"Double-sided tape," Dulcie whispered, and they pulled back the carpet to look at the floor beneath.
The plywood floor had been cut into a six-inch square, as if removed and then replaced. The wall at the corner was lumpy, too, as if it had also been cut, then repaired and replastered. "Old building," Dulcie said. "Older than the wing that goes along the end of the garden. Maybe when it was built, they had to make some changes here in the wiring?"
Together they clawed the plywood up. It fitted so snugly it was hard to remove without ripping out a claw. Beneath it, a black hole gaped, filled with wiring and with a plastic pipe running through. Concealed back beneath the old part of the floor, half hidden by wiring, lay a dark handgun, a plain blue semi-automatic with a dark grip. They could see that the clip was in. As their eyes adjusted, they could see the round silver S-and-W logo of Smith and Wesson on the grip. The cats looked at each other and smiled. Slayter had discovered an excellent hiding place-except for the nosiness of cats.
They had no way of knowing if the gun was loaded without removing the clip, and neither was about to try that. "I told you there was a gun," Dulcie said. "That Chichi was searching for a gun. What do we do now?"
Before Joe could answer, the loud, brassy blast of a jazz trumpet drowned even the roar of the vacuum, bursting up from the courtyard.
"It's starting," Dulcie said. "The first bands must be set up."
"The streets will be wall-to-wall traffic, the sidewalks a forest of feet."
"But it's only just past noon. Luis wouldn't hit those shops this time of day?" She stared down into the hole, at the gun. "What'll we do with it? Leave it here or…?"
"We're not handling that thing. You want to haul that over the roofs? Besides, we can't move evidence. You know that."
"Was evidence what Chichi was looking for?"
"Whatever, the cops need to find it right here." Slipping the plywood back into place, he pressed the carpet flat over it. Sudden silence beyond the drapery, then little rustles of fabric told them the maid was making the bed. They listened as she plumped the pillows and moved around as if straightening the folders on desk and table. At last they heard the welcome squeak of wheels as she moved the cart, the click as she snapped the doorstop up, then the door slammed closed. They heard her turn the handle, testing the lock, then blessed silence. They'd have the room to themselves until Slayter returned.
Slipping out from behind the drapery, Joe leaped to the nightstand, pressed the phone for an outside line, and punched in Harper's private number. Quickly he gave Harper the location and told him where the gun was hidden. He wished he understood Chichi's role in this. If she was working with Luis, and apparently with Slayter, then why was she snooping? The only answer that came to mind was far too simple, and didn't seem to fit Chichi. Sure didn't fit her past behavior, ripping Clyde off. Across the room, Dulcie reared up against the door, working at the knob.
She had turned it and was swinging on it, ready to kick it open, when the door flew violently open. Joe thought she was crushed as Slayter hurried in; but she twisted and leaped out behind him, and was gone. Joe had time only to drop into the thin space between the bed platform and the wall, a crack that had been left to allow the bedside lamps to be plugged in, a space so narrow he had to wriggle to get in at all, and then could hardly breathe. He felt trapped there, and he sure was trapped in the room with Slayter. He hoped Dulcie wouldn't linger out in the hall or try to get him out. At least he wasn't crouched in the corner on top of the gun, in case Slayter went for it.
And Slayter did just that. Joe heard him pull the drapery back, heard the ripping sound as he pulled the carpet up, a screech as he lifted the plywood. To the accompaniment of the welcome noise, Joe slid on through to the far side of the bed nearest the door, and reared up to peer up over the bed.
He watched Slayter remove the clip and check it, replace it, and jack one into the chamber. Watched him slide the gun into a body holster beneath his jacket. As he turned, Joe dropped down again, backing deeper into the space between bed and wall.
This time when Slayter left the room the man moved so swiftly, barely cracking the door open, that Joe almost didn't make it. Scorching out behind Slayter's ankles without brushing against his leg, Joe followed on his heels. He meant to streak across the hall and in through the open door of the room that was marked ICE MACHINE-but Slayter headed that way, moving directly into the soft-drink room and through it, and through a door marked MAINTENANCE. He heard Slayter's hard shoes climbing the concrete stairs that would be used by maintenance to access all floors, stairs that probably led to the roof, to the vents and heating equipment. Had Dulcie gone that way? He heard the heavy door at the top slam, a door that sounded too heavy for Dulcie to have opened.
Joe didn't like going up on the roof with Slayter, even if he could get the door open. But if Dulcie was there…
And, he had told Harper where the gun was hidden, but now it wasn't there. Slayter was wearing it, and if an officer approached him…
Had he seen a house phone on top the little table in the hall? But you couldn't call out on a house phone. Slipping back into the hall, he could see the cleaning cart down at the far end. Racing down, he paused by the open door, listening to water running and the TV tuned into a Spanish station. Before he could think better of it, he was inside the room and on the desk, punching in Harper's number. It crackled when Harper answered.
"He retrieved the gun. Wearing it in a shoulder holster, left side. He's gone up on the roof." He waited to be sure Harper wouldn't ask him to repeat, then hung up and was gone, out into the hall again, his nose filled with the stink of disinfectant-and he headed fast for the roof.
37
Cars lined the curbs and filled the streets, creeping slower than a cat would walk. Dulcie sat on the roof of the Gardenview Inn waiting for Joe and beginning to worry. She grew more certain each minute that she should go back, that Slayter had caught him. Below her in the street, drivers held up the single lines of traffic to let people out onto crowded sidewalks. The cacophony of a dozen jazz bands made her ears ache. Any sensible cat would be home, hiding under the bed among the dust mice.
Dulcie loved the beat of the old classic jazz-she'd just like it not all mixed together. She was so awash in Dixieland that she felt giddy. Where was Joe? At last, losing patience, she spun around and raced back across the hotel's tile roof to the little raised portion of the building that housed the stairwell-but before she could try to fight the door open, she heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
Fleeing away among the shadows of the chimneys, she watched the door swing in, and Roman Slayter emerge. He left the door cracked, did not let the latch click. Moving to the edge of the roof, he stood considering the street below.
Had Slayter locked Joe in his room? But Joe could get out, he could turn the knob just as she had-if he hadn't hurt Joe. In a sudden panic, she crouched to leap for the door; she drew back when it began to swing open again, this time without sound.
Joe Grey emerged silently behind Slayter, glancing across the roof to Dulcie.
Slayter had a cell phone in his hand, and was looking away to the center of the village, across several blocks of rooftops. The cats could see, beyond an open lot where an ancient cottage had been torn down, that he had a clear view of the courthouse and PD. He could see the front of the station, and the back area beside the jail where the patrol units parked. They watched him punch in a preprogrammed call. He spoke softly.