I pulled the .45 out of the glove box and stuck it in my pants, at the small of my back. My coat would cover it just right.
I got out and gave the hotel the gander. It was nice looking if you were blind in one eye and couldn’t see out the other.
There wasn’t any doorman, and the door was hanging on a hinge. Inside I saw a dusty stairway to my left, a scarred door to my right.
There was a desk in front of me. It had a glass hooked to it that went to the ceiling. There was a little hole in it low down on the counter that had a wooden stop behind it. There were flyspecks on the glass, and there was a man behind the glass, perched on a stool, like a frog on a lily pad. He was fat and colored and his hair had blue blanket wool in it. I didn’t take it for decoration. He was just a nasty son of a bitch.
I could smell him when he moved the wooden stop. A stink like armpits and nasty underwear and rotting teeth. I could smell old cooking smells floating in from somewhere in back: boiled pigs’ feet and pigs’ tails that might have been good about the time the pig lost them, but now all that was left was a rancid stink. There was also a reek like cat piss.
I said, “Hey, man, I’m looking for somebody.”
“You want a woman, you got to bring your own,” the man said. “But I can give you a number or two. Course, I ain’t guaranteeing anything about them being clean.”
“Naw. I’m looking for somebody was staying here. His name is Tootie Johnson.”
“I don’t know no Tootie Johnson.”
That was the same story Alma May had got.
“Well, all right, you know this fella?” I pulled out the photograph and pressed it against the glass.
“Well, he might look like someone got a room here. We don’t sign in and we don’t exchange names much.”
“No? A class place like this.”
“I said he might look like someone I seen,” he said. “I didn’t say he definitely did.”
“You fishing for money?”
“Fishing ain’t very certain,” he said.
I sighed and put the photograph back inside my coat and got out my wallet and took out a five-dollar bill.
Frog Man saw himself as some kind of greasy high roller. “That’s it? Five dollars for prime information?”
I made a slow and careful show of putting my five back in my wallet. “Then you don’t get nothing,” I said.
He leaned back on his stool and put his stubby fingers together and let them lay on his round belly. “And you don’t get nothing neither, jackass.”
I went to the door on my right and turned the knob. Locked. I stepped back and kicked it so hard I felt the jar all the way to the top of my head. The door flew back on its hinges, slammed into the wall. It sounded like someone firing a shot.
I went on through and behind the desk, grabbed Frog Man by the shirt, and slapped him hard enough he fell off the stool. I kicked him in the leg and he yelled. I picked up the stool and hit him with it across the chest, then threw the stool through a doorway that led into a kitchen. I heard something break in there and a cat made a screeching sound.
“I get mad easy,” I said.
“Hell, I see that,” he said, and held up a hand for protection. “Take it easy, man. You done hurt me.”
“That was the plan.”
The look in his eyes made me feel sorry for him. I also felt like an asshole. But that wouldn’t keep me from hitting him again if he didn’t answer my question. When I get perturbed, I’m not reasonable.
“Where is he?”
“Do I still get the five dollars?”
“No,” I said, “now you get my best wishes. You want to lose that?”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“Then don’t play me. Where is he, you toad?”
“He’s up in room fifty-two, on the fifth floor.”
“Spare key?”
He nodded at a rack of them. The keys were on nails and they all had little wooden pegs on the rings with the keys. Numbers were painted on the pegs. I found one that said 52, took it off the rack.
I said, “You better not be messing with me.”
“I ain’t. He’s up there. He don’t never come down. He’s been up there a week. He makes noise up there. I don’t like it. I run a respectable place.”
“Yeah, it’s really nice here. And you better not be jerking me.”
“I ain’t. I promise.”
“Good. And, let me give you a tip. Take a bath. And get that shit out of your hair. And those teeth you got ain’t looking too good. Pull them. And shoot that fucking cat, or at least get him some place better than the kitchen to piss. It stinks like a toilet in there.”
I walked out from behind the desk, out in the hall, and up the flight of stairs in a hurry.
I RUSHED ALONG THE HALLWAY ON THE FIFTH FLOOR. IT WAS COVERED IN white linoleum with a gold pattern in it; it creaked and cracked as I walked along. The end of the hall had a window, and there was a stairwell on that end too. Room 52 was right across from it.
I heard movement on the far end of the stairs. I had an idea what that was all about. About that time, two of the boys I’d seen on the street showed themselves at the top of the stairs, all decked out in their nice hats and such, grinning.
One of them was about the size of a Cadillac, with a gold tooth that shone bright when he smiled. The guy behind him was skinny with his hand in his pocket.
I said, “Well, if it isn’t the pimp squad.”
“You funny, nigger,” said the big man.
“Yeah, well, catch the act now. I’m going to be moving to a new locale.”
“You bet you are,” said the big man.
“Fat-ass behind the glass down there, he ain’t paying you enough to mess with me,” I said.
“Sometimes, cause we’re bored, we just like messin’.”
“Say you do?”
“Uh-huh,” said the skinny one.
It was then I seen the skinny guy pull a razor out of his pocket. I had one too, but razor work, it’s nasty. He kept it closed.
Big guy with the gold tooth flexed his fingers and made a fist. That made me figure he didn’t have a gun or a razor; or maybe he just liked hitting people. I know I did.
They come along toward me then, and the skinny one with the razor flicked it open. I pulled the .45 out from under my coat, said, “You ought to put that back in your pocket,” I said, “save it for shaving.”
“Oh, I’m fixing to do some shaving right now,” he said.
I pointed the .45 at him.
The big man said, “That’s one gun for two men.”
“It is,” I said, “but I’m real quick with it. And frankly, I know one of you is gonna end up dead. I just ain’t sure which one right yet.”
“All right then,” said the big man, smiling. “That’ll be enough.” He looked back at the skinny man with the razor. The skinny man put the razor back in his coat pocket and they turned and started down the stairs.
I went over and stood by the stairway and listened. I could hear them walking down, but then all of a sudden, they stopped on the stairs. That was the way I had it figured.
Then I could hear the morons rushing back up. They weren’t near as sneaky as they thought they was. The big one was first out of the chute, so to speak; come rushing out of the stairwell and onto the landing. I brought the butt of the .45 down on the back of his head, right where the skull slopes down. He did a kind of frog hop and bounced across the hall and hit his head on the wall, and went down and laid there like his intent all along had been a quick leap and a nap.
Then the other one was there, and he had the razor. He flicked it, and then he saw the .45 in my hand.
“Where did you think this gun was gonna go?” I said. “On vacation?”
I kicked him in the groin hard enough he dropped the razor and went to his knees. I put the .45 back where I got it. I said, “You want some, man?”
He got up and come at me. I hit him with a right and knocked him clean through the window behind him. Glass sprinkled all over the hallway.