molten metal, solidifying, turning at last to something so rigid and enduring it would last him all his life and serve him well. It would be there whenever he needed it. Jan would not have to know it was there. She needed no knowledge of the implacable, the merciless.

He stood up and said quietly, “What makes you think rumors like that could hurt me, you silly son of a bitch? You know how the rumors will level out. They’ll know all over the industry you tried to job me and got out-maneuvered. And they’ll have the idea I got to have my cake and eat it too. She was very good, Jesse. Very very good. Thanks for picking up the tab. The other one was nice too. I’m going to phone John Camplin. You can stay and listen, or you can leave now. It doesn’t matter to me what you do.”

When Mulaney did not move, he went around the bed and
placed a call to Houston, to John Camplin’s unlisted home phone.

“Sorry to call at such an hour, John, but we’ve had a tragedy here, and Mulaney is folding the tent on most of the AGM contingent, so I’ll fly back tomorrow. The head of the Chicago District, David Daniels, fell over a railing on a terrace on one of the upper floors and was killed. Yes, he’d been drinking heavily, but that won’t be played up. No, it’s all being handled as quietly as possible. Mulaney informed Mrs. Daniels tonight. As far as I know, there are no problems of liability involved, but I thought you’d like to get advance word on it. What was that? Oh, I’ll make a written report with my reasoning in detail, but off the cuff I can tell you that I think we should ask for Mulaney’s resignation at the first opportunity. The man is too limited for the job. No, John, I wouldn’t advise retaining him in any capacity whatsoever. There’s no help he can give us on anything. Sales needs a top to bottom housecleaning just as soon as the new man can get his feet on the ground. Okay. I haven’t made reservations yet. When I do I’ll wire Jan and have her phone in my ETA … No, I’m completely sold on conventions, John. I’ve been wallowing in bourbon and broads twenty-four hours a day. Nothing like it anywhere. See you tomorrow. ’Night, John.”

After he hung up he waited a few moments before turning to look at Mulaney. Mulaney was standing. He wore a strange shy smile, curiously boyish. It was a smile to go with a blush, but Mulaney’s face was a ghastly gray-white under the red webs of the broken veins.

“I guess that does it,” Jesse Mulaney said, moving quite slowly toward the door.

“Wait a minute, Jesse. Think of the other ways I could have done it. I could have asked you to leave before I made the call. Or, talking to Camplin, I could have played it to you, then called him back later and given it to him the way I just did. What the hell good does it do
anybody
to keep hope alive when there’s no hope at all? No matter what you tried to do to me, or if you’d done nothing at all to me, it would have been exactly the same.”