«Even if it was, so what?»
«So would it be an isolated incident? Or is there a drug problem at the hotel?»
«I don’t know what you mean by a drug problem.»
«I don’t know, either. Something that would make it undesirable to have anyone locate heroin in a hotel room.»
«That would be undesirable at any time for any reason.»
«If you found it, would you report it to the police?»
«Of course.»
«Or is it something you would try to take care of quietly yourself, so that you would perhaps manage to avoid informing the police?»
Marsogliani looked at me for a long time from either side of his thick and majestic nose. Then he said, «These days there is the problem of drugs everywhere. It would be impossible not to have incidents in any hotel. Whether there is anything that could be called a problem is quite another thing. If there were, I would certainly tell the police, and I would certainly not tell you.»
«You wouldn’t, for instance, just quietly brush the heroin into an envelope and take it away?»
«No, I wouldn’t, and I guess you’re lucky you’re such a little pipsqueak or, for suggesting it, I would pick you up, break you in two, and throw the pieces out of the office one at a time.»
«I’m glad I’m small, then,» I said very politely, and stood up.
«One minute,» he said. «What’s your name again?»
«Darius Just,» I said.
«Mr. Just, I suppose all this is because you still think that the man in 1511 was murdered. Have you given your theory to the police?»
«No. After the reaction I received from you, I felt I had better dig up stronger grounds.»
«I see. Well, then, Mr. Just, let me put it this way. Either the man in 1511 was not murdered or he was. If he was not murdered, your investigations will come to nothing, but they are likely to be a pain in the neck to the hotel and I may eventually find myself unable to resist unscrewing your head. If he was murdered, then your unauthorized and clumsy investigations may encourage whoever murdered him to try to do the same to you just to get rid of an annoyance. Think it over.»
«Either way, I’m not long for this world then?»
«Think it over—but do it outside.» He reached for a cigar and put it into his mouth and that was hint enough for me. I dislike cigarette smoke, but I detest cigars with a passion.
So I walked out, having accomplished nothing. Before speaking to Marsogliani, I was reasonably sure that he had brushed away the heroin, and if so, it was to protect the hotel. Having spoken to him, I had nothing with which to change my mind or to increase my certainty. Status quo.
4 SARAH VOSKOVEK 9:35 A.M.
I leaned against the wall outside Marsogliani’s office, thinking it out for a while and getting nowhere. I looked at my watch, found it a bit past nine-thirty, leaving me an hour and a half before the panel I wanted to attend. What to do? I didn’t have a room in the hotel, so I couldn’t go there and stare out the window. The exhibit booths would be opening at ten, but there was nothing I wanted there.
I walked down the sixth floor toward the elevators, feeling very much the complete failure. There was the glass door that led to Room 622 on my right, but I had no excuse to go in there, or anything useful to do once I was in.
The matter was taken out of my hands. Sarah was standing there, her spike heels bringing her eyes nearly to a level with mine. She said, «Mr. Marsogliani just called me. He said he does not wish to see you again for any purpose. I imagined you’d be coming down the hall therefore, and I hoped in reasonable health. He sounded furious.»
«He was slightly furious. He didn’t hit me because I’m so little.»
«There are advantages to it, then.»
It was about what I had said to Marsogliani, but what I say and what other people are allowed to say are two different things. I said, «Thanks,» rather angrily.
She looked at me speculatively; the kind of look, I think, that I give to some girls. She said, «If there were even one person in the world who despised you for your height as much as you yourself do, you would then have reason for complaint.»
«Two nights ago,» I said, «you—»
«Ah,» she said, clasping her hands, «but I have apologized. That is not kind.»
«You’re right,» I said quite sincerely. «My turn. I apologize.» I felt so gentlemanly that, if I had had a hat, I would have tipped it. As it was, I raised two fingers of my right hand and made an outward gesture at eye level. I turned away.
«But wait,» she said. «I want to talk to you.»
I turned again, expectantly.
She added, «If you have the time.»
I looked at my watch automatically, though I knew the time. «I have some time,» I said.
She said, «There is a room I can use sometimes. Would you come to it with me? Here we will be interrupted. I’m expecting the art director.»
«Won’t he leave if you’re not here?»
Her lips set dangerously. «He will not. He will wait for me.» She leaned back, past the doorway, and said to her receptionist, «Ginger, if anyone comes for me, they are to wait. Don’t let them leave. I’ll be back soon… Will you come to the room, Darius?»
It seemed only natural, almost inevitable, to grin, look knowing, and hope that the room had a bed in it. But I didn’t say a thing. The trouble was that I never saw a woman look so—no, not innocent, I was quite sure there was nothing innocent about her in the old-fashioned sense and hadn’t been for some years—well, so divorced from seduction.
«Gladly,» I said, and there was no seductiveness in that, either.
We went up the elevator to the tenth floor. Others got in the elevator and she moved away and let them separate us.
She did not look at me—or look away from me, either. She met my eye, occasionally, and without any particular interest whenever chance would have it so. She was a woman loaded with common sense. I felt myself liking her more per inch than I ever had almost any woman, but that didn’t make the total liking very high, unfortunately.
She stepped off at the tenth floor, certain that I would follow, and I did. A third person stepped off, a youngish man, but he turned in the other direction. He wasn’t wearing a convention badge.
She opened the door to a room quickly, and I followed her in just as quickly. She placed the «Do Not Disturb» sign outside and closed the door.
I said, «What will they think when they see that sign?» nodding in its direction.
She said, «Let them think what they will think.»
She sat down. «This is a staff room. There are several of them. They are useful when a member of the staff must stay overnight, or does not feel well and wishes to lie down. In great emergencies they are rented, but ordinarily not—not even with a convention like this in the hotel.»
«Very convenient and pleasant.»
She said, «Now tell me—You were asking me about drug problems. Is that what you asked Mr. Marsogliani, too?»
«You said I should.»
«I said he was the person to ask. I did not think you would, or should.»
«Well, I did.»
«But why? Why do you ask about the drugs?»
«Why should you want to know, Sarah?»
«So that I might give you information in exchange.»