Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

Miss Wrenn smiled primly. “I’d love to help you, Mr. Marko.”

“Say eight o’clock, then.”

Slowly Cora hung up the phone. “They say she’s ‘satisfactory,’ Mr. Marko, though how a fractured skull can be satisfactory, I can’t see. But she won’t be able to see anyone for twenty-four hours at least.”

Don looked up from the employee cards he was studying. “By then, whatever she might have to tell me wouldn’t be much help. What’d headquarters say when you phoned in that description of Clem?”

“There’ll be an officer around here in a few minutes. You’re to wait for him.”

Don stuck the stack of cards in his pocket. “That’s what he thinks. I’m on my way.”

Cora was exasperated. “What’ll I tell the policeman?”

“To be sure to add to his bulletin that Clem is gun-goofy. He’d rather shoot somebody than furnish a new home. Stick with it. I’ll buzz you here in a little while. I hope.”

He went down the private elevator, out the employees’ exit, stopping briefly to ask the door guard a question. Then he taxied to the Calabria, an ancient hostelry on East Twenty-eighth.

The desk clerk was an amiable Mahatma Ghandi in a salt-and-pepper double-breasted suit and a bright azure bow tie.

“Mr. Eddrop? No sir, haven’t seen him around since he left this morning, sir. But I’ll try his room for you.” He plugged in on the antiquated switchboard, worked the jack without result.

Don opened his wallet to show his Nimbletts “Chief of Store Protection” card. “Anyone call here to see him while he was out, happen to remember?”

“No, sir.” The clerk’s eyes crinkled. “Mr. Eddrop has practically no visitors, you might say. But he often has phone calls and goes out to visit his — ah — friends. Is there anything wrong, sir?”

“Afraid there may be. Would these friends of his be feminine?”

“Well, I wouldn’t like to encourage gossip, sir. But since you’re from his place of business, and if he’s in any kind of trouble, I’m sure you wouldn’t pass along any ah — scandal—”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Feel sure of it, sir. I’ve been in this business long enough to be able to size a man up pretty well. You look reliable to me.”

“Thanks. He has a gal pal, then?”

“I believe you might draw that conclusion, sir. He’s quite often what we call a sleep-out, sir. Doesn’t use his bed at all. The maid always reports those things. Couple of times a week he never comes to the hotel at night at all.”

Don smiled. “Old boy’s single. No law says he can’t go stepping. Would she be in town, or out in Westchester or Long Island?”

The clerk tapped his prominent teeth with a yellow pencil. “I don’t wish to send you off on a wild goose chase, sir. But he frequently calls a Regent number.”

“Happen to have any record of it?”

Mahatma touched an index finger to his bony forehead. “In here, only. Regent 1-6643, to the best of my recollection.”

“You do all right for a young fellow. Would it be possible for you to take me up to his room? I don’t want to notify the police and go through the routine of getting a search warrant — if Eddrop turns up all right.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that, sir. I couldn’t leave the desk all alone. But since you have a legitimate interest in Mr. Eddrop’s well-being, I could let you take the pass key for a few minutes. I don’t think there’ll be any harm in that.”

“Good deal,” Don agreed. “Keep the hotel’s name out of the papers if there should be any disagreeable publicity. What’s his room?”

“Three-nine.” The clerk jingled a key ring. “You won’t disturb any of his things? I wouldn’t like him to feel that we were permitting any liberties with his possessions.”

“He’ll never know I’ve been up there.” Don took the keys.

The credit man’s room was as neat as a newly opened box of cigars. The things on the bureau and in it were arranged with military precision. Hairbrush, comb, clothes-brush, link-box, photograph of an elderly woman whose round, sad face resembled Eddrop’s markedly. Shirts, sox, underclothing, all stacked in clean piles. Suits on hangers, shoes on trees. Even the ties on the rack fixed to the closet door had all the reds and browns on one side, the greens and blues on the other.

There were books on the table. Function of Credit in Commercial Management, Theory of Time Payment Liabilities, Department Store Policies, more of similar nature. Ralph Eddrop kept his hotel quarters neat, whatever he did outside.

The medicine cabinet in the bathroom was equally tidy. Soap in wrappers, shaving cream, toothbrush, bottles and bottles of patent remedies. Hair restorer. Deodorant. Toilet water. Laxatives. Tonics. Vitamins. And on the second shelf a small gilt cylinder tucked behind a box of headache tablets. Don took it out, removed the gold cap, dabbed some of the stuff on the back of his left hand.

“I wonder what Cora would think of that,” he muttered, dropping the recapped cylinder in his pocket.

Downstairs again, he returned the keys to the desk clerk with thanks. “Nothing up there to help much. But I’ll let you know what we find out. You can tell Mr. Eddrop I was here, if he comes in.”

“I trust you turn up nothing of an unfortunate nature, sir.”

“So do I.”

Don walked to Madison, to a drug store. In the phone booth he called his office.

Cora spoke loudly. “Mr. Marko’s office. No sir, he’s not here.”

“Ho! You have an official eavesdropper, hah?”

“Yes sir, I’ll tell him,” The secretary was jittery.

“Does he have a warrant for me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine. Keep him amused, honey. Can you remember a message for Maxie?”

“Oh, yes. sir.”

“Ask him to check with Joe Kelly down at the telephone company. I want to know the address of the subscriber listed as Regent 1—6643. Got that?”

“Right.”

“Have Maxie ring me up at — wait a minute. I’m at Bryant 5-8017.”

“Thank you. sir. I’ll tell him, soon’s he comes in.”

He bought an evening paper, read the story under the headline:

The facts were a little garbled. The user of the shotgun was reported as having been an elderly man — that could have come from Clem’s notifying the cops about Don’s white hair. The shooting was alleged to have taken place after a violent lovers’ quarrel — that was strictly newspaper mahaha. Any nude female corpse would have to be the aftermath of a crime of passion. But there was no suggestion of any third party having been present and apparently none of the neighbors had come up with a description of Clem as the man who must often have visited Suzanne in the apartment.

The next editions, he reflected, would blazon Clem’s name and description across the front pages. Also, he thought uncomfortably, they might have one or two more demises to record, if Don himself didn’t work at top speed.

The phone in the booth jangled. It was Maxie.

“I got that subscriber, Boss.” The pickpocket specialist was agitated.

“Who?”

“You coulda knocked me over with a whiff of Chanel Five. That phone’s in the name of Ralph Eddrop.”

“At what address?”

“Two twenty-five Jane. In the Village. Know where it is?”

“About three blocks from my place on Christopher, Maxie. Thanks.”

“Y’need any help, Boss?”

“Just hold the fort, Maxie. The cavalry’s in my office, already.”

“You don’t know the half of it. The G.M. is popping his top.”

“Go in and hold his hand. I’ll buzz you back.”