I drove over to 3rd Street, left the car in a parking lot, found Al’s Bar and went in.
It was one of those intimate places with booths, and I took the end one against the wall, facing the entrance, and sat down. I ordered a beer and asked the barman if he had an evening paper I could look at.
He brought the beer and the paper.
There was an account of the inquest and a photograph of Rankin looking a little like Sherlock Holmes just after he’d given himself a shot in the arm. On the back page was a photograph of Thelma Cousins. The caption said the police were pursuing their inquiries concerning the second mysterious stabbing in a Bay Beach bathing station.
While I was looking at the photograph, Greaves came in and spread his fat form on the bench seat opposite me.
After I had bought him a beer, I told him I was planning to gate-crash the Musketeer Club and had he any idea how I could do it.
He looked at me as if he thought I was crazy.
“You have as much chance of doing that as you have of gate-crashing the White House,” he said.
“I’m not convinced. I hear it’s on the top floor of the Ritz-Plaza. As you’ve worked in that hotel, you should know the layout of the club.”
Greaves swallowed half his beer, set down his glass and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“That won’t help you. They have the whole of the top floor, and they have two private elevators. You go into the hotel, through the lobby, down a passage on the left. At the far end there’s a grill guarded by a couple of guys who know all the answers. They damn well have to or they wouldn’t last five minutes. Unless they recognize you they don’t open the grill. It’s as simple as that. If they recognize you, they open up and you have to sign the book. Then you’re taken up in one of the elevators. What happens after that I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been up there. They wouldn’t recognize you so they wouldn’t open up. So skip it. You’re just wasting your time.”
“They have a restaurant up there?”
“Sure. It’s supposed to be the finest restaurant in the country. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never fed there. What’s that to do with it?”
“Don’t tell me they cart sides of beef and boxes of fish through the lobby of the hotel. I just won’t believe it.”
He rubbed his fat nose with the beer glass.
“Who said they did? They share the hotel’s goods entrance. It’s around the back, down an alley. It so happens the hotel has its kitchens on the tenth floor as the restaurant is up there. I don’t know what the club’s system is for delivering the stuff, but I’ve seen goods going up there and the guys who deliver the stuff go up with it.”
I smiled at him.
“I was hoping you’d say that. If I took a package up there I might get a chance to have a look around. You wouldn’t know any of the staff who could be persuaded to co-operate? I’d spring fifty bucks if I had to.”
Greaves thought for a long moment, then finished his beer before saying, “You’re sticking your neck out, but there was one guy I knew who worked there: Harry Bennauer. I don’t know if he’s still there. He was fourth barman or something like that. He was always right out of dough: a sporting man. I’ve never known a guy to bet the way he did. It wouldn’t surprise me if he mightn’t be willing to help.”
“Try him, will you?” I said. “See if he’s still around. Ask him if he’d like to make fifty easy bucks. If he shows interest, tell him I’ll be up by way of the goods elevator at seven o’clock sharp.”
Greaves thought about it. I could see he wasn’t too enthusiastic.
“You’re taking a risk. Bennauer might sell you out. There could be a reception committee waiting for you. From what I hear the bouncers working for the club aren’t a bunch of powder-puffs. You might get bounced pretty hard.”
“That’s my funeral. Go ahead and try him.”
Greaves lifted his massive shoulders, got to his feet and went over to the row of telephone booths. While he was in one of the booths I ordered a second round of beers.
He talked for five minutes or so, then he came back and sat down.
“I got him,” he said. “Right now, he tells me, he’s so short of dough, he’d sell his wife for fifty bucks. It’s a deal so far as he’s concerned. It’s up to you now. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him — not as far. He might go to the management and sell you out for fifty-five bucks.”
“Suppose he did? They can’t kill me. All they can do is to toss me out. I don’t bounce easy anyway. You told him seven o’clock?”
Greaves nodded.
“He’ll be waiting by the elevator. He’ll probably double-cross you. You probably won’t get further than the elevator doors. As soon as he gets the money, like as not, he’ll kiss you good-bye.”
“He won’t get it until I’ve seen what I want to see.” I looked at my watch. I had forty minutes to seven. “You wouldn’t have any suggestions about what I should take up there just in case of trouble?”
He bent his brains to the problem. After turning it over for a while he said, “Stick around. I’ll see what I can do.” He finished his beer, then pushed his way out of the booth and left the bar.
I waited, sipping my beer, looking at the newspaper and wondering what I was walking into.
He came back within the half-hour.
He was carrying a brown-paper parcel under his arm and as he sat down opposite me he put out his big hand, palm upwards.
“You owe me twenty bucks.”
I took out my billfold, parted with four five-dollar bills and asked, “What does that buy me?”
He put the parcel on the table.
“A guy I know is in the brandy trade. He wants to get his liquor into the club. He hasn’t a hope, but he doesn’t seem to realize it. I kidded him you could get a sample bottle of the stuff before the management. This is it.” He tapped the parcel. “For the love of Mike, don’t drink it. It’ll raise callouses the size of tomatoes in you if you do.” He felt in his vest pocket and put a card on the table. “That’s his trade card. Now it’s up to you to take it from here.”
I picked up the card and stowed it away in my billfold.
“That’s just what I’m looking for. Thanks a lot. Well, if I’m going, I’d better go.”
“The hunk of beaten-up meat I’ll find outside the Ritz-Plaza with his brains beaten in will be you,” Greaves said soberly. “You insured?”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said, and picked up the parcel. “I’ve been in plenty of tough spots in my time.”
“But none tougher than this, brother,” Greaves said with feeling. “And don’t kid yourself that you have.”
II
There was a fat, elderly man guarding the goods entrance to the hotel. He gave me a sour look as I came into his vision.
“This right for the Musketeer Club?” I asked, coming to rest before him.
“Could be,” he said. “What’s it to you?”
I poked the trade card under his nose and let him browse over it.
“I have a date with the wine waiter. Big deal, pop. You’re holding up the wheels of commerce.”
He sneered at me, then jerked his thumb to the elevator.
“There’s the elevator. Right the way to the top.”
He went back to his day dreams. They couldn’t be anything to get excited about, but probably they amused him.
I got into the elevator, pressed the button marked Musketeer Club and leaned against the wall while I was hauled up into the stratosphere. It took time. This was a goods elevator: there was nothing express about it.
As I went up, I put my hand inside my coat and touched the butt of the .38 I had strapped on before leaving my hotel. The cold feel of the gun butt gave me a little comfort, but not much.