I thought of what Billie's landlady had told him. 'Forget it,' I said.
'It could happen to a bishop.'
'Hey, I got to remember that one. It could happen to a bishop. And probably does.'
'Probably.'
'You getting anywhere with your investigation? Coming up with anything?'
'It's hard to tell.'
'I know what you mean. If there's anything I can do for you—'
'Matter of fact, there is.'
'Oh?'
'I went over to the Galaxy Downtowner,' I said. 'Talked to an assistant manager. He showed me the registration card Mr. Jones signed.'
'The famous Mr. Jones.'
'There was no signature on it. The name was handprinted.'
'Figures.'
'I asked if I could go through the cards for the past few months and see if there were any other hand-printed signatures, and how they compared to Jones's printing. He couldn't authorize it.'
'You should have slipped him a few bucks.'
'I tried. He didn't even know what I was getting at. But you could have him pull the printed cards. He wouldn't do it for me because I've got no official standing, but he'd hop to it if a cop made the request.'
He didn't say anything for a moment. Then he asked if I thought it was going to lead anywhere.
'It might,' I said.
'You think whoever did it stayed at the hotel before? Under some other name?'
'It's possible.'
'But not his own name, or he would have signed it in script instead of being cute. So what we'd wind up with, assuming we got very lucky and there was a card to be found and we actually came up with it, what we'd have is another alias for the same son of a bitch, and we wouldn't be any closer'n we are now to knowing who he is.'
'There's another thing you could do, while you were at it.'
'What's that?'
'Have other hotels in the area check their registrations for, oh, the past six months or a year.'
'Check 'em for what? Printed registrations? Come on, Matt. You know the man-hours you're talking about?'
'Not printed registrations. Have them check for guests named Jones. I'm talking about hotels like the Galaxy Downtowner, modern hotels in that price range. Most of them'll be like the Galaxy and have their registrations on computer. They can pull their Jones registrations in five or ten minutes, but not unless someone with a tin shield asks 'em to.'
'And then what have you got?'
'You pull the appropriate cards, look for a guest named Jones, probably with the first initial C or the initials CO, and you compare printing and see if you find him anywhere. If you come up with anything you see where it leads. I don't have to tell you what to do with a lead.'
He was silent again. 'I don't know,' he said at length. 'It sounds pretty thin.'
'Maybe it is.'
'I'll tell you what I think it is. I think it's a waste of time.'
'It's not a waste of all that much time. And it's not that thin. Joe, you'd do it if the case wasn't already closed in your mind.'
'I don't know about that.'
'Of course you would. You think it's a hired killer or a lunatic. If it's a hired killer you want to close it out and if it's a lunatic you want to wait until he does it again.'
'I wouldn't go that far.'
'You went that far last night.'
'Last night was last night, for Christ's sake. I already explained about last night.'
'It wasn't a hired killer,' I said. 'And it wasn't a lunatic just picking her out of the blue.'
'You sound like you're sure of it.'
'Reasonably sure.'
'Why?'
'No hired hitman goes crazy that way. What did he hit her, sixty times with a machete?'
'I think it was sixty-six.'
