Stewart Sterling - Dead of Night

On percentage, I should have figured that pillow slip would turn out to be the fuse to a case full of dynamite. Nine times out of ten the real trouble in any hotel breaks just before the security chief is supposed to go off duty. This call came through at five to eight. I was practically on my way over to the Garden to catch the bantamweight prelims. I should have known.

But it had been a quiet night. Nothing more exciting than putting the grip on a pair of wallet workers who’d been smiting the pre-theater crowd hip and thigh until we placed them under genteel restraint. So when Zingy flagged me, I took for granted it would be merely too much alcohilarity on the sixth where a bunch of tycoons were tuning up for a banquet. Matter requiring tact but not much time, probably.

From across the lobby at the bell desk, Zingy — our jockey-sized bell captain on the night side — gave me the P sign, thumb and index fingers circled against the other outstretched forefinger, and followed it with a sweeping gesture of the palm horizontal like an umpire calling a man safe on base. One of the staff wanted me. That shouldn’t hold me up long, I figured.

Walking to the house phones, I kept my eyes on the couple who’d attracted my attention just before Zingy began his deaf-mute signals. Sandy-haired man about thirty-five; solidly put together; stocky but not fleshy; short, wide face with prominent cheekbones, broad nostrils and a thin, prissy mouth; he looked like the sort of gent who’d call every bellman Mac and every porter George.

His tux was a mite too large for him. I’d never have given it another thought if he’d been too big for his coat. Lots of bulgy burghers outgrow their tailor-mades.

But though this lad was already big, he’d need four more inches around the short ribs before he caught up with that jacket. Trifling thing? Sure. But a rented tux, paraded alongside the sleek custom jobs ordinarily circulating around our plushery, stands out like a beard on a room clerk.

Nothing wrong about hiring a pair of satin lapels, to be sure. Only — the kind of customers who can afford our Plaza Royale prices usually don’t have to rent dinner clothes. Then too, this joe matched up with his companion about like melted margarine with some of Sandor’s champignons. She was a thing.

Maybe it was the way that tall, silver comb set off her black hair in regular tourist-ad señorita style. Or the lacy, black shawl-thing over her otherwise bare shoulders and white dinner gown. Anyhow the effect was Spanish enough to make me think of clicking castanets and the thrum of guitars and high heels stamping out the final bars of a samba. What I could see of her face helped the idea along; she was young and pretty in spite of the white patch covering her right eye.

Perhaps that disfiguring patch accounted for her being so gidgety. She kept glancing around nervously, twisting her head this way and that, clutching her escort’s arm as if she was afraid he’d get away from her. Which he might have been trying to do, from what I could see of his actions.

There’d only been the two of them in the elevator when it let them out at the lobby level. Prissy-mouth had stalked out ahead of her, then turned as if suddenly remembering his manners and made a grab for her. She shook his hand off irritably, spoke crossly to him, and tucked her hand inside his arm, as they came toward the Fifth Avenue entrance. All the way across the lobby, he’d kept half a stride ahead, practically dragging her behind him. Queer pair.

It’s no part of the security office’s job to oversee who twos around with who. But something about this guy made me think of various unpleasantries a few of our femme guests had experienced after hiring an escort from one of the bureaus that make a business of that sort of thing. I made a mental note to check up on the elegant eyeful, and picked up the phone to ask if somebody wanted Mister Vine.

“Mrs. Munster does, Mister V.” The switchboard gal connected me with the head housekeeper.

“Want me, Ada?”

“I’ve got a pillow slip, Mister Vine. I wish you’d come up and look at it.” Ada Munster sounded fretful and worried, but then anybody who has to supervise two hundred floor maids is likely to sound that way.

“In the morning, okay?” I wouldn’t miss more than one of the preliminary bouts, if I could get going right away.

“I do think you’d better see it tonight. It’s got oil on it.”

That didn’t sound good. Ada wouldn’t have called about hair oil.

“And there’s — something else.” She didn’t want to talk with the switchboard girl listening. They always do on security calls. By request.

“What room, Ada?”

“Suite Twenty-One Em Em, Mister V. But I’m in my office.”

“I’ll be up.” I kissed the bantam bouts good-by, wondered if I’d make it in time for the middleweights.

When I went around behind the main desk to go back into the board room, Reidy Duman, our silky-suave assistant manager, asked if I hadn’t planned to go to the fights.

I said I’d be going directly. Meanwhile, what did he know about deluxe duplex 21MM?

He came around back of the registration board with me, looked over my shoulder at the card I took out of the rack.

It said that Teresa Marino (Miss) and maid, from Dallas, Texas, had checked in Monday, July ninth, at a daily rate of $75.00. Evidently a gal who could afford her morning corn flakes at a dime a flake, if she so wished. There were a couple of significant notations. Beside Length of Stay was typed 3–4 w. Under Credit was the Est. which meant our cashier’s department had established her financial standing to its satisfaction. Under Previous Guest History was a cryptic ?. Meaning that there weren’t any records of her preference in hard or soft pillows, things like that.

“Oh, oh! That one!” Reidy touched finger tips to lips, blew a kiss to the filing-cabinets. “Something spesh. Here for eye treatment. Wears a patch—”

I said I’d seen her. And wondered why I hadn’t noticed her around the lobby or the dining-room or the elevators in the five days she’d been here. “Like to look at her bill, Reidy.”

He got it from the 20-2400 cashier. It didn’t tell much except that in the hundred-odd hours since checking in, Miss T. Marino and maid had spent a nice snug total of $311.40 for Restaurant and Bar. Also that she had quite a flock of clothes and wasn’t backward about sending them to the cleaners in large batches.

Further, that she had a loose hand with a telephone, both local and L.D. There were quite a lot of the long-line charges. None of them were to Dallas. Or any place in Texas. There were six to Lexington, Kentucky. One for each day. One extra for Saturday.

Reidy cocked a canny eye at me. “Something?”

“Thing that killed the cat, that’s all. Saw her few minutes ago with a lad who didn’t seem in her handicap division. Always thinking of the guests’ welfare. See framed motto.”

He wasn’t fooled. “Want me to put her on the Watch List?”

“I’ll do it if it’s necessary.” Reidy’s a right boy, but like all assistant managers, suffers from the illusion he can boss the security office around. “You skin your own snakes.”

“Hope you lose every bet at the Garden.” He grinned.

I went out to see Pete Zingara.

“Miss Marino? Zounds and gadzooks!” Zingy did a soft-shoe break beside the bell desk. “Halfies all the time. Never less than halfies. Sometimes she gives with the buck, on drugstore errands. For headache powders, stuff from the prescription, like that.”