“He had his bill. All paid up and receipted.”
“Sure. And with that amount of baggage a hop came with him naturally.”
“The elevator kid. No hops on until seven-thirty. This was about one A.M.”
“Which elevator kid?”
“A Mex kid we call Chico.”
“You’re not Mex?”
“I’m part Chinese, part Hawaiian, part Filipino, and part nigger. You’d hate to be me.”
“Just one more question. How in hell do you get away with it? The muggles, I mean.”
He looked around. “I only smoke when I feel extra special low. What the hell’s it to you? What the hell’s it to anybody? Maybe I get caught and lose a crummy job. Maybe I get tossed in a cell. Maybe I’ve been in one all my life, carry it round with me. Satisfied?” He was talking too much. People with unstable nerves are like that. One moment monosyllables, next moment a flood. The low tired monotone of his voice went on.
“I’m not sore at anybody. I live. I eat. Sometimes I sleep. Come around and see me some time. I live in a flea bag in an old frame cottage on Polton’s Lane, which is really an alley. I live right behind the Esmeralda Hardware Company. The toilet’s in a shed. I wash in the kitchen, at a tin sink. I sleep on a couch with broken springs. Everything there is twenty years old. This is a rich man’s town. Come and see me. I live on a rich man’s property.”
“There’s a piece missing from your story about Mitchell,” I said.
“Which one?”
“The truth.”
“I’ll look under the couch for it. It might be a little dusty.”
There was the rough noise of a car entering the ramp from above. He turned away and I went through the door and rang for the elevator. He was a queer duck, the attendant, very queer. Kind of interesting, though. And kind of sad, too. One of the sad, one of the lost.
The elevator was a long time coming and before it came I had company waiting for it. Six feet three inches of handsome, healthy male named Clark Brandon. He was wearing a leather windbreaker and a heavy roll-collar blue sweater under it, a pair of beat-up Bedford cord breeches, and the kind of high laced boots that field engineers and surveyors wear in rough country. He looked like the boss of a drilling crew. In an hour from now, I had no doubt he would be at The Glass Room in a dinner suit and he would look like the boss of that too, and perhaps he was. Plenty of money, plenty of health and plenty of time to get the best out of both, and wherever he went he would be the owner.
He glanced at me and waited for me to get into the elevator when it came. The elevator kid saluted him respectfully. He nodded. We both got off at the lobby. Brandon crossed to the desk and got a big smile from the clerk—a new one I hadn’t seen before—and the clerk handed him a fistful of letters. Brandon leaned against the end of the counter and tore the envelopes open one by one and dropped them into a wastebasket beside where he was standing. Most of the letters went the same way. There was a rack of travel folders there. I picked one off and lit a cigarette and studied the folder.
Brandon had one letter that interested him. He read it several times. I could see that it was short and handwritten on the hotel stationery, but without looking over his shoulder that was all I could see. He stood holding the letter. Then he reached down into the basket and came up with the envelope. He studied that. He put the letter in his pocket and moved along the desk. He handed the clerk the envelope.
“This was handed in. Did you happen to see who left it? I don’t seem to know the party.”
The clerk looked at the envelope and nodded. “Yes, Mr. Brandon, a man left it just after I came on. He was a middle-aged fat man with glasses. Gray suit and topcoat and gray felt hat. Not a local type. A little shabby. A nobody.”
“Did he ask for me?”
“No, sir. Just asked me to put the note in your box. Anything wrong, Mr. Brandon?”
“Look like a goof?”
The clerk shook his head. “He just looked what I said. Like a nobody.”
Brandon chuckled. “He wants to make me a Mormon bishop for fifty dollars. Some kind of nut, obviously.” He picked the envelope up off the counter and put it in his pocket. He started to turn away, then said: “Seen Larry Mitchell around?”
“Not since I’ve been on, Mr. Brandon. But that’s only a couple of hours.”
“Thanks.”
Brandon walked across to the elevator and got in. It was a different elevator. The operator grinned all over his face and said something to Brandon. Brandon didn’t answer him or look at him. The kid looked hurt as he whooshed the doors shut. Brandon was scowling. He was less handsome when he scowled.
I put the travel folder back in the rack and moved over to the desk. The clerk looked at me without interest. His glance said I was not registered there. “Yes, sir?”
He was a gray-haired man who carried himself well. “I was just going to ask for Mr. Mitchell, but I heard what you said.”
“The house phones are over there.” He pointed with his chin. “The operator will connect you.”
“I doubt it.”
“Meaning what?”
I pulled my jacket open to get at my letter case. I could see the clerk’s eyes freeze on the rounded butt of the gun under my arm. I got the letter case out and pulled a card.
