He didn’t answer right away. His eyes went to sleep. He had been asked that question before.
“Mr. Mitchell took his car out early this morning.”
“How early?”
He reached for a pencil that was clipped to his pocket over the stitched-on scarlet script with the hotel name. He took the pencil out and looked at it.
“Just before seven o’clock. I went off at seven.”
“You work a twelve-hour shift? It’s only a little past seven now.”
He put the pencil back in his pocket. “I work an eight-hour shift but we rotate.”
“Oh. Last night you worked eleven to seven.”
“That’s right.” He was looking past my shoulder at something far away. “I’m due off now.”
I got out a pack of cigarettes and offered him one.
He shook his head.
“I’m only allowed to smoke in the office.”
“Or in the back of a Packard sedan.”
His right hand curled, as if around the haft of a knife.
“How’s your supply? Needing anything?”
He stared.
“You should have said ‘Supply of what?’” I told him.
He didn’t answer.
“And I would have said I wasn’t talking about tobacco,” I went on cheerfully. “About something cured with honey.”
Our eyes met and locked. Finally he said softly: “You a pusher?”
“You snapped out of it real nice, if you were in business at seven A.M. this morning. Looked to me as if you would be out of circulation for hours. You must have a clock in your head—like Eddie Arcaro.”
“Eddie Arcaro,” he repeated. “Oh yes, the jockey. Has a clock in his head, has he?”
“So they say.”
“We might do business,” he said remotely. “What’s your price?”
The buzzer sounded in the office. I had heard the elevator in the shaft subconsciously. The door opened and the couple I had seen holding hands in the lobby came through. The girl had on an evening dress and the boy wore a tux. They stood side by side, looking like two kids who had been caught kissing. The attendant glanced at them and went off and a car started and came back. A nice new Chrysler convertible. The guy handed the girl in carefully, as if she was already pregnant. The attendant stood holding the door. The guy came around the car and thanked him and got in.
“Is it very far to The Glass Room?” he asked diffidently.
“No, sir.” The attendant told them how to get there.
The guy smiled and thanked him and reached in his pocket and gave the attendant a dollar bill.
“You could have your car brought around to the entrance, Mr. Preston. All you have to do is call down.”
“Oh thanks, but this is fine,” the guy said hurriedly. He started carefully up the ramp. The Chrysler purred out of sight and was gone.
“Honeymooners,” I said. “They’re sweet. They just don’t want to be stared at.”
The attendant was standing in front of me again with the same flat look in his eyes.
“But there’s nothing sweet about us,” I added.
“If you’re a cop, let’s see the buzzer.”
“You think I’m a cop?”
“You’re some kind of nosy bastard.” Nothing he said changed the tone of his voice at all. It was frozen in B Flat. Johnny One-Note.
“I’m all of that,” I agreed. “I’m a private star. I followed somebody down here last night. You were in a Packard right over there”—I pointed—“and I went over and opened the door and sniffed the weed. I could have driven four Cadillacs out of here and you wouldn’t have turned over in bed. But that’s your business.”
“The price today,” he said. “I’m not arguing about last night.”
“Mitchell left by himself?”
He nodded.
“No baggage?”
“Nine pieces. I helped him load it. He checked out. Satisfied?”
“You checked with the office?”
