He asked for the desk and said: «Write this down, will you, sergeant? Brighton Avenue, thirty-two-hundred block, west side, in driveway of empty house. Got that much?»
«Yeah. So what?»
«Car with dead woman in it,» Steve said, and hung up.
SEVEN
Quillan, head day clerk and assistant manager of the Carlton Hotel, was on night duty, because Millar, the night auditor, was off for a week. It was half-past one and things were dead and Quillan was bored. He had done everything there was to do long ago, because he had been a hotel man for twenty years and there was nothing to it.
The night porter had finished cleaning up and was in his room beside the elevator bank. One elevator was lighted and open, as usual. The main lobby had been tidied up and the lights had been properly dimmed. Everything was exactly as usual.
Quillan was a rather short, rather thickset man with clear bright toadlike eyes that seemed to hold a friendly expression without really having any expression at all. He had pale sandy hair and not much of it. His pale hands were clasped in front of him on the marble top of the desk. He was just the right height to put his weight on the desk without looking as if he were sprawling. He was looking at the wall across the entrance lobby, but he wasn’t seeing it. He was half asleep, even though his eyes were wide open, and if the night porter struck a match behind his door, Quillan would know it and bang on his bell.
The brass-trimmed swing doors at the street entrance pushed open and Steve Grayce came in, a summer-weight coat turned up around his neck, his hat yanked low and a cigarette wisping smoke at the corner of his mouth. He looked very casual, very alert, and very much at ease. He strolled over to the desk and rapped on it.
«Wake up!» he snorted.
Quillan moved his eyes an inch and said: «All outside rooms with bath. But positively no parties on the eighth floor. Hiyah, Steve. So you finally got the axe. And for the wrong thing. That’s life.»
Steve said: «O.K. Have you got a new night man here?»
«Don’t need one, Steve. Never did, in my opinion.»
«You’ll need one as long as old hotel men like you register floozies on the same corridor with people like Leopardi.»
Quillan half closed his eyes and then opened them to where they had been before. He said indifferently: «Not me, pal. But anybody can make a mistake. Millar’s really an accountant — not a desk man.»
Steve leaned back and his face became very still. The smoke almost hung at the tip of his cigarette. His eyes were like black glass now. He smiled a little dishonestly.
«And why was Leopardi put in an eight-dollar room on Eight instead of in a tower suite at twenty-eight per?»
Quillan smiled back at him. «I didn’t register Leopardi, old sock. There were reservations in. I supposed they were what he wanted. Some guys don’t spend. Any other questions, Mr. Grayce?»
«Yeah. Was Eight-fourteen empty last night?»
«It was on change, so it was empty. Something about the plumbing. Proceed.»
«Who marked it on change?»
Quillan’s bright fathomless eyes turned and became curiously fixed. He didn’t answer.
Steve said: «Here’s why. Leopardi was in Eight-fifteen and the two girls in Eight-eleven. Just Eight-thirteen between. A lad with a passkey could have gone into Eight-thirteen and turned both the bolt locks on the communicating doors. Then, if the folks in the two other rooms had done the same thing on their side, they’d have a suite set up.»
«So what?» Quillan asked. «We got chiseled out of eight bucks, eh? Well, it happens, in better hotels than this.» His eyes looked sleepy now.
Steve said: «Millar could have done that. But hell, it doesn’t make sense. Millar’s not that kind of a guy. Risk a job for a buck tip — phooey. Millar’s no dollar pimp.»
Quillan said: «All right, policeman. Tell me what’s really on your mind.»
«One of the girls in Eight-eleven had a gun. Leopardi got a threat letter yesterday — I don’t know where or how. It didn’t faze him, though. He tore it up. That’s how I know. I collected the pieces from his basket. I suppose Leopardi’s boys all checked out of here.»
«Of course. They went to the Normandy.»
«Call the Normandy, and ask to speak to Leopardi. If he’s there, he’ll still be at the bottle. Probably with a gang.»
«Why?» Quillan asked gently.
«Because you’re a nice guy. If Leopardi answers — just hang up.» Steve paused and pinched his chin hard. «If he went out, try to find out where.»
Quillan straightened, gave Steve another long quiet look and went behind the pebbled-glass screen. Steve stood very still, listening, one hand clenched at his side, the other tapping noiselessly on the marble desk.
In about three minutes Quilian came back and leaned on the desk again and said: «Not there. Party going on in his suite — they sold him a big one — and sounds loud. I talked to a guy who was fairly sober. He said Leopardi got a call around ten — some girl. He went out preening himself, as the fellow says. Hinting about a very juicy date. The guy was just lit enough to hand me all this.»
Steve said: «You’re a real pal. I hate not to tell you the rest. Well, I liked working here. Not much work at that.»
He started towards the entrance doors again. Quillan let him get his hand on the brass handle before he called out. Steve turned and came back slowly.
Quillan said: «I heard Leopardi took a shot at you. I don’t think it was noticed. It wasn’t reported down here. And I don’t think Peters fully realized that until he saw the mirror in Eight-fifteen. If you care to come back, Steve —»
Steve shook his head. «Thanks for the thought.»
«And hearing about that shot,» Quillan added, «made me remember something. Two years ago a girl shot herself in Eight-fifteen.»
Steve straightened his back so sharply that he almost jumped. «What girl?»
Quillan looked surprised. «I don’t know. I don’t remember her real name. Some girl who had been kicked around all she could stand and wanted to die in a clean bed — alone.»
Steve reached across and took hold of Quillan’s arm. «The hotel files,» he rasped. «The clippings, whatever there was in the papers will be in them. I want to see those clippings.»
Quilian stared at him for a long moment. Then he said: «Whatever game you’re playing, kid — you’re playing it damn close to your vest. I will say that for you. And me bored stiff with a night to kill.»
He reached along the desk and thumped the call bell. The door of the night porter’s room opened and the porter came across the entrance lobby. He nodded and smiled at Steve.
Quillan said: «Take the board, Carl. I’ll be in Mr. Peters’ office for a little while.»
He went to the safe and got keys out of it.
EIGHT
The cabin was high up on the side of the mountain, against a thick growth of digger pine, oak and incense cedar. It was solidly built, with a stone chimney, shingled all over and heavily braced against the slope of the hill. By daylight the roof was green and the sides dark reddish brown and the window frames and draw curtains red. In the uncanny brightness of an allnight mid-October moon in the mountains, it stood out sharply in every detail, except color.
It was at the end of a road, a quarter of a mile from any other cabin. Steve rounded the bend towards it without lights, at five in the morning. He stopped his car at once, when he was sure it was the right cabin, got out and walked soundlessly along the side of the gravel road, on a carpet of wild iris.