Beside him he could feel Sally shiver, and he reached for her. He slipped an arm about the slim body and drew her closer to him, and after a moment he could feel her lips on his cheek. “I'll be glad when this is all over,” she sighed.
“I got a feelin' we're close to the payoff window right now.”
“It's getting so I'm afraid to go to work nights. And it's not much better here when you're not around, since that man was here the other afternoon.”
“That man is in the sneezer, ma. You can scratch him from the entries.”
“Yes, and I love the way you and Paul didn't tell me a word about it when it happened.”
“Just savin' your nerves a bruise. You get shook too easy.”
She sniffed audibly, and he tightened the arm around her and listened to the hissing intake of her breath. After a moment he disengaged the arm, slipped it from beneath her, sat up, and slid off the bed. Sally's head lifted as she tried to follow his movements in the shadows. “What are you doing, Johnny?” She sat up as he returned and knelt on the bed beside her.
“Johnny Killain, you haven't any pants on!” she accused him as he reached for her.
“Welcome to the club,” Johnny said.
Sally was in the shower when the phone rang, and Johnny rose from the bed to answer it. “Yeah?”
“Johnny? Dameron.”
“Hey, I got something for you.” The bathroom door opened, and Sally's head and shoulders appeared, swathed in a towel. He formed the word “Joe” silently with his lips, and she nodded and went back inside, closing the door. “The guy in the locker last night, Joe; his name's Frank Lustig, and he was registered into 938 the night he was killed. He was killed right in the room, and when they took him down to the kitchen in the room service elevator to dispose of the body Dutch broke up the party.” The line hummed emptily a moment. “I'll buy pair of that,” Lieutenant Dameron's voice said into the little silence. “Let me tell you why I called, though. Jimmy just called me from the hotel. He'd gone over to talk to that cook who was with you when you found the body.”
“Don't tell me he'd bugged out on you-?”
He could hear the dry rasp in the other voice. “Oh, he was still there. Jimmy broke in the bathroom door and found him in the tub. Both wrists slashed, he bled to death very tidily.”
“Christ! We needed to talk to that guy.”
“I doubt we can extradite him from where he is now.” The lieutenant's voice sounded less forceful than usual. “I'd counted myself on talking to him. I think he could have given us a few answers. That was a good move on your part last night, incidentally.”
“An accident. Sitting in the kitchen it came to me all of a sudden that Dutch hadn't said 'clocks' like Manuel thought; he'd said 'box,' and he knew what he was talking about. Right now I'm not sure it was a good move at all. The butcher would have found him this morning anyway, and we'd have still had Hans. Jimmy said he was in up to his hips with the shylocks, but that's a strong rebuttal.”
He had a better reason or thought he did. The body may have been registered into 938 like you say, but his name wasn't Frank Lustig. It was Frank Rieder, and he was Hans Rieder's younger brother.”
“Mmmpfh! Have we ever got a wide screen production goin' now.”
“We can't seem to get a break on the timing on these things,” Lieutenant Dameron said tiredly. “Two hours earlier on that report, and the cook would probably still have been under sedation.”
“You figure he'd been going so bad financially that his nerves were gone and finding his brother was the last straw?”
“I figure it a little stronger than that. It almost has to be that he'd brought the brother in to help out on something he was promoting, and the realization he'd gotten his brother killed did it. And the way he was killed-did you see the face?”
“Yeah. Rugged. One thing, though. You can bet me if you think Hans was working with Freddie.”
“Against him, then?”
“Has to be. You realize the payoff on this thing has got to be one hell of a brass ring, Joe? If about four more people show up, Fort Knox couldn't pay 'em off for their trouble.”
“I've changed my mind half a dozen times. I just don't know. It's got to be important, the way people are throwing themselves under the wheels. If Hans wasn't working with Freddie-and offhand I'm inclined to agree with you on that-then that has to mean that Freddie's crowd doesn't take easily to being muscled out.”
“You say 'Freddie's crowd' real strong today. That because of what I told Jimmy last night about Freddie's place bein' all wired up?”
“Partly, but I'm holding a kicker to that pair. We finally got the picture in from San Francisco, and Freddie is not Ronald Frederick, the hotelman.”
“Well, hell, Joe. If you know that, what are you waitin' for? Till we have to move out some of the guests to make room for the bodies?”
“If I had someone to put him near the kitchen that night-”
“Joe, you mean to tell me you aren't gonna pick him up?”
“If I pick him up, you know how long I can hold him without a charge. And if I can't charge him, from the looks of this operation I shouldn't be able to scare him very much, either.”
“So charge him. With murder.”
“And if I don't get a confession?”
Johnny drew an exasperated breath. “Are you trying to tell me you didn't get to be a lieutenant of police by sticking out your neck for false arrest charges? Goddamit, Joe-”
“There's a better way of doing it, Johnny.”
“Like what?”
“Who speaks for the hotel when Willie's out of town?”
“Some lawyer downtown. He don't spit, though, till Willie tells him it's time.”
“If we could convince this lawyer that he should protect Willie's interests by preferring charges against this man for securing a bonded position under false pretenses-I don't need a murder charge to hold him, Johnny. I just need an airtight charge.”
“It might be easier than talkin' to the lawyer.”
“How?”
“Willie'll be in town sometime tonight.”
“He will? That's fine. You bring him around.”
“I still think you ought to scoop Freddie right now.”
“I happen to have a little more at stake in this thing than you do, Johnny. You bring Willie around tonight.”
The phone clicked in Johnny's ear, and he hung it up slowly. He sat and stared at the wall. A couple of days ago he had wished for a ravelled thread in the fringe that would lead back to the counterpane. Now there were as many threads as fringe and still remarkably little that a man could put his finger upon exactly.
Johnny roused himself finally and looked around for his clothes.
He walked into the bar from the lobby and watched Fred work his way up the shining mahogany, polishing with a rhythmic sweep of a long arm. The bartender looked up as he sensed his audience and threw the bar rag behind him. “Hope we're a little busy tonight. Damn time drags so when we're not… you workin' two shifts lately, Johnny? Seems like every time I see you you're in uniform.”
“Getting ready for the next depression,” Johnny told him. “Manuel around?”
“Out in back. He'll be right-here he is now.”
The slim dark boy ducked under the counter with a trayful of glasses which he set down on the bar. “'Lo, Jonee. Up early?”
“Medium. You got a blade, Manuel?”
“But of course.”
“Like to borrow it a few minutes.”
“Seguramente.”
Manuel reached into a hip pocket beneath his wraparound apron and carefully removed a pearl-handled knife whose silvered blade slithered silently open at the pressure of a finger. Johnny accepted it and laid it thoughtfully across his palm.
“I wanted it for a gag, but this damn thing doesn't look a bit funny.”
Manuel smiled. “Ees not meant to be fonny.”
“No? Tell me something, hotshot-what happens when you got to get to this thing in a hurry? In that hip pocket you'd be starched an' ironed before you ever got it sprung.”