"Should I register?"
"No need to."
"What if I stole something-walked off with your television? The rooms have TV, don't they?"
"Sure. VCRs too. But if anybody steals anything, we can get it back. Are you planning on stealing something? You better not."
"How come?"
"I know your license number." She recited it. "I looked at it while you were inside the office and I'll write it down when I get back to the desk. If we need to get ahold of you for anything, we can find you through the DMV. People who stay here usually'd rather not leave their names, but we can track you down if we want you. Jay handles it."
"I don't plan on stealing anything," I said, "but I'd like to speak with Jay when he comes in. Would you give him this?"
"Sure."
I handed her the sealed envelope containing the note I wrote to Gladu after I drove Ronnie Linkletter back to Channel Eight. I went out and pulled the car over to number 11. Only two other cars were in the lot, a new Acura and an old Ford Galaxie in front of units 3 and 4. I checked the mud flaps on both; all four were intact.
Room 11 was small and dim with thick curtains drawn shut. A water bed in a lacquered pine frame that matched the paneling on one wall took up much of the room. The print on the filthy bedspread showed pastoral vistas and Georgian mansions. The TV set on the dresser was hooked up to the discount store-brand VCR beside it. Two walls of the room were covered with mirrors, as was the ceiling above the bed. The towels beside the small sink outside the bathroom were worn but clean. Above the sink an ancient contraption of an air conditioner was jammed into what had been a window. When I switched it to "on," nothing happened.
I'd brought the Times along and sat by a low-watt lamp in the airless room plugging away at the crossword puzzle-one of those with puns so dumb you wanted to call up Sulzberger and ask for your fifty cents back- until just after ten, when a knock came at the door.
I opened it and a thirtyish groover in baggy black shirt and pants and jackboots grinned at me a little too brilliantly out of a pale smooth face. "Are you the blackmailer?"
"Yup."
"How much do you want? If it's too much, I may have to have you killed."
He was still grinning, contented with his existence and mine, and apparently not prepared to take me as much of a threat. He seemed to be a man who had found inner peace, though whether its provenance was spiritual or chemical I didn't know.
"I don't want your money," I said. "I just want to find out who killed John Rutka, and I thought you might be able to help me out, Jay."
"I don't think so."
I sat in my chair again and Gladu flopped onto the water bed and arranged the pillows behind his back.
"John Rutka paid you more than six thousand dollars last year," I said. "What for?"
"No, he didn't."
"It's in his financial records-the amounts of the disbursements and the dates."
"That might be in John Rutka's financial records, but it's not in mine. There are no canceled checks. You won't find my signature anywhere in John Rutka's records. Or in anyone else's. Except New York Telephone's, of course. I'm a phone-company subscriber and proud of it. The power company too."
"I see your point. On the other hand," I said, "there's an exceptionally large number of references to the Fountain of Eden in the files Rutka kept on gay Albanians he was planning to out. In all of the files, the Fountain of Eden comes up eighty or ninety times. Apparently someone here was feeding Rutka information on the assorted couplings and quadruplings that the participants, your paying customers, assumed to be private. If the police or the tax authorities had possession of those files-which they do not, yet-they might imagine a connection existed between the cash disbursements and the carefully indexed sexual reports.
They'd think poorly of you, as would your customers once word got around. Your business inevitably would suffer."
He shrugged and peered at me brightly. "This place is not my only source of income. I've got an art gallery in Woodstock and a pet shop in the Millpond Mall. But don't get me wrong. I get your point. What is it you'd like to know?"
"I'd like to know who came to the Fountain of Eden with Ronnie Linkletter every Wednesday night for a year. I'd like you to instruct whoever it is on your staff here who keeps track of these things to talk to me and to answer truthfully every question I ask. And I want to leave here with copies of your license-plate records for the past year. Arrange those few things and we'll call it even."
"What do you mean, 'even? What's in it for me?"
"After whoever killed John Rutka is caught, Rutka's records will be destroyed. I'll do it myself. All those embarrassing connections to you and your business will be gone."
A dry laugh. "Do I look embarrassed?"
"Not yet."
"Well, maybe instead of doing all those things you're demanding I do, I should do what I first thought when Sandy gave me your threatening note. I should just arrange to have you killed." He grinned.
"Is that something you do to people routinely, or would I be receiving exceptional treatment?"
"I can't answer that. It would be giving something away."
Hoping I was guessing right about Gladu, I said, "I'm not impressed with your chemically induced bravado, Jay, and I'm getting bored with your line of utter bullshit. I want answers and I want them now. Who do I talk to around here to get them?"
He blinked twice, tapped his fingers on the bed frame, and said, "You can talk to me. I have the answers to your questions, and I'll give you the answers in return for one thousand dollars."
I sighed. "Jay, how would you like Cityscape to do a story on the Fountain of Eden as the Albany area's most popular quickie heaven, where the elite meet to fornicate, except the management spies on the customers and sells the information to political dementos like John Rutka and also tries to sell it to private investigators working on murder cases? The story would be a natural for Cityscape, and I'd be happy to supply the paper with the evidence that would pretty much put you out of business."
"I'd hate that," he said with a little slit of a smile and the same bright eyes. "If that happened, somebody might arrange to kill me."
"Could be."
"I have to admit, Strachey, that you've got me backed into a corner. So I've decided that I will answer your questions." His eyes got even brighter. "And then later I'll arrange to have you killed. Months from now, or even years, when you're least suspecting it.
You'll be walking down Lark Street. Or you'll be home doing some blow, or you'll have your tongue wrapped around your boyfriend's willy, or you'll be lying in bed looking through Mirabella. And all of a sudden- ka-powie! — you're a piece of Center Square roadkill!"
I said, "You're full of shit, Gladu."
"You think I am, don't you?"
"Yes."
"You're right." He guffawed.
"I know."
"What were the questions you wanted answered? I forgot."
"First, tell me how it worked-your data-gathering methods. Who were the actual spies?"
"Sandy in the daytime picks up quite a bit. She's got the tube on all the time and remembers faces, so when some local mega-celeb shows up she'll spot him right away and make a note of it. She gets five bucks a pop for a regular spotting, ten for media heavies like Ronnie Linkletter. I've got two queens who alternate nights- Royce and Lemuel, who live over in the house-and they know everybody and don't miss a trick. They're devastated that Rutka is dead, because now there's nobody to sell their dirt to."
"They knew the dirt was going to Rutka?" "Sure, I told them. Not that they cared. A dollar is a dollar. Being a bitch is being a bitch whether it's politically correct or not. For them, it's just a hoot."