longer.
I took a breath and released it. “Where do you want to meet, Slater?”
“How about right in San Diego?” he came back promptly. “The Aztec Hotel. In the bar. I can be there at five tomorrow afternoon.”
It reminded me. “You won’t know me.”
“I won’t?”
“I have a new face.”
“ ‘Zat right? You been to Switzerland?”
“It was done here.”
“Remind me to get the name of the doctor. Couple pals of mine’d be interested. Now about tomorrow. I won’t be wearin’ a sign because I owe Uncle a little time, but you should know me. The Aztec bar at five, okay? An’ come thinkin’ big. You never heard nothin’ like this before.”
“I’ll be there,” I said, and hung up.
I didn’t go back to Curly’s.
I went back to my room and sat in its uncomfortable chair while I tried to figure out why I had jumped so quickly sight unseen at Slater’s unorthodox proposal for a meeting.
I gave it up finally and went to bed.
At four the next afternoon I scrawled the name of Earl Drake on an Aztec Hotel registration card and was assigned Room 304. I looked around the room after I got rid of the bellboy who had brought up my briefcase, my only piece of luggage. It was a pleasant-looking room. It seemed a shame to waste it on a meeting that might come to nothing.
No sooner thought than done. I went downstairs to the lobby pay phones. I gave the long distance operator Hazel’s number and waited while the call went through. “Hi,” I said when the familiar deep voice came on the line.
“Hi, yourself,” she returned in pleased surprise.
“Any excitement?”
“With you gone?” she asked demurely.
“What did you tell the man?”
“That I did it myself.”
“That you did it
“Oh, he didn’t believe me.” She giggled. “If it had been done with a two-by-four or a baseball bat, he’d have believed it quick enough, but—”
“Can you fly down here?” I interrupted her.
Her voice quickened. “I certainly can.”
“Get yourself booked and call me back here and let me know what time you’ll arrive at the airport.” I gave her the number of the pay phone booth.
“I’ll call you right back,” she promised.
I sat in a lobby armchair while I waited for the call. I had left Hazel’s place thinking that if she kept her mouth shut, there would be no real follow-through on the episode with the sadistic kids. Second thought had showed me the hole in the doughnut. Hazel had had visitors before. Eventually, a copy of the sheriff’s report was going to reach someone who remembered a sharpshooting incident in south Florida. Someone who was going to put two and two together. Hazel was going to have more visitors, and I wanted to talk to her first.
Her call back to me came within ten minutes. “I can’t get there till after midnight,” she said. “One A.M. Is that too late?”
“That’s fine. Walk right through the terminal out to the cabstand.” I’d have to make sure she wasn’t being followed, although it was a little early for that. “You’ll see me.”
“Not driving a cab, I hope?”
“Are you demeaning honest labor, woman?”
She snickered. “What should I bring in the way of clothes?”
“The legal minimum.”
She snickered again. “You certainly do make it easy on a girl.”
“See you at one A.M.” I said, and hung up.
I went upstairs to the room. I opened the briefcase, which contained only two items — the.38 and a shoulder holster. I removed my jacket, strapped on the holster, and replaced the jacket. I practiced with the gun until it was drawing freely. Then I sat down and turned on the television set.
At 4:55 I took the elevator down to the lobby again and stood in the doorway of the men’s bar. Half a dozen scattered figures sat on the stools in the tranquility of the dim lighting. There were as many more at the tables.
Slater wasn’t hard to locate. He didn’t look like I remembered him, but he looked like Slater ought to look ten years later. Burly, square-jawed, dour-looking. Menacing. Definitely older-looking but still capable.
I backed away from the doorway to a battery of nearby house phones that permitted me to keep an eye on the end of the bar where Slater sat. I watched him for five minutes to make sure he wasn’t exchanging hand or eye signals with anyone else in the room. If he was, I couldn’t detect it. I picked up the phone.
“Ring the bar and have Mr. Slater paged, please,” I told the hotel operator when she came on the line.
The page call didn’t carry out to the lobby, where I was standing, but I saw Slater’s head come up when he heard it. He slid from his bar stool and walked out of my line of vision toward a phone indicated by the barman. “Yeah?” the same gruff voice as the previous night said in my ear.
“The bar is too public,” I said. “I’m upstairs in Room 529.”
“Suits me. I’ll be right there.”
Slater came back to his drink, picked it up, and drained it. His back was toward me as he set his empty glass down slowly, then walked out into the lobby without a backward glance. He passed within six feet of me on his way to the elevators, but I remained where I was and kept my eyes on the bar stool Slater had just left.
In seconds a huge blond man with walking-beam shoulders moved to the stool and sat down. The barman started in his direction, but the Viking snapped his fingers as though he’d just remembered something. He left the stool and went toward the lobby.
Before he cleared the doorway, I was walking toward the same bar stool. I didn’t even need to sit down. Boldly traced in the moisture on the bar top were the figures 529. Slater had left a message.
I made it back into the lobby in time to see the Viking step aboard an elevator. The indicator of the one alongside it marked it as being at the fifth floor. I stationed myself in front of it. Sure enough, it started downward. I glanced around. There was no one standing near me in front of the bank of elevators. When the shining bronze doors opened, I was standing directly in front of Slater. His features were flushed and angry-looking.
He started to move around me. I put both hands against his chest and pushed. He went backward into the elevator cab, his face comical in its surprise. I stepped aboard and jabbed the control button, which closed the elevator doors behind us. In the same moment I crowded Slater so he could feel the outline of the holstered gun, then stepped away so he couldn’t reach me with his hard-looking hands. “You made a mistake in not coming alone,” I told him. “Let’s hear the story fast or only one of us is going to walk off this thing.”
His expression was dangerous-looking as he eyed me. Then he decided to smile. “You’re a cute bastard,” he said. His voice was calm. “You’re right about the face. I’d never have known you.”
“Never mind the chatter. Who’s your oversized blond friend?”
“Another cute bastard. The guy who’s goin’ to get us where we need to go on this caper.”
We couldn’t stay on the elevator forever. I punched the third-floor button. When the doors opened, I motioned to Slater to leave first. “Room 304,” I said. “To the right.”
He moved down the corridor ahead of me. He had a firm, easy stride. He stood back while I unlocked the door. One hand inside my jacket, I waved him inside. He entered warily, scanning the room for possible hiding places that might conceal an accomplice. He looked into the bathroom, then into the closet. Satisfied that we were alone, he spoke up again. This time his tone was businesslike. “You should have been able to tell by lookin’ at him that he’s no cop,” he said.
That much was true. In the quick glimpse I’d had of him, the big man seemed to have none of the usual
