“I mean Bikini bathing suits,” she said. “They attracted the attention of the nominating committee — in a big way.”
I said to her, “Listen, Bernice, I’ve got to get in that hotel. I want to get in so that no one knows I’m in the hotel. You’ve been there for a while. You know the bell captain who’s on nights, I want to talk with him on the phone.”
“But why can’t you just walk right in and—”
“He’s hot,” Ernestine said. “Don’t you understand, Bernie? He’s hotter than a stove lid. If he’s going to case the joint he’s got to do it under cover.”
I looked at her and tried to keep from smiling at the way she’d picked up crook lingo from the television. All it needed was one look at her eager countenance and her sparkling eyes to see how she was so engrossed in this thing that she had completely lost sight of all of her inhibitions.
Bernice said, “This bell captain is... I’ve been out with him a couple of times.”
“That’s fine,” I told her, “he’ll do what you want.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t do what he wanted.”
“Then he’ll be sure to,” I said. “Get him on the phone. Tell him it’s a favor.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to talk with him.”
Bernice dialed the hotel and asked for the bell captain by name. After a moment she nodded, “His name is Chris,” she said.
I said, “Hello, Chris. I have a favor I want you to do for me.”
“Who is this talking?”
“I’m a friend of Bernice.”
“Yeah?” he asked, and his voice was suddenly cold.
“I haven’t seen her in years,” I said. “I’m from Los Angeles. I looked her up because I wanted to get your name.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said, and this time there was a note of curiosity in his voice but the cold enmity was gone.
I said, “I want to get in the hotel. I have fifty bucks that says you’re going to help me.”
“Fifty bucks is awfully damned eloquent,” he said. “What do you want?”
I said, “I want you to come up to Bernice’s apartment and bring a bell boy’s uniform. I’m going to put it on and go back to the hotel with you.”
There was silence for a moment. Then he said, “I might get into trouble over this.”
“Not if no one knew anything about it,” I said.
“Well, people have a way of finding those things out and—”
“Okay,” I said. “It’s a business proposition with me. I’m a magazine writer working on a story in connection with the murder. I can peddle the story for five hundred bucks. I’m willing to pay something for expenses but I’m not going to give you all of my profits and then turn around and give some more to the Government. If you don’t want to do it, forget it.”
“I want to do it,” he said hastily.
“All right,” I said. “Bring the uniform up to Bernice’s apartment. Can you get a uniform?”
“That’s no trouble,” he said, “but I don’t know your size. I—”
I said, “Bernice can tell you about the size.”
I turned to Bernice and said, “Bernice, you know the boys there at the hotel. Is there one of them who’s about my size and build?”
Bernice looked me over for a moment, then said, “Tell him to get a suit that would fit Eddie.”
I said, “Bernice said get a suit that would—”
“I heard her,” he said. “She’s there, huh? How long have you been there?”
“Just got in.”
“Okay,” he said, “I’m coming right up.”
Bernice seemed thoughtful and a little worried but Ernestine was so excited she could hardly sit down. She’d stay put for a minute or two, then get up and run out to the kitchen to get a drink of water.
I had a chance to do some thinking before Chris got there.
I could see why Bernice hesitated after I saw Chris. He looked Bernice over the way a cattle buyer would inspect a steer that he was thinking about putting in a feed lot. With him, Bernice was merchandise.
The uniform fitted me as though it had been tailored for me.
I gave Chris fifty bucks. He had his own car outside.
“I want to borrow a couple of suitcases,” I told Ernestine.
She dug out the suitcases: one of hers, one of Bernice’s.
“Will we get these back?” Bernice asked suspiciously.
“Of course you will, Bernie,” Ernestine said before I could say a word. “Mr. Lam is—”
I gave her a warning look.
“A reputable magazine writer,” she finished. “You’ve read his stuff in lots of the magazines. Your suitcase is just as safe with him as it would be right there in the closet.”
I loaded the suitcases with some extra newspapers and magazines to give them weight. On the way back to the hotel I said to Chris, “Now, I’ll want a passkey and—”
“Whoa, back up,” he said. “We don’t give passkeys to anyone.”
“I thought the passkey was included in the seventy-dollar—”
“Seventy. You gave me fifty.”
“The hell I did! It wasn’t seventy?”
“It was fifty.”
“Well, it should have been seventy,” I said, “and that, of course, included the passkey.”
“Say,” he said, “you’re a fast worker.”
I said, “When I go in with the suitcases you just walk around, pick up the passkey and hand it to me.”
“It’s fastened to a big metal ring,” he said. “It—”
“I don’t care what it’s fastened to,” I told him. “I want the passkey.”
“That could cost me my job.”
“Well,” I said, “perhaps I was right, after all. It only was a fifty-dollar job.”
“All right, give me the additional twenty,” he said.
I gave him the twenty.
We got to the hotel and I barged in, carrying the suitcases, with my head down and my shoulders forward as though the suitcases were plenty heavy.
Chris walked around behind the clerk’s desk, said something to the clerk, received a nod in return, and came back carrying a passkey which was chained to a wide metal loop.
He handed me the passkey and turned away.
I went to the elevators, up to the seventh floor, got off the elevator and started knocking on doors.
The first door I tried brought a big man in shirt-sleeves and in his stocking feet, to the door.
“You phone the bell captain to send these suitcases up here?” I asked.
He said, “No,” and closed the door, hard.
I tried two more rooms and got turned down on both occasions. There was no answer at the third room. I made sure no one was going to answer, then I fitted the passkey and opened the door.
The bed was made up, the towels were all neat, there was no baggage in the room. It was an unoccupied room.
I parked the suitcases and the passkey, made certain that the catch on the door was fixed so it would remain unlocked, went out into the corridor and walked down to Evelyn Ellis’ room.
I listened for a moment to make certain that she didn’t have company. I couldn’t hear any voices.
I tapped on the door.
Evelyn opened the door.
She was all dolled up in filmy stuff that made a sort of aura around a naked body as she stood in the doorway with the bright light behind her. I could see she’d fixed herself up in her most seductive garb, and she’d put in a lot of time being certain that it was sufficiently revealing. With the light behind her it was quite a sight. She evidently was expecting someone she wanted to impress.
“You!” she said, and started to slam the door.
I lowered a shoulder, charged the door, shot it out of her hand, and walked in.
She looked at me with concentrated venom. “So now you’re a bell boy! Well, Mr. Lam, you’re getting out, and getting out now,” she said. “If you don’t, I’ll call—”