Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

A huge sign displayed a single heavy-lidded feminine eye, the trademark of the establishment, repeated on highway signs thirty miles in every direction.

He parked and went into the tall lobby. The restaurant had closed at ten. A desk clerk placed a registration card in front of him with a hospitable flourish.

“Is the manager around?”

“What would you like to see him about? Maybe I can help you.”

“I’m not selling anything, if that’s what’s worrying you. Is he around?”

“He’s in the cocktail lounge, watching the fights. I could get him now, if it’s that important...”

“I’ll go watch the fights too. What’s his name?”

“Mr. Frank Durley. He’s a heavy-set man, bald.”

The cocktail lounge was very dark. Some lens spots shone directly down onto the bar, and there was a light behind the bottle racks. So much crowd noise came over the television set Wing got the impression there were a lot of people in the room. After he felt his way to the bar his vision adjusted and he saw there were but five people in addition to the bartender. A couple in a corner were leaning toward each other, ignoring the television set. Three men sat at the bar, watching it. The bald man sat alone. The other two were together.

Wing ordered a beer. He had taken a first sip when the fight was stopped in the seventh round. The bartender went to the set and turned it off, turned on some kind of background-music system, and increased the intensity of the light over the bar.

Durley got off the bar stool and said, “So you make another half buck off me, Harry.”

“A pleasure,” the bartender said.

As the manager started to leave, Jimmy Wing stopped him, introduced himself. When he said it was private, Durley led the way over to a table in the corner near the door.

“This is a delicate matter,” Jimmy said. “I’m a reporter for the Record-Journal , but this isn’t newspaper business. It’s more a favor for a friend.”

“That’s how come the name struck a bell. James Wing. I’ve seen it in the paper. I’ve seen you before too. Out here?”

“I came out to your opening in April. I don’t remember meeting you then. I met two of the owners.”

“I’m one of the owners too, fella. And manager. What’s this delicate matter you got on your mind?”

“A couple of kids. They’ve checked in here at least once, I think. Both the girl’s parents and the boy’s parents are friends of mine. I want to nail it down, prove it, so the parents can straighten those two out and get them off this kick.”

Durley had a fleshy, unrevealing face, a casual voice. “You want to nail it down.”

“I suppose the registration card would be the best way.”

“You got any kind of writ or warrant to check my books?”

“Mr. Durley, that isn’t a very cooperative attitude.”

Durley leaned forward, wearing a rather strange smile. “You want to know about my attitude? I got this kind of an attitude. I got the attitude of a man with a heavy piece of money in this thing. I sold out a nice operation in Jersey. You know when we were due to open? December first last year. So we open in April with the season over. You know the occupancy I run? Forty percent is a good night, a helluva good night. You know where the break-even is? Seventy-one per cent. So you come around doing a favor for a friend. I’m hurting, fella. I’m hurting real bad, and I’ll rent units to anything that’s warm, breathing and has money. Nobody around here ever heard of your kids. Anybody rents an overnight key here, they buy privacy too. You want something on anybody, fella, you don’t get it the easy way, not from me. You go around the other way, like following them. If we got to do a hot-pants trade to keep alive, we’ll do it until we get fat enough to pick and choose. You following me? In the meantime, they rent the key and they buy privacy. We need the local plates we’re getting, and if I fink on any of that business, word gets around and we lose it. Right now I’m running a hot-pillow trade in a six hundred thousand dollar plant, which makes no sense at all and sometimes makes me feel ashamed, but I’m doing it to survive, and I’ll keep doing it until I decide I don’t have to. That’s the kind of attitude I’ve got.”

Jimmy Wing poured the rest of his beer into his glass. He smiled and shook his head and said, “Rough talk, Mr. Durley. This local trade, you put them way in the back units so the cars are out of sight?”

“I got a lot of book work to do tonight, fella, so if you’ll...”

“Wait a minute. You’re in Palm County. I was born and raised here. I know a hell of a lot of people, Durley. I’ve done favors for so many of them, they’d do little favors for me without asking why. I know everybody in the courthouse.”

“Where are you going with it?”

“You got hard with me, right sudden. I don’t know as that’s too smart. This isn’t like Jersey. This is small town around here. Do all your signs conform to county ordinances? How much inspection are you getting on those county licenses you took out? How about sanitation? How about setbacks? All your kitchen help fingerprinted? Maybe it could even be a lot easier than that, Mr. Durley. Maybe a sheriff’s deputy could take a swing through all your parking areas every hour on the hour all night long, with that big red flasher working so nobody would miss him. Now, I’m telling you just as honestly as I can that the biggest mistake you can make right now is to decide I’m bluffing.”

Durley went over to the bar and came back with a drink. He sat quietly for almost a full minute. Finally he said, “I got so much on my mind, sometimes I forget how to be smart.”

“It was a week ago last Wednesday. They were in a unit in the last building in the back. Dark-haired girl, small and pretty. Big husky blond boy. Red Jaguar.”

“They would have checked in in the evening.”

“Probably. And left very early.”

“Let’s go check it with Pritch. He was on.”

They went into a small office beyond the switchboard. The desk clerk could not recall at first, and remembered when Wing said it was the night Gardner had stayed there.

“Oh, I think I’ve got it now. Let me check the cards.”

Pritchard came back with a card in his hand. “The girl came alone and registered right after I came on. Here’s the time stamp. Twelve after four. Haughty as hell. Wanted one way in the back. Went and looked at it and came back and paid cash. Eighteen fifty-four, with tax. She wanted to pay on her way in instead of out because she said she and her husband would be leaving early. Yes, I remember seeing the car out in front. Red Jag. She’s got here on the card Michigan plates.”

“That would be right,” Jimmy said.

“She said they’d take occupancy later on. And she...” He stopped, snapped his fingers, and excused himself again.

Durley examined the card and handed it to Wing. The writing was firm, large, angular, yet unmistakably feminine. Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel Tannis of Flint, Michigan. Wing was dryly amused to notice that Tannis was Sinnat spelled backward.

Pritchard came back and placed an identical card on the desk between them. “They’re in the house tonight, Frank. I thought it was familiar. But Gil checked them in before I come on. Is there something wrong?”

“Nothing you have to know about, Pritch,” Durley said. “All you have to remember is how Mr. Wing here is a man we’re real good buddies with. We’re such good buddies, you take these two cards in and run off a photo copy for our good friend Mr. Wing.”

The clerk took the cards away. “I appreciate this,” Jimmy said.

“That’s why I’m doing it. So you’ll appreciate it. So if I get in a jam I’ve got a local buddy to turn to. I wouldn’t want anybody thinking of all the things you thought of, and wanting a shakedown.”