The clerk was looking at me, so I fished around a bit, looking over the cigars. “What’s the matter with the clerk?” I asked.
“Jealous,” she said with a little grimace.
I tapped a gloved forefinger on the counter. “Okay,” I said, “give me a couple of those,” took the cigars, and walked over to where the clerk was standing at the counter. “Poker game running down the street,” I said. “I want to get away for a couple of hours’ sleep, then go back. What have you got, something around the fourth floor?”
“Four-seventy-one,” he suggested.
“Where is it?”
“On the corner.”
“Nothing doing.”
“Four-twenty?”
I said, “Brother, I’m funny, but I always get along with the odd numbers. Four-twenty sounds about right, only it’s even. Have you got four-seventeen or four-nineteen or four-twenty-one?”
“I can give you four-twenty-one.”
“How much?”
“Three bucks.”
“With a bath?”
“Sure.”
I took three dollars out of my pocket and slid it across the counter. He smacked his palm down on a bell and called out, “Front!”
The boy walked out of the elevator. The clerk handed him a key and said to me, “You’ll have to register, Mr. — er—”
“Smith,” I said. “John Smith. You write it. I’m going to sleep.”
The boy saw I had no baggage and was giving me the fishy eye. I tossed him a quarter and said, “Snap out of it, son, and smile.”
He showed his teeth in a grin and took me up. “Work all night?” I asked him.
“Nope. I quit at eleven.”
“How about the elevator?”
“Goes on automatic.”
I said, “Listen, son, I don’t want to be disturbed. I’ve been in a gambling game and I’m tired.”
“Stick the sign on the doorknob, and nobody’ll disturb you.”
“Got any gamblers in the house?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “but listen, buddy, if you’d like a—”
“I wouldn’t,” I said.
He thought perhaps I might change my mind and hung around digging out the “Please Do Not Disturb” sign for me, pulling down window shades, and turning on the light in the bathroom.
I got rid of him after a while, hung the cardboard sign on the doorknob, locked and bolted the door, turned out all the lights, went over to the communicating door which connected with four-nineteen, got down on my knees, and started to work. I kept my light gloves on.
The proper place to bore a hole in the door of a hotel bedroom is at the corner of the paneling, just at the lower edge of the molding. The door is thinner there, and a small hole won’t attract much attention. A knife that has a crescent-shaped blade on it can be sharpened into a good boring edge.
I felt like a dirty snoop, but a man can’t argue with his bread and butter. And that goes double when he’s working for Bertha Cool. The way I felt didn’t keep me from doing a darn good job of boring a hole in the panel, and getting my eye up to the hole.
Alta was sitting on a davenport, crying. A man was sitting back in a big chair, smoking. Her tears didn’t seem to mean very much to him. I couldn’t see anything except his legs up as far as the hips, and occasionally the hand when it would take the cigarette from his mouth and come to rest on the arm of the chair.
After a while Alta got done crying. I could see her lips move, but couldn’t hear what she was saying. She didn’t seem to be exactly angry, more crushed than mad.
They talked for a while, then the man moved the hand that held the cigarette. A second later his other hand came into view with an envelope. He held it out toward Alta. She leaned forward on the davenport, took the envelope, and tucked it under her arm without even looking to see what was in it. She seemed in a grand rush. She opened her purse, took out a folded oblong of tinted paper, and handed it to him. He dropped it in the right-hand side pocket of his coat.
Alta got up hurriedly. I could see her lips say “Goodnight.” Then she walked out of the range of my vision.
The man seemed to be hurrying her along. He got up, and I had a glimpse of his face. He walked across the room. I heard the door open and close. The door was right across from the elevator. I could hear the cage rattling and wheezing up, then the sound of the door opening and closing. The man came back to the room, closed and locked the door.
I got up from my knees, brushed off my trousers with the palm of my hand, and then suddenly noticed the key which turned the bolt on the communicating door. Those are so rigged that when the bolt is closed, the little thumb grip that works it is straight up and down. This one was straight across.
Slowly, so as not to make any sound, I turned the knob of the door. When I had the knob back as far as it would go, I put my thumb up against the jamb and pushed easily against the door.
It opened about a sixteenth of an inch.
The door had been open all the time. That was something. For a moment I thought of opening it up and walking in, then decided against it. I closed the door, and eased the knob back quietly so that the latch wouldn’t click. Then I slowly twisted the brass thingumbob on the door so that it shot the bolt back home on my side of the door.
It was a crummy hotel with the carpets worn thin and the lace curtains dingy. The white counterpane on the bed had a rip that had been stitched together. The connecting door between the two rooms was a loose-fitting affair. I stood staring at it. While I was looking at it, the knob slowly turned. Someone was trying to open that connecting door. He tried it once, then quit.
I walked out into the corridor, closed and locked my door behind me, slipped the key in my pocket, went around to four-nineteen, and knocked.
I heard a chair move, then steps on the floor, and a man’s voice said, “Who is it?”
“Lam,” I said.
“I don’t get you.”
“Message from the chief.”
He opened the door and looked at me.
He was big, and had the lumbering good nature of a man who’s big enough and strong enough to know no one is going to push him around. The eyebrows were a little too heavy and came together across his nose. His eyes were such a deep reddish brown they were almost black, and I had to hold my neck back against my collar to look up at him.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you that when I come in.”
He held the door open. I walked in. He closed the door behind me and twisted the bolt. He said, “Sit down,” and walked over to the same chair in which he’d been sitting while Alta had called on him, put his feet up on another chair, lit a cigarette, and said, “What’d you say your name was?”
“Donald Lam.”
“You’re Greek to me.”
I said, “No, you’ve never seen me before.”
“You aren’t telling me anything. I never forget a face. You said you had a message?”
“Yes.”
“From the chief?”
“Yes.”
“Who do you mean, the chief?”
I said, “The chief of police.”
He was lighting a cigarette when I said that, and the match didn’t so much as waver. He didn’t look over at me until after he’d taken a deep drag at the cigarette, then his reddish-black eyes turned my way.
“Spill it.”
I said, “This message concerns your personal health.”
“My health is good. It’s going to stay good. What the hell’s the message?”
I said, “Don’t cash that cheque.”
“What cheque?”
“The one you just got.”
He took his feet down from the chair. “You’ve got a hell of a crust,” he said.
I said, “Brother, you’ve cashed twenty thousand bucks in cheques through the Atlee Amusement Corporation. That’s just twenty grand too much. You’ve got another check in I hat right-hand coat pocket. As soon as you give it to me, I’ll get out of here.”