Flying Blind

“I’m not sure I care now,” I said. “Let’s go back to our hotel.”

She snuggled against me as we walked, and I was deciding whether to take her to my room or try for hers, when she said, “Do you ever wonder?”

“Wonder what?”

“If…if she had it.”

“Had what?”

“The baby. Your baby.”

I stopped again. We were in front of the Egyptian Theater with its white columns and looming color caricatures of Egyptian deities. “You sure know how to kill a mood, kid.”

“I’m sorry.” Her lower lip was quivering.

I put an arm around her shoulder and walked her along. “No, I don’t wonder about that at all,” I lied, and led her to the hotel and inside, and soon we were stepping into an elevator, which we had to ourselves. It was one of those automatic jobs, no operator. I pushed my floor button, 7, and she pushed hers, 11. Lucky numbers.

“You want to come up?” she asked, perkily hopeful. “We can order coffee, maybe some cake or something, from room service….”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No. And I’m gonna hate myself in the morning. But I’m tired. And you’re just too sweet a kid.”

She slipped her arms around me and kissed me softly, tenderly. “You’re so romantic…. You still love her, don’t you?”

“The problem is,” I said, “you still do.”

A little bell announced my floor. I touched her face and said, “See you tomorrow, kid.”

“Maybe breakfast?”

“Sure,” I said, stepping into the hallway. “Breakfast.”

And the doors began to close over that cute mug, the cherry-red lipstick a little mussed, and before she was gone, she waved like a child. I sighed and dug my handkerchief out and rubbed the gunk off my mouth. Just me in the hallway. No Margot. No Earl Carroll girl. Of course, I did still have that card….

I worked the key in the door and had it open only halfway when I saw him, sitting in a wooden armchair next to an open window in the small, modernly appointed hotel room, a book in his lap. Thoughtful of him, letting in that gentle breeze whispering the sheer curtains, because otherwise my room would have reeked of the smoke from the pipe clenched in his teeth.

“Took the liberty of making myself at home,” Forrestal said, mouth flinching that non-smile around the stem of the pipe. He hefted the book; the jacket said: To Have and Have Not. “Took the opportunity to catch up on my reading—it’s this fellow Hemingway’s latest. Little raw for my tastes.”

“I’m afraid I’m a Police Gazette sort of guy myself,” I said, closing the door behind me.

“I have to ask you to forgive my rudeness,” he said, taking the pipe out of his mouth, rising, tossing the book on my nearby dresser with a clunk. He still wore the same suit and tie as this afternoon, but it looked as crisp as if he’d just put it on. “There are matters we need to discuss…privately.”

Suddenly I was glad I hadn’t brought Margot back to my room. This little man with the broken nose and stiffly dignified air represented President Roosevelt, or least that was what I’d been told. But there was something ominous about all this.

“Oh-kay,” I said, and sat on the edge of my bed near the foot, where on the luggage stand my suitcase rested. “Why don’t you sit back down, Jim, and we’ll talk.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Not here…. Mind if I use your phone?”

“My room is your room.”

He flinched another non-smile and went to the nightstand and used the phone, speaking to the desk, asking for an outside line. His back was to me, perhaps so I couldn’t catch the number he dialed; I took the opportunity to slip my nine-millimeter out of the suitcase, and into my waistband, buttoning my suitcoat over it.

“Yes,” Forrestal said to somebody. “He’s here…. He’ll speak with us, yes.”

He hung up and turned to me and said, “We need to take a little ride.”

I gave him a smile that didn’t have much to do with smiling. “Those aren’t friendly words in Chicago. Not in my social circles, anyway.”

He chuckled, as he relighted his pipe with a kitchen match that he flicked to flame with a thumbnail. “I assure you this is a friendly ride…and, uh, you won’t be needing that weapon.”

“Nothing much gets past you, does it, Jim?”

“Nothing much.”

“Me, either. You aren’t armed.” I stood and patted my coat over where the gun was tucked. “I’ll just keep this with me. It’s not polite to go to a party without bringing a little something.”

He shrugged, as if it mattered not a whit to him, and brushed by me, on his way out. I’ll be damned if I didn’t follow him, into the hallway, onto the elevator.

And we rode down, his eyes on the floor indicator, he asked, “Pleasant evening with Miss DeCarrie?”