David Rosenfelt - New Tricks

“You don’t have to. We’ll bring the office here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kevin and Edna would be fine working here instead of the office. It’s no hardship at all. And that way you can sit in on meetings and be a part of things.”

“Andy, please tell me if I’m being childish.”

“Not at all,” I say. “It’s a great idea.” And in fact it is. “Now, what else can I do?”

“You can hold me.”

Since Waggy and Tara are still on each side of her, that is going to be difficult. “You seem to be surrounded,” I say.

“Not now. Tonight. In bed. I want you to hold me all night.”

“You’re asking a lot, you know.”

She smiles. “I realize that. And I wouldn’t blame you if you refused.”

“This is not going to turn into an every-night thing, is it?”

“No, I promise,” she says. “Tomorrow night I’ll find someone else to hold me.”

“I’ll tell you what. We’ll try it with me for a year, and see how it goes.”

She smiles again. “I think it will go fine.”

Me too.

THE HAMILTON HOTEL is on Hudson Street in New York City.

At the moment it is considered the hippest part of the entire city, and I am aware of that because I know people, who know people, who know people, who are hip.

This is actually known as the Meatpacking District, because for years it has been the city’s center of wholesale meats. Mind-bogglingly, the meatpacking business is still thriving, even though hipness is springing up all around it. The area is now filled with expensive hotels and boutiques in addition to less expensive lamb chops and veal shanks.

Only in New York.

In front of the Hamilton are velvet rope lines, and even though it is only three in the afternoon, they are preparing for the influx of people who will try to get into their rooftop bar tonight. I am told that people will regularly stand out here for hours in the hope, often vain, that they will get past the bouncers and gain admission.

Like everything else about the hip world that I’ve never inhabited, it makes no sense to me. There are half a billion bars in New York City that you can just walk into and order a drink. They’re more ubiquitous than pizzerias. What could prompt a person to wait hours, and risk rejection, in order to get into this one? And the drinks are probably priced like used cars. So why do people come here? How good could their vodka be?

I enter through the revolving door and walk the fifty feet or so to the concierge desk. On the way there, three employees wish me a good afternoon. They obviously care about me a lot.

I have found that expensive hotels in New York either are very modern or look like they were furnished during the Revolutionary War. This one is modern, and the entire lobby is done in black, white, and chrome. The floor is white with diagonal chrome stripes, and the only carpeting is a few small area rugs in the seating areas. I guess if they raise their room rates to nine hundred a night, they’ll be able to afford wall-to-wall.

I know my bias is showing, but I hate hotels like this. The rooms are usually smaller than the average Holiday Inn, and you have to take out a mortgage to eat peanuts from the mini bar. Yet those rooms are always filled, at least until another, even hotter, hotel opens up down the street.

The female concierge is helping a male guest, so I stand behind him and eavesdrop. He has a number of requests: dinner reservations, theater tickets, limousine rental… all of which she handles with ease with a phone call.

Each call she makes she starts with, “This is the concierge at the Hamilton Hotel,” spoken in the same imperious tone she would use if she were announcing that the queen of England was calling. But it certainly works; this is a woman who gets what she wants, or at least what the guest wants. If I were staying here I would be throwing requests at her all the time; it would be like having my own genie.

When it’s my turn, we exchange greetings and I say, “I’d like to speak with the manager, please.”

She smiles and says. “Perhaps I can help you?”

“Are you perhaps the manager?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you likely to be promoted to manager in the next few minutes?”

“No, sir, I-”

“Then I’m afraid you won’t be able to help me. So please tell the manager that I would like to see him.”

“Who may I say is calling?”

“My name is Carpenter… I’m investigating a double murder.”

Apparently among the things concierges don’t like to deal with are double murders, since once I say that, she seems rather relieved that I am not asking her to help. She picks up the phone and dials the manager, or at least his office, and within moments I am on the elevator on the way to the top floor. There are video screens on the elevator running old cartoons, which must be another sign of hipness. I should be taking notes on this stuff, so I can impress Laurie with it.

The manager’s name is Lionel Paulson, and he seems not to be more than thirty-five or so. He’s dressed in a suit that, while I’m no expert, appears to be silk. In fact, it looks so silky smooth that he must have to hold on to the arms of his chair so as not to slide to the floor.

We say our hellos, and I take the chair across from his desk. He asks me to show him some identification.

“You mean like a driver’s license?” I ask.

“No, I mean like a badge, or a shield, or whatever it’s called that shows me what agency you are employed by.”

“I’m an attorney,” I say. “We don’t get badges, but I can show you our secret handshake.”

He is surprised, and tells me that since I had told the concierge that I was investigating a murder, he assumed I was a law enforcement officer.

I assure him that I am not, and I tell him that I want to interview his staff to see if anyone remembers Diana Timmerman. I take out a picture of her that I have and show it to him.

“I certainly have no idea who she is,” he says, holding the picture up as he looks at it.

“Was.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Who she was,” I say. “She was one of the murder victims.”

He drops the picture as if it were on fire. “Oh, my. And she was a guest in this hotel?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so. But she visited someone who was on at least two occasions. I want to know who that was.”

“Our guests have an expectation of privacy.”

“Then one of them is not going to have his expectations met.”

“Your hope is to ask hotel employees if they have seen this woman?”

“I won’t be doing the asking. I’ll send a few private investigators in; they’ll be discreet.”

“I can’t have disruptions, I…”

I shake my head. “A disruption would be if I send a team of big burly guys to serve subpoenas on everyone when you’ve got a line of people waiting to get into your bar.” I’m not being honest about this; I don’t have subpoena power, and couldn’t get it if I tried.

“When do you propose to have your people here?”

“Tomorrow at five thirty. That’s the time of day that she was here both times. And I’ll need to know if someone was on duty those days, especially in the bar, who won’t be here tomorrow.”

He agrees to my request, after getting me to promise to have my people go about their business quietly and professionally. He will convey to the hotel employees that they should answer the questions openly and honestly.

There’s always a chance that he will check, learn that I don’t have subpoena power, and change his mind. It’s unlikely; he will probably just go through with it and hope it doesn’t cause any problems.