“What did you have to eat?” Hammett asked the temporary blonde.
“Leroy said it was beefsteak, but I think it was part of one of them moose,” she said. “And some mushy canned peas and a piece of chocolate cake. I think it give me the heartburn. That or the body.”
“That’s a story that should be easy enough to check out,” Hammett said.
“And what about you, Zulu?” the marshal asked.
“I was in the office or behind the bar all night, Mister Olson,” the black woman said. “That gentleman came in, had a drink, paid the usual fee, and asked for a girl. When I asked him which one, he said it didn’t matter. So I sent him back to Daphne.”
“Seen him before?” the marshal asked.
“Lots of men come through here,” Zulu said. “But I think he’d been here before.”
“He done the same thing with me maybe three, four times before,” the temporary blonde said. “With some a the other girls, too.” She shot another nervous look at the black woman. “We talk sometimes, ya know.”
“Notice anybody in particular in here tonight?” the marshal said.
“Quite a few people in here tonight,” Zulu said. “Some for the music, some for other things. Maybe thirty people in here when the body was found. I think maybe one of them is on the city council. And there was that banker...”
“That’s enough of that,” the marshal said.
“And he could have let anybody in through the back door,” Zulu said.
The red-haired MP came back into the barroom, chased by a blast of cold air.
“The major wants me to bring the whore in to the base,” he said to the marshal.
“I don’t think Daphne wants to go anywhere with you, young man,” Zulu said.
“I don’t care what a whore thinks,” the MP said.
Zulu leaned across the bar and very deliberately slapped the MP across the face. He lunged for her. Hammett stuck a shoulder into his chest, and the marshal grabbed his arm.
“You probably don’t remember me, Tobin,” Hammett said, leaning into the MP, “but I remember when you were just a kid on the black-and-blue squad in San Francisco. I heard you did something that got you thrown out of the cops just before the war. I don’t remember what. What was it you did to get tossed off the force?”
“Fuck you,” the MP said. “How do you know so much, anyway?”
“I was with the Pinks for a while,” Hammett said. “I know some people.”
“You can relax now, son,” the marshal said to the MP. “Nobody roughs up Zulu when I’m around. You go tell your major that if he wants to be involved in this investigation he should speak to me directly. Now beat it.”
“I’m too old for this nonsense,” Hammett said after the MP left, “but you can’t have people beating up your partner. It’s bad for business.”
“There ain’t going to be any business for a while,” the marshal said. “Until we get to the bottom of this, you’re closed, Zulu. I’ll roust somebody out and have ’em collect the body. Otherwise, keep people out of that room until I tell you different.”
With that, he left.
“I believe I’ll have a drink now, Zulu,” Hammett said.
“You heard the marshal,” the black woman said. “We’re closed.”
“But I’m your partner,” Hammett said, grinning.
“Silent partner,” she said. “I guess you forgot the silent part.”
“Now there’s gratitude for you, Clarence,” Hammett said. “She begs me for money to open this place, and now that she has my money she doesn’t want anything to do with me. Think what I’m risking. Why, if my friends in Hollywood knew I was half owner of a cathouse...”
“They’d all be lining up three deep for free booze and free nooky,” Zulu said. “Now you two skedaddle. I’ve got to get Daphne moved to another room, and I’ll have big, clumsy white folk tracking in and out of here all night. I’ll be speaking to you later, Mister Sam.”
The two men went back out into the cold.
“Little Sugar Delight?” the black man said. “Tony Zale? Why do you want to be telling such stories?”
“Why, Clarence,” Hammett said, “think how boring life would be if we didn’t all make up stories.”
The black man slid behind the wheel and punched the starter. The engine whirred and whined and exploded into life.
“You can drop me back at the Lido Gardens,” Hammett said. “I have a weekend pass, and I believe there’s a nurse who’s just about drunk enough by now.”
Hammett awoke the next morning alone, sprawled fully clothed on the bed of a small, spare hotel room. One boot lay on its side on the floor. The other was still on his left foot. He raised himself slowly to a sitting position. The steam radiator hissed, and somewhere outside the frosted-over window a horn honked. Hammett groaned loudly as he bent down to remove his boot. He pulled off both socks, then took two steps across the bare, cold floor to a small table, poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher, and drank it. Then another. He took the empty glass over to where his coat dangled from the back of a chair and rummaged around in the pockets until he came up with a small bottle of whiskey. He poured some into the glass, drank it, and shuddered.
“The beginning of another perfect day,” he said aloud.
He walked to the washstand and peered into the mirror. The face that looked back was pale and narrow, topped by crew-cut gray hair. He had baggy, hound-dog brown eyes and a full, salt-and-pepper mustache trimmed at the corners of a wide mouth. He took off his shirt and regarded his pipe-stem arms and sunken chest.
“Look out, Tojo,” he said.
He walked to the other side of the bed, opened a small leather valise, and took out a musette bag. Back at the washstand, he reached into his mouth and removed a full set of false teeth. His cheeks, already sunken, collapsed completely. He brushed the false teeth vigorously and replaced them in his mouth. He shaved. Then he took clean underwear from the valise, left the room, and walked down the hall toward the bathroom. About halfway down the hall, a small, dark-haired man lay snoring on the floor. He smelled of alcohol and vomit. Hammett stepped over him and continued to the bathroom.
After bathing, Hammett returned to his room, put on a clean shirt, and walked down a flight of stairs to the lobby. He went through a door marked CAFÉ and sat at the counter. A clock next to the cash register read 11:45. A hard-faced woman put a thick cup down in front of him and filled it with coffee. Hammett took a pair of eyeglasses out of his shirt pocket and consulted the gravy-stained menu.
“Breakfast or lunch?” he asked the hard-faced woman.
“Suit yourself,” she said.
“I’ll have the sourdough pancakes, a couple of eggs over easy, and orange juice,” Hammett said. “Coffee, too.”
“Hey, are these real eggs?” asked a well-dressed, middle-aged man sitting a few stools down. The left arm of his suit coat was empty and pinned to his lapel.
The hard-faced women blew air through her lips.
“Cheechakos,” she said. “A course they’re real eggs. Real butter, too. This here’s a war zone, you know.”
She yelled Hammett’s order through a serving hatch to the Indian cook.
“Can’t get this food back home?” Hammett asked the one-armed man.
“Ration cards,” the man replied. “Or the black market.”
“Much money in the black market?” Hammett asked.
The one-armed man made a sour face.
“Guess so,” he said. “You can get most anything off the back of a truck, most of it with military markings. And they say the high society parties are all catered by Uncle Sam. But I wouldn’t know for certain.” He flicked his empty sleeve. “Got this at Midway. I’m not buying at no goddamn black market.”