“What tipped you off about that?” I asked. “I thought I was pretty careful.”
“Pure chance,” she replied. “It just happened there was a man named Forbes registered there at the same time—”
“Oh,” I said. “Sure. I remember now. And he was paged, there by the pool. But, dammit, I wouldn’t have believed it was that obvious.”
“It wasn’t,” she replied. “On the contrary, you recovered beautifully. I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been looking right at you. Naturally it made me wonder, since I’d just heard you tell the girl your name was Hamilton. I don’t remember whether that was before or after you told her your father was Chairman of the Board of Inland Steel.”
“It was a waste of breath,” I said. “She was a girl who liked to strike closer to the source. She collected the board chairmen themselves. But what did you do then?”
She finished her drink and started to get up. “Let me,” I said, and refilled the glasses with what was left in the pitcher. I sat down again. “Go on.”
“I went up to my room,” she said. “It was on the second floor, overlooking the patio and the pool, and I could watch you from the window. I called the desk and asked them to page Mr. Hamilton.”
“Oh. I remember that call. So you were the mixed-up type from Eastern Airlines that kept insisting she’d found the luggage I hadn’t even lost?”
She nodded coolly. “That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Several reasons. I had to find out if you really were registered under that name, or just lying to the girl on the grounds that you should always lie to girls. And I wanted to hear your voice over the telephone—”
“And that was the same deal last night?” I interrupted. “I mean, when you asked all those questions about fishing, over the phone?”
“Of course.” She gestured impatiently with a slim hand. “But to get back—primarily, I wanted to watch you while you were being paged.”
“I see.” This girl was clever. “And I flunked?”
“You flunked. The boy called you three times from the other end of the pool before you remembered who you were.”
“Well, there was an awful lot of blonde extruded from that bathing suit—”
“I allowed for a certain amount of preoccupation. But your subconscious should have been on duty, anyway. It was fairly obvious you hadn’t been Mr. Hamilton for very long.”
I nodded. “So then you put the private snoops on me? You know, sometimes I get the impression I’m a kind of backlog for the whole damned industry.”
“Well, perhaps if you behaved yourself—”
“If you’re referring to this last deal,” I said, “the woman told me she was separated from her husband. What was I supposed to do, get an affidavit? But never mind that. How did the snoops find out where to dig? After I rocked that one up with his camera, I was running scared, believe me; he didn’t seem to be the healthiest. I think I used three different names from Las Vegas to Los Angeles International to Chicago to Miami, and I registered from San Antonio, Texas.”
It was quite simple,” she said. “I got your correct name and your Los Angeles address off an old credit card.”
“What?”
”When you try to change your identity, you should clean out your wallet.”
“I don’t leave my wallet lying around—”
“No. But you don’t take it in swimming with you, either.”
I was beginning to feel like an absolute chump. This girl had picked me to pieces as if I’d been an oaf at a county fair.
“Listen,” I said, almost angrily, “I know I’m not that stupid. When I was in the pool or on the beach, it was in my room. And the room was locked.”
“I know,” she said. “But you have a bad habit of not turning the key in at the desk. And the next afternoon you went swimming off the beach. Remember? I merely took the key from the pocket of your wrap and went up to the room.”
I shook my head. “You’ve got a really cold nerve. Don’t you know that’s a serious offense, whether you took anything or not?”
“There was really no risk,” she said. “Your room overlooked the beach, so I could see you out there. And the whole thing didn’t take five minutes.”
“You don’t let anything stop you, do you? So then what?”
“That was when I called the detective agency. They put their Los Angeles office on it, and when you checked out of the Golden Horn they told me where you were staying down here. I came down. I wanted to keep in contact, and perhaps meet you, but not commit myself until I received the report from California and learned a little about you. When we came in a while ago, I called Miami. They’d heard from the West Coast at last, and they gave me the report over the phone. Parts of it were quite interesting, so I called you to come over.”
”What do you want?” I asked.
“Primarily, to know quite a bit more about you. What are your plans?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “If your information’s accurate, I suppose I can go back to my right name and start looking for a job. Probably in New York.”
“How much money do you have?”
“Little over four hundred.”
“That’s not much. And good jobs aren’t easy to find at twenty-eight with your record of moving around. Let me make you an offer.”
“Go ahead.
“Put it off for a few days. I have a proposition in mind, but I can’t tell you what it is until I’m sure of several things. You don’t stand to lose anything; if nothing comes of it, you’ll still have your four hundred dollars. I’ll make up anything you’ve spent.”
“What kind of proposition?” I asked.
“I’d rather not say yet. But how would you like to go back to Miami Beach?”
“When?” I asked.
She stood up. “Right now. I’m expecting some very important mail, and I have to do some shopping in the morning, so I thought we’d drive up tonight.”
I rose. “Sounds fine to me.” Then I took hold of her arms, and said, “In fact, I’ve just had a wonderful idea—”
The blue eyes were coolly satirical. “That I don’t doubt in the slightest. No.”
“But you haven’t even heard it—”
“I don’t have to. But it just happens I still have my room at the Golden Horn, and that I’m expecting the mail there, under my own name. I’d suggest you re-register as George Hamilton; after all, they’ll probably remember you.”
”But—”
“I’ll drop you in downtown Miami Beach, and you can take a cab. I’d rather no one knew of our relationship.”
“Relationship,” I said. “Hah!” She smiled, but said nothing.
* * *
“We’d stopped for dinner in Marathon, so it was shortly after eleven when she let me off in Miami Beach. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said. “Call me in room three-one-six.”
“Sure,” I replied. I carried the bag into a bar and killed about ten minutes over a drink before I called a cab and went out to the Golden Horn. It’s still slow in the Miami area in November, so I wasn’t worried about getting a room. It turned out I could have one fronting the ocean if I wanted. “Third floor, if possible,” I said.
I signed the registry card and followed the boy across the corner of the patio court, past the illuminated pool and palms bearing clusters of colored lights. We entered a corridor in the left wing and took an elevator to the third floor.
312 was round the comer from her room. It was like the one I’d had before, with turquoise walls and beige carpet and an oversized bed. The bedspread was persimmon, as were the floor-to-ceiling curtains covering the bay window at the far end. The bath had a tub and stall shower and was finished in persimmon tile. The boy put the bag on the luggage stand beside the dresser over on the right, adjusted the air-conditioner thermostat, thanked me for the tip, and left. I waited three minutes before I stepped down the corridor and knocked on 316. The door opened slightly and she looked out round the edge of it.