He locked the room, listened a moment in the now silent corridor, then went along to the room occupied by the two girls. He knocked softly and put his ear to the panel. A chair squeaked and feet came towards the door.
«What is it?» The girl’s voice was cool, wide awake. It was not the blonde’s voice.
«The house man. Can I speak to you a minute?»
«You’re speaking to me.»
«Without the door between, lady.»
«You’ve got the passkey. Help yourself.» The steps went away. He unlocked the door with his master key, stepped quietly inside, and shut it. There was a dim light in a lamp with a shirred shade on the desk. On the bed the blonde snored heavily, one hand clutched in her brilliant metallic hair. The black-haired girl sat in the chair by the window, her legs crossed at right angles like a man’s and stared at Steve emptily.
He went close to her and pointed to the long tear in her pajama leg. He said softly: «You’re not sick. You were not drunk. That tear was done a long time ago. What’s the racket? A shakedown on the King?»
The girl stared at him coolly, puffed at a cigarette and said nothing.
«He checked out,» Steve said. «Nothing doing in that direction now, sister.» He watched her like a hawk, his black eyes hard and steady on her face.
«Aw, you house dicks make me sick!» the girl said with sudden anger. She surged to her feet and went past him into the bathroom, shut and locked the door.
Steve shrugged and felt the pulse of the girl asleep in the bed — a thumpy, draggy pulse, a liquor pulse.
«Poor damn hustlers,» he said under his breath.
He looked at a large purple bag that lay on the bureau, lifted it idly and let it fall. His face stiffened again. The bag made a heavy sound on the glass top, as if there were a lump of lead inside it. He snapped it open quickly and plunged a hand in. His fingers touched the cold metal of a gun. He opened the bag wide and stared down into it at a small .25 automatic. A scrap of white paper caught his eye. He fished it out and held it to the light — a rent receipt with a name and address. He stuffed it into his pocket, closed the bag and was standing by the window when the girl came out of the bathroom.
«Hell, are you still haunting me?» she snapped. «You know what happens to hotel dicks that master-key their way into ladies’ bedrooms at night?»
Steve said loosely: «Yeah. They get in trouble. They might even get shot at.»
The girl’s face became set, but her eyes crawled sideways and looked at the purple bag. Steve looked at her. «Know Leopardi in Frisco?» he asked. «He hasn’t played here in two years. Then he was just a trumpet player in Vane Utigore’s band — a cheap outfit.»
The girl curled her lip, went past him and sat down by the window again. Her face was white, stiff. She said dully: «Blossom did. That’s Blossom on the bed.»
«Know he was coming to this hotel tonight?»
«What makes it your business?»
«I can’t figure him coming here at all,» Steve said. «This is a quiet place. So I can’t figure anybody coming here to put the bite on him.»
«Go somewhere else and figure. I need sleep.»
Steve said: «Good night, sweetheart — and keep your door locked.»
A thin man with thin blond hair and thin face was standing by the desk, tapping on the marble with thin fingers. Millar was still behind the desk and he still looked white and scared. The thin man wore a dark gray suit with a scarf inside the collar of the coat. He had a look of having just got up. He turned seagreen eyes slowly on Steve as he got out of the elevator, waited for him to come up to the desk and throw a tabbed key on it.
Steve said: «Leopardi’s key, George. There’s a busted mirror in his room and the carpet has his dinner on it — mostly Scotch.» He turned to the thin man.
«You want to see me, Mr. Peters?»
«What happened, Grayce?» The thin man had a tight voice that expected to be lied to.
«Leopardi and two of his boys were on Eight, the rest of the gang on Five. The bunch on Five went to bed. A couple of obvious hustlers managed to get themselves registered just two rooms from Leopardi. They managed to contact him and everybody was having a lot of nice noisy fun out in the hall. I could only stop it by getting a little tough.»
«There’s blood on your cheek,» Peters said coldly. «Wipe it off.»
Steve scratched at his cheek with a handkerchief. The thin thread of blood had dried. «I got the girls tucked away in their room,» he said. «The two stooges took the hint and holed up, but Leopardi still thought the guests wanted to hear trombone music. I threatened to wrap it around his neck and he beaned me with it. I slapped him open-handed and he pulled a gun and took a shot at me. Here’s the gun.»
He took the .32 automatic out of his pocket and laid it on the desk. He put the used shell beside it. «So I beat some sense into him and threw him out,» he added.
Peters tapped on the marble. «Your usual tact seems to have been well in evidence.»
Steve stared at him. «He shot at me,» he repeated quietly. «With a gun. This gun. I’m tender to bullets. He missed, but suppose he hadn’t? I like my stomach the way it is, with just one way in and one way out.»
Peters narrowed his tawny eyebrows. He said very politely: «We have you down on the payroll here as a night clerk, because we don’t like the name house detective. But neither night clerks nor house detectives put guests out of the hotel without consulting me. Not ever, Mr. Grayce.»
Steve said: «The guy shot at me, pal. With a gun. Catch on? I don’t have to take that without a kickback, do I?» His face was a little white.
Peters said: «Another point for your consideration. The controlling interest in this hotel is owned by Mr. Halsey G. Walters. Mr. Walters also owns the Club Shalotte, where King Leopardi is opening on Wednesday night. And that, Mr. Grayce, is why Leopardi was good enough to give us his business. Can you think of anything else I should like to say to you?»
«Yeah. I’m canned,» Steve said mirthlessly.
«Very correct, Mr. Grayce. Good-night, Mr. Grayce.»
The thin blond man moved to the elevator and the night porter took him up.
Steve looked at Millar.
«Jumbo Walters, huh?» he said softly. «A tough, smart guy. Much too smart to think this dump and the Club Shalotte belong to the same sort of customers. Did Peters write Leopardi to come here?»
«I guess he did, Steve.» Millar’s voice was low and gloomy.
«Then why wasn’t he put in a tower suite with a private balcony to dance on, at twenty-eight bucks a day? Why was he put on a medium-priced transient floor? And why did Quillan let those girls get so close to him?»
Millar pulled at his black mustache. «Tight with money — as well as with Scotch, I suppose. As to the girls, I don’t know.»
Steve slapped the counter open-handed. «Well, I’m canned, for not letting a drunken heel make a parlor house and a shooting gallery out of the eighth floor. Nuts! Well, I’ll miss the joint at that.»
«I’ll miss you too, Steve,» Millar said gently. «But not for a week. I take a week off starting tomorrow. My brother has a cabin at Crestline.»
«Didn’t know you had a brother,» Steve said absently. He opened and closed his fist on the marble desk top.
«He doesn’t come into town much. A big guy. Used to be a fighter.»
Steve nodded and straightened from the counter. «Well, I might as well finish out the night,» he said. «On my back. Put this gun away somewhere, George.»
He grinned coldly and walked away, down the steps into the dim main lobby and across to the room where the radio was. He punched the pillows into shape on the pale green davenport, then suddenly reached into his pocket and took out the scrap of white paper he had lifted from the black-haired girl’s purple handbag. It was a receipt for a week’s rent, to a Miss Marilyn Delorme, Apt. 211, Ridgeland Apartments, 118 Court Street.