Robert Randisi - You're nobody 'til somebody kills you

“You got your gun?” I asked Jerry.

“You bet.” He pulled his jacket aside to show me the.45 under his arm, but he didn’t draw it.

As we entered we saw the outer office was empty.

“Penny?” I called. She could have been in Danny’s office, but there was no answer. Jerry went and checked it anyway.

“Empty,” he said. “Maybe she went out for tea?”

Again I was impressed that he remembered Penny drank tea. It had taken me years to get that straight.

“Maybe, but …”

“But what?”

“Somethin’ doesn’t feel right.”

“Like what?”

I walked to Danny’s office and looked inside. The top of his desk was a mess. Danny always said his desk looked like the inside of his head.

On the other hand, Penny’s desk was always clean and neat. Only now there were letters sprawled across it and pencils strewn about, rather than in her pencil mug.

“Somebody took her,” I said.

“How do you know?”

I pointed at her desk and explained. “She’s sendin’ us a message.”

Jerry walked to the window and stared down at Fremont Street. Then he looked directly across, at the windows on the other side of the street.

“I don’t see nothin’.” He turned to face me. “Whataya wanna do? Call the cops?”

“I wouldn’t know what to tell them,” I said. “Her desk is a little messy. What would that mean to them? Besides, a great man once told me no good ever came from callin’ the cops,” I added, quoting him.

“You know where she lives?” Jerry asked.

“No.”

“Well, we can find the address somewhere here,” he said.

I scratched my head.

“I guess we should check her place. She’s probably listed in the phone book.”

We looked around, located the phone book and looked up her number. I dialed and she answered on the second ring.

“Penny?”

“Eddie? Where are you?”

“Your office. I thought-”

“You thought what? I’m upset, I didn’t want to sit in the office all day. I’m not going in until Danny comes back. Eddie, what’s going on? Why didn’t you call me when you got back?”

“Penny, I came lookin’ for you at the office. When I saw the mess on your desk I thought … I thought you were missing, too.”

“That’s sweet, Eddie, that you were worried, but I’m fine. I just left in a hurry. I had to get out of there.”

“I understand, honey.”

“You call me as soon as you know something, you hear me?”

“I will, Penny,” I said. “I promise.”

I hung up and looked at Jerry.

“We goin’ ta L.A.?”

I rubbed my face.

“We’d have to get our plane tickets pretty quick-”

“How long would it take to drive?” he asked.

“Drive?”

“Yeah,” Jerry said. “By the time we buy tickets, get to the airport, get on a plane-”

“It’s only about two hundred and fifty miles,” I told him.

“Hell, in your Caddy? We can do that in under three hours.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s find the name of the motel where Danny was staying. Then we’ll pack the car and head right out.”

We started searching for the information we needed. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to call Penny again. Finally, we found the motel name and address on her desk calendar.

We drove to my house so I could pack, then went to the Sands to get Jerry’s suitcase. After that we went down to the parking lot and tossed the bags in the back of the car.

“I get to drive, right?”

I nodded.

“You get to drive, big guy.”

The drive to L.A. took less than three hours. Jerry kept the Caddy between ninety and a hundred miles an hour most of the way and, surprisingly, we never got pulled over.

As we entered L.A., Jerry asked, “Where to?”

“Wait,” I said. “I’ve got to wait for my stomach to catch up.”

“Aw, Mr. G….”

“I’ve got directions to the motel Danny was stayin’ at,” I said. “I want to check there first.”

“Sure, Mr. G.”

The motel Danny had stayed in was just off 405, about half an hour’s drive from Marilyn’s house. He might have gotten something closer, but I knew he looked with a budget in mind. After all, I was going to be footing the bill.

We pulled into the parking lot of the Starshine Motor Court.

“You stay in the car,” I said. “I want to do this without being noticed, if I can.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll watch yer back from here.”

I decided to go to the room first. I opened the gate and entered the pool area, taking the stairs to the second level. Penny had written the room number down along with the address. When I got to Danny’s room I knocked. I thought, Wouldn’t it be a kick if he answered? Well, I was going to have to get my kicks somewhere else. He didn’t answer and the door was locked.

I heard something squeaking, turned my head and saw a maid pushing her cart. She wasn’t stopping at any of the rooms, so she must have finished for the day-at least, on this floor.

I started fishing around in my pocket, as if looking for my key. I didn’t know if this would work. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have worked on the maids in the Sands, but maybe here … then again, maids in L.A. hotels and motels had probably seen everything.

“Can you help me?” I asked, as she reached me.

She looked at me with bored, middle-aged eyes. Yeah, she’d seen it all. “You want in?”

“I forgot my key-”

“Don’t try to bullshit me, mister,” she said. “I been pushing this cart for too many years.”

“Well … okay. See, it’s my brother’s room and he said-”

“Ten bucks,” she said, cutting me off.

“What?”

“Ten bucks and I’ll let ya in.”

“Okay,” I agreed, handing over a sawbuck.

She used her key to open the door, swinging it wide and stepping back.

“Actually,” I said, trying one more time, “I think my wife’s cheating and using this motel-”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving her hand, “you don’t say nothin’ and I won’t say nothin’.”

She moved on. I went inside and closed the door behind me. She had obviously already cleaned the room. The bed was neatly made. There were fresh, dry towels in the bathroom. The bottom of the tub was dry. Maybe she hadn’t needed to replace the towels.

I looked through the dresser drawers and found nothing. There was no suitcase in the room. Danny may not have had time to pack anything. If he’d followed Marilyn from Tahoe he might have been resourceful enough to get on her flight and follow her all the way. He could have picked up whatever he needed in LAX when they landed, maybe even a t-shirt or two and some underwear. I looked in the wastebasket to see if there were any clothing tags or empty bags, but there was nothing. The maid had done her job well.

In fact, there was nothing in the room to indicate that Danny had ever been there. I went back into the bathroom and looked on the counter. Okay, there was a comb, and a bottle of cologne. It was Hai Karate. Danny used it, but so did a lot of other guys.

Playing detective in the room had gotten me nowhere. I decided to go to the front desk and ask. After all, what was I trying to hide? I just wanted to know if my friend had ever checked in.

I left the room, letting the door lock behind me.

“Sure,” the desk clerk said, “he took a room here. Been here … what? Four days?”

Sounded right. I had been in Brooklyn for three days. The desk clerk had answered my question for the same price it took to get the maid to open the door. I wasn’t sure if I had gotten a deal or not.

“Have you seen him lately?”

“Whataya mean lately?”