'When you find one with your picture on it,' Joe advised him,
'bring it over and I'll get you to autograph it for me. Matt, let me see if I've got this straight. You want me to call the Omaha police and ask them to check hotel records for some zip named Johnson.'
'I'd appreciate it,' I said.
'You'd appreciate it. In a tangible way, do you suppose?'
'Tangible. Yes, I suppose I—'
'I like that word,' he said. 'Tangible. It means you can touch it.
You reach out and it's there. Which gives rise to a question. Why don't you reach out and touch someone?'
'Pardon me?'
'You know the hotel, right? The Hilton?'
'That's the place to start. I'm not positive that's where he stayed, but—'
'But you'd start there. Why didn't you? Use their eight hundred number and the call's free. Can't beat that for a bargain.'
'I called,' I said. 'I didn't get anywhere.'
'You identify yourself as a police officer?'
'That's illegal.' He gave me a look. 'I may have given that impression,' I admitted. 'It didn't do me any good.'
'Since when did you become incapable of calling a hotel and conning a little information out of a desk clerk?' He looked at the slip of paper in front of him. 'Omaha,' he said. 'What the hell ever happened in Omaha?' He looked at me. 'Jesus Christ,' he said.
'Not Him personally,' TJ put in, 'but this dude who said he was real tight with Him.'
'The abortion guy. What was his name?'
'How quickly we forget.'
'Roswell Berry. Will got him right in his hotel room, didn't he? I forget which hotel, but why is it something tells me it was the Hilton?'
'Why indeed?'
'You have reason to think our boy Will's a guy named Johnson?'
'It's a name he may have been using.'
'No wonder the Hilton wouldn't tell you anything. You wouldn't have been the first caller trying to get something out of them. All the tabloids, guarding the public's right to know. The Omaha PD must have slammed the lid shut.'
'That would be my guess.'
'You know how many detectives are working on Will? I can't tell you the number, but what I do know is I'm not one of them. How do I justify sticking my nose in?'
'Maybe this doesn't have anything to do with Will,' I said. 'Maybe it's a simple investigation of a robbery suspect who pulled a series of holdups in this precinct and may have fled to Omaha.'
'Where he's got relatives. But instead of staying with them we think he holed up at the Hilton. We know the dates, and the name he used. That's some story, Matt.'
'You probably won't have to tell it,' I said.
'You're a New York police detective with a question that's easy to answer. Why should they give you a hard time?'
'People have never needed a reason in the past.' He picked up the phone. 'Here's a question that's not easy to answer. Why the hell am I doing this?'
* * *
'Allen W. Johnson,' he said. 'That's Allen with two L's and an E. I don't know what the W stands for. I don't suppose it stands for Will.'
'I'm not sure it stands for anything.'
'Stayed two nights and paid cash. As a matter of fact, the Omaha cops checked on everybody staying at the hotel as part of their investigation of Berry's murder. Anybody paid cash, that was a red flag.
So Mr. Allen Johnson definitely had their attention.'
'Did they have a chance to talk to him?'
'He'd already checked out. Never used the phone or charged anything to his room.'
'I don't suppose they've got a description of him.'
'Yeah, they got a real useful one. He was a man and he was wearing a suit.'
'Narrows it down.'
'He checked out after Will got Berry with the coat hanger, but before the body was discovered. So why take a second look at him?'
