Эд Макбейн: Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here

“I don’t like being coerced,” he said.

“I don’t like being refused,” Kling answered.

“When do you need this?”

“I want to get going on it before morning.”

“You expect miracles, don’t you?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Miracles cost.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five if I turn up one heap, fifty if I turn up both.”

“Turn them up first. We’ll talk later.”

“And if somebody breaks my head later?”

“You should have thought of that before you entered the profession,” Kling said. “Come on, Donner, cut it out. This is a routine bombing by a couple of punks. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

“No?” Donner asked. And then, in a very professorial voice, he uttered perhaps the biggest understatement of the decade. “Racial tensions are running very high in this city right now.”

“Have you got my number at the squadroom?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Donner said glumly.

“I’m going back there now. Let me hear from you soon.”

“You mind if I get dressed first?” Donner asked.

The night clerk at The Addison Hotel was alone in the lobby when Carella and Hawes walked in. Immersed in an open book on the desk in front of him, he did not look up as they approached. The lobby was furnished in faded Gothic: a threadbare oriental rug, heavy curlicued mahogany tables, ponderous stuffed chairs with sagging bottoms and soiled antimacassars, two spittoons resting alongside each of two mahogany-paneled supporting columns. A real Tiffany lampshade hung over the registration desk, one leaded glass panel gone, another badly cracked. In the old days, The Addison had been a luxury hotel. It now wore its past splendor with all the style of a two-dollar hooker in a moth-eaten mink she’d picked up in a thrift shop.

The clerk, in contrast to his ancient surroundings, was a young man in his mid-twenties, wearing a neatly pressed brown tweed suit, a tan shirt, a gold-and-brown silk rep tie, and eyeglasses with tortoiseshell rims. He glanced up at the detectives belatedly, squinting after the intense concentration of peering at print, and then he got to his feet.

“Yes, gentlemen,” he said. “May I help you?”

“Police officers,” Carella said. He took his wallet from his pocket and opened it to where his detective’s shield was pinned to a leather flap.

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m Detective Carella, this is my partner, Detective Hawes.”

“How do you do? I’m the night clerk, my name is Ronnie Sanford.”

“We’re looking for someone who may have been registered here two weeks ago,” Hawes said.

“Well, if he was registered here two weeks ago,” Sanford said, “chances are he’s still registered. Most of our guests are residents.”

“Do you keep stationery in the lobby here?” Carella asked.

“Sir?”

“Stationery. Is there any place here in the lobby where someone could walk in off the street and pick up a piece of stationery?”

“No, sir. There’s a writing desk there in the corner, near the staircase, but we don’t stock it with stationery, no, sir.”

“Is there stationery in the rooms?”

“Yes, sir.” “How about here at the desk?”

“Yes, of course, sir.”

“Is there someone at this desk twenty-four hours a day?”

“Twenty-four hours a day, yes, sir. We have three shifts. Eight to four in the afternoon. Four to midnight. And midnight to eight A.M.”

“You came on at midnight, did you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any guests come in after you started your shift?”

“A few, yes, sir.”

“Notice anybody with blood on his clothes?”

“Blood? Oh, no, sir.”

“ Would you have noticed?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you generally pretty aware of what’s going on around here?”

“I try to be, sir. At least, for most of the night. I catch a little nap when I’m not studying, but usually—”

“What do you study?”

“Accounting.”

“Where?”

“At Ramsey U.”

“Mind if we take a look at your register?”

“Not at all, sir.”

He walked to the mail rack and took the hotel register from the counter there. Returning to the desk, he opened it and said, “All of our present guests are residents, with the exception of Mr. Lambert in 204, and Mrs. Grant in 701.”

“When did they check in?”

“Mr. Lambert checked in... last night, I think it was. And Mrs. Grant has been here for four days. She’s leaving on Tuesday.”

“Are these the actual signatures of your guests?”

“Yes, sir. All guests are asked to sign the register, as required by state law.”

“Have you got that note, Cotton?” Carella asked, and then turned again to Sanford. “Would you mind if we took this over to the couch there?”

“Well, we’re not supposed—”

“We can give you a receipt for it, if you like.”

“No, I guess it’ll be all right.”

They carried the register to a couch upholstered in faded red velvet. With the book supported on Carella’s lap, they unfolded the note Mercy Howell had received and began comparing the signatures of the guests with the only part of the note that was not written in block letters, the words “The Avenging Angel.”

There were fifty-two guests in the hotel. Carella and Hawes went through the register once and then started through it a second time.

“Hey,” Hawes said suddenly.

“What?”

“Look at this one.”

He took the note and placed it on the page so that it was directly above one of the signatures:

“What you think?” he asked.

“Different handwriting,” Carella said.

“Same initials,” Hawes said.

Detective Meyer Meyer was still shaken. He did not like ghosts. He did not like this house. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be in bed with his wife Sarah. He wanted her to stroke his hand and tell him that such things did not exist, there was nothing to be afraid of, a grown man? How could he believe in poltergeists, shades, Dutch spirits? Ridiculous.

But he had heard them, and he had felt their chilling presence, and had almost thought he’d seen them, if only for an instant. He turned with fresh shock now toward the hall staircase and the sound of descending footsteps. Eyes wide, he waited for whatever new manifestation might present itself. He was tempted to draw his revolver, but he was afraid such an act would appear foolish to the Gormans. He had come here a skeptic, and he was now at least willing to believe, and he waited in dread for whatever was coming down those steps with such ponderous footfalls — some ghoul trailing winding sheets and rattling chains? Some specter with a bleached skull for a head and long bony clutching fingers dripping the blood of babies?

Willem Van Houten, wearing his red velvet slippers and his red smoking jacket, his hair still jutting wildly from behind each ear, his blue eyes fierce and snapping, came into the living room and walked directly to where his daughter and son-in-law were sitting.

“Well?” he asked. “Did they come again?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Adele said.

“What did they want this time?”

“I don’t know. They spoke Dutch again.”

“Bastards,” Van Houten said, and then turned to Meyer. “Did you see them?” he asked.

“No, sir, I did not,” Meyer said.

“But they were here, ” Gorman protested, and turned his blank face to his wife. “I heard them.”

“Yes, darling,” Adele assured him. “We all heard them. But it was like that other time, don’t you remember? When we could hear them even though they couldn’t quite break through.”