“Would it be convenient for me to see your house man? If you have one.”
He took the card and read it. He looked up. “Have a seat in the main lobby, Mr. Marlowe.”
“Thank you.”
He was on the phone before I had done a complete turn away from the desk. I went through the arch and sat against the wall where I could see the desk. I didn’t have very long to wait.
The man had a hard straight back and a hard straight face, with the kind of skin that never tans but only reddens and pales out again. His hair was almost a pompadour and mostly reddish blond. He stood in the archway and let his eyes take in the lobby slowly. He didn’t look at me any longer than at anybody else. Then he came over and sat down in the next chair to me. He wore a brown suit and a brown and yellow bow tie. His clothes fitted him nicely. There were fine blond hairs on his cheeks high up. There was a grace note of gray in his hair.
“My name’s Javonen,” he said without looking at me. “I know yours. Got your card in my pocket. What’s your trouble?”
“Man named Mitchell. I’m looking for him. Larry Mitchell.”
“You’re looking for him why?”
“Business. Any reason why I shouldn’t look for him?”
“No reason at all. He’s out of town. Left early this morning.”
“So I heard. It puzzled me some. He only got home yesterday. On the Super Chief. In L.A. he picked up his car and drove down. Also, he was broke. Had to make a touch for dinner money. He ate dinner at The Glass Room with a girl. He was pretty drunk—or pretended to be. It got him out of paying the check.”
“He can sign his checks here,” Javonen said indifferently. His eyes kept flicking around the lobby as if he expected to see one of the canasta players yank a gun and shoot his partner or one of the old ladies at the big jigsaw puzzle start pulling hair. He had two expressions—hard and harder. “Mr. Mitchell is well known in Esmeralda.”
“Well, but not favorably,” I said.
He turned his head and gave me a bleak stare, “I’m an assistant manager here, Mr. Marlowe. I double as security officer. I can’t discuss the reputation of a guest of the hotel with you.”
“You don’t have to. I know it. From various sources. I’ve observed him in action. Last night he put the bite on somebody and got enough to blow town. Taking his baggage with him, is my information.”
“Who gave this information to you?” He looked tough asking that.
I tried to look tough not answering it. “On top of that I’ll give you three guesses,” I said. “One, his bed wasn’t slept in last night. Two, it was reported to the office sometime today that his room had been cleaned out. Three, somebody on your night staff won’t show for work tonight. Mitchell couldn’t get all his stuff out without help.”
Javonen looked at me, then prowled the lobby again with his eyes. “Got something that proves you are what the card reads? Anyone can have a card printed.”
I got my wallet out and slipped a small photostat of my license from it and passed it over. He glanced at it and handed it back. I put it away.
“We have our own organization to take care of skipouts,” he said. “They happen—in any hotel. We don’t need your help. And we don’t like guns in the lobby. The clerk saw yours. Somebody else could see it. We had a stickup attempted here nine months ago. One of the heist guys got dead. I shot him.”
“I read about it in the paper,” I said. “It scared me for days and days.”
“You read some of it. We lost four or five thousand dollars worth of business the week following. People checked out by the dozen. You get my point?”
“I let the clerk see my gun butt on purpose. I’ve been asking for Mitchell all day and all I got was the runaround. If the man checked out, why not say so? Nobody had to tell me he had jumped his bill.”
“Nobody said he jumped his bill. His bill, Mr. Marlowe, was paid in full. So where does that leave you?”
“Wondering why it was a secret he had checked out.”
He looked contemptuous. “Nobody said that either. You don’t listen good. I said he was out of town on a trip. I said his bill was paid in full. I didn’t say how much baggage he took. I didn’t say he had given up his room. I didn’t say that what he took was all he had. Just what are you trying to make out of all this?”
“Who paid his bill?”
His face got a little red. “Look, buster, I told you he paid it. In person, last night, in full and a week in advance as well. I’ve been pretty patient with you. Now you tell me something. What’s your angle?”
“I don’t have one. You’ve talked me out of it. I wonder why he paid a week in advance.”
Javonen smiled—very slightly. Call it a down payment on a smile. “Look, Marlowe, I put in five years in Military Intelligence. I can size up a man—like for instance the guy we’re talking about. He pays in advance because we feel happier that way. It has a stabilizing influence.”
“He ever pay in advance before?”
“God damn it…!”
“Watch yourself,” I cut in. “The elderly gent with the walking stick is interested in your reactions.”
He looked halfway across the lobby to where a thin, old, bloodless man sat in a very low round-backed padded chair with his chin on gloved hands and the gloved hands on the crook of a stick. He stared unblinkingly in our direction.
“Oh, him,” Javonen said. “He can’t even see this far. He’s eighty years old.”
