“Maybe he was a little heavier,” he said grudgingly. “Sort of a blocky-type body, thicker through the middle.”
“What about his face?”
“What about it?”
“Can you describe it?”
“It was a face, you know? Two eyes, a nose, a mouth—”
“Oh, a face.”
“Huh?”
“If you saw him again, would you know him?”
“Sure, but what are the odds? What are there, a couple of million people in New York? When am I gonna see him again?”
“How was he dressed?”
“He was dressed okay.”
Jesus. “You recall what he was wearing?”
“A suit. Suit and tie.”
“Like a cop might wear.”
“Yeah, I guess. And glasses. He was wearing glasses.”
“And he took Ellery’s duffel bag and left.”
“Right.”
“Never told you his name, that you remember, and I don’t suppose he gave you a business card.”
“No, nothing like that. Why give me a business card? What business am I gonna give him? Call him up, tell him the shitter in Room Four-oh-nine won’t flush? Let him know one of my deadbeats moved out in the middle of the night, and if he comes real quick he can have the room?”
“And everything Ellery left,” I said, “was in the duffel bag.”
“Except for the suit they buried him in.”
They didn’t bury him, they cremated him, but that was more than my new friend needed to know.
“And you rented his room.”
“The man’s dead,” he said, “and I cleaned all his crap outta there, and he’s not coming back, so what do you think I did with it? There’s a guy in there right now.”
“Even as we speak?”
“Huh?”
“Is the new tenant home?”
“He’s not a new tenant,” he said. “He moved to Ellery’s room because it’s a little bigger than the one he was in. He’s been living here, oh, maybe three years at this point.”
“What I was asking—”
“And no, he’s not home. This hour he’s at OTB, two blocks down on Second Avenue. That’s where you’ll find him, all day every day.”
“Good,” I said. “You can show me his room.”
“Huh? I told you, it’s rented. Somebody’s already living there.”
“And he’s welcome to it,” I said. “I just want a few minutes to look around.”
“Hey, I can’t let you do that.”
I took out my wallet.
“What, you’re gonna show me ID? I still can’t let you in there no matter how many badges you show me.”
“I can do better than that,” I said.
Pardo thought he should be in the room with me while I searched it. I told him he’d be better positioned in the hall, in case the current tenant made a sudden reappearance.
“I told you,” he said. “He’s gone for the day. Long as those betting windows are open, he’s there.”
“Even so.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I should be here to keep an eye, you know?”
“Because I might be running an elaborate scam,” I said, “where I go around paying fifty dollars to gain access to rooms of people who don’t own anything.”
He wasn’t happy, but he went out into the hall and I closed the door, and used the hook-and-eye gadget to keep him out. Then I got to work looking for anything Jack might have tucked away where it wouldn’t be easy to find.
A piece of carpeting covered most of the floor. It was a bound remnant, and it hadn’t been tacked down, so it was easy enough to roll it up after I’d moved a couple of pieces of furniture. And it was almost as easy to replace
