I asked Booker, “Is there any particular reason why one of your salesmen would prefer one hotel or auto court to another? As a matter of policy, I mean.”
“No. Getting the job done is the important thing. They are allowed six dollars a day for accommodations. They can stop wherever they choose.”
I thumbed through the records again. Donaldson’s practice seemed to be as Booker described it, to arrive in Crescent City in the evening and work it fresh the next morning, then head back toward San Francisco. I found the make and year of his car at the bottom of one of the sheets and memorized the license number.
I closed the folder and placed it in front of him. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Booker.”
“Not at all,” he said. “Good luck.” He pressed a buzzer on his desk and his secretary led me out of the glass maze.
I walked half a block to a bar and used their pay phone to call the office. Jack Holland was waiting for me. Jack is a retired San Francisco cop with a private investigator’s license. When the horses are running he works for the security police at the bay area race tracks, and when they aren’t I have first call on his services.
“You were lucky to catch me,” Jack’s voice boomed over the phone. “I was just about to kill a guy who talked me off a winner at Jamaica this morning. You saved his life.”
“Did Hilda tell you the deal?”
“Yeah. You’re mixed up with another good looking broad. When I was younger...”
I interrupted, “Check on her old man’s car, Jack. It’s a fifty-two, blue Plymouth sedan.” I gave him the license number. My wrist watch read ten minutes past four. Before hanging up I asked Jack to get a line on Donaldson through Missing Persons if he had time today.
The phone call gave me an excuse to drink a couple of bourbons in the bar, then I walked back to my heap. The parking meter whipped to violation as I stepped on the starter.
Three
Donaldson’s apartment was in a tall, wide cream brick building at the foot of Van Ness Avenue overlooking Aquatic Park. I rang the Manager’s bell, pushed the wide glass door open when an answering buzzer sounded and walked through an immaculate tile floored, mirror walled lobby. I decided business must be good with Mayflower Shirts.
A big gray haired, rosy faced man was standing in the doorway of apartment 1A. He was holding a newspaper in one hand, gazing at me quizzically over the top rims of thick lensed glasses which sat on the end of his nose. When I gave him one of my cards he adjusted the glasses and squinted at it. I liked the smell of the food cooking behind him.
“Anybody can carry these,” he told me, handing back the card.
I pulled out my billfold, showed the photostats of my credentials.
He inspected them carefully and grinned at me. “I’ll be darned,” he said. “What have we got, adultery in the house?”
“I’m making inquiries about Robert Donaldson in apartment 24,” I said. “His office hasn’t heard from him since the end of last month. I thought you might give me a line on him.”
The gray haired man, large and hard but probably pushing seventy, nodded his head. “Sweeney, eh? My name’s Paddy McGonnigle. Come on in.”
We went inside and he left me alone in a small, modestly furnished room. The easy chairs and the davenport looked too comfortable to sit in for only a few minutes. I took a straight backed wooden chair at the desk in the corner. Hanging on the wall was a large picture of a heavily muscled athlete in the act of throwing a sledge.
“That’s me,” McGonnigle said proudly, returning with two tumblers and a bottle of John Jameson’s. “Greatest hammer-thrower in the state at one time, the darlin’ of the old Cork picnics.” He filled the tumblers and handed me one. “Cheers.”
My eyes burned after a swallow of the whisky but it felt fine. I’d liked to have heard about the Cork picnics. Instead, I asked him what he knew about Donaldson.
“He seems like a fine lad,” McGonnigle said. “He’s been here almost two years, the lease is up in December. He’s not around much, bein’ on the road most of the time.” He took another sip of Jameson’s and thought about it. “Donaldson’s been no trouble a’ tall, not so much as a broken light switch. I’m genuinely sorry to hear he hasn’t shown up for work.”
“Could I have a look at his room?”
McGonnigle squinted doubtfully through the thick lenses. “I don’t think I could be allowing that,” he said, regretfully. Then his face brightened and he came over to the desk. I moved out of the way while he opened it and rummaged. The glass was still in my hand, so I finished the drink.
“Here’s his mail.” McGonnigle handed me some magazines and a half dozen envelopes. He took my glass.
The only interesting piece of mail was an envelope stamped with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office return address, postmarked this month. I put the stuff back in the desk. When I turned McGonnigle handed me another stick of dynamite.
“Cheers,” I said. The athlete on the wall stared at me. “I went to a few Cork picnics myself when I was a kid,” I said. “At California Park. I probably saw you in action.”
“You were born here, I suppose?” When I nodded the old man wrinkled his forehead and rubbed a big hand over his face. “Sweeney, Sweeney,” he mused. “I should know your father. Not from out the Avenues?”
“No. I was raised in the Mission.”
“Ah, the Mission. There’s the climate for you,” McGonnigle commented. “What line of work is your father in?”
“He was a hod carrier,” I said. “He died when I was twelve.” I gulped down the drink and stood up.
McGonnigle arose with a sigh. He took my glass and put it on the desk top. “Come on, then,” he said. “Rules were made for exceptions. We’ll go up and see twenty-four.”
I followed him outside to the elevator, where a woman with a shopping bag was just getting in. McGonnigle greeted her with, “Good evening, Mrs. Granucci.”
“Evening, Paddy.” The woman with the shopping bag sniffed the Jameson’s and smiled pleasantly. As the elevator moved she added, “Could I see you for a few minutes before my husband comes home, Paddy? It’s about the tile in the bathroom.”
“I’ll be right down as soon as I’m through with this gentleman, Mrs. Granucci.” When the woman got out at five, McGonnigle whispered, “The place is full of Eyetalians.”
Donaldson had a two room apartment on the sixth floor, living room, bedroom, kitchenette and bath. A chaise longue, a lounge chair, a chestnut table with four chairs to match, and a writing desk stood on a blue broadloom carpet in the living room. The bedroom contained a double bed, night table, two chairs and a tall bureau. There was little to indicate Donaldson’s individuality except that it was neat and slightly dusty.
McGonnigle grew tired of following me around and said, “I’ll go tend to Mrs. Granucci, if you don’t mind.”
I didn’t mind. We shook hands. I thanked him for the drinks and he told me to drop by anytime. He walked spryly out of the room, jangling the ring of keys he had used to get us inside.
A more thorough search of the room yielded rent receipts, some minor unpaid bills, a bank book with a small balance and miscellaneous odds and ends. I was most impressed by the photograph of a girl on the bedroom bureau. She was a knockout. She had red hair falling loosely to her bare shoulders and there was light and humor in clear blue eyes. It was a colored full face portrait, the kind you find tacked up on any barracks wall. I unhooked the frame and slipped out the picture. The imprint on back read: Artcraft Studios, 26 Acacia Road, Gravenstein, Calif. I replaced it in the frame.