The Throat

of the bar. Sonny walked past without looking at him.

'Is that him?'

'No, that's a guy named Frankie Waldo. He's in the wholesale meat business. Idaho Meat. Except for a couple of years, Idaho used to supply all the meat used in this hotel, back when we had room service. But Billy's late, see, and Frankie wants to talk to him. He's wondering where he is.'

Frankie Waldo stared at the entrance of the St. Alwyn until Sonny came back out of the grocery store with two containers of coffee. Before Sonny reached him, Waldo went back into the bar. Sonny returned to his car. A van and a pickup truck went by and turned onto Livermore. The patrol car left the curb and rolled up the street.

'Here he comes,' Glenroy said. 'Now look out for Frankie.'

I saw the top and brim of a dark gray hat tilted back on the head of a man who was crossing the sidewalk in front of the hotel's entrance. Frankie Waldo popped out of the bar again and held the door open. Billy Ritz stepped down off the curb and began moving across Widow Street. He was wearing a loose wide-shouldered gray suit, and he walked without hurrying, almost indolently.

Ritz went up to Waldo and said something that made the other man seem almost to melt with relief. Waldo clapped Ritz on the back, and Ritz marched through the open door like a crown prince. Waldo was after him before the door swung shut.

'See, Billy spread some goodwill.' Glenroy moved back from the window. 'Anyhow, this is about as close as you want to get to Billy Ritz.'

'Maybe he told him the St. Alwyn is going to start delivering room service again.'

'I wish they would.' We moved away from the window, and Glenroy Breakstone gave me a look that said I had already taken up enough of his time.

I began to go toward the door, and a stray thought came to me. 'I guess it was the Idaho Meat Company that sold meat to the hotel at the time of the Blue Rose murders?'

He smiled. 'Well, it was supposed to be. But you know who really did it.'

I asked him what he meant.

'Remember I said the managers worked a few angles? Lambert got a cut on the laundry work, and Bad Bob worked out a deal on the meat. Ralph Ransom never found out about it. Bob got phony bills printed up, and they were all marked paid by the time they crossed Ralph's desk.'

'How did you find out about it?'

'Nando told me, one night when he was loaded. Him and Eggs used to unload the truck every morning, right at the start of their shift. But you knew that already, right?'

'How could I?'

'Didn't you say that the St. Alwyn connected all the Blue Rose victims?'

Then I saw what he was talking about. 'The local butcher who took over the meat contract was Heinz Stenmitz?'

'Sure it was. How else could he be connected to the hotel?'

'Nobody ever said anything about it to the police.'

'No reason to.'

I thanked Glenroy and took a step toward his door, but he did not move. 'You never asked me what I thought about the way James died. That's the reason I let you come up here in the first place.'

'I thought you let me come up because I knew who wrote 'Lush Life.' '

'Everybody ought to know who wrote 'Lush Life,' ' he said. 'Are you interested, or not? I can't tell you who was fired right around then, and I can't tell you where to find Bob Bandolier, but I can tell you what I know about James. If you have the time.'

'Please,' I said. 'I should have asked.'

He took a step toward me. 'Damn right. Listen to me. James was killed in his room, right? In his bed, right? Do you know what he was wearing?'

I shook my head, cursing myself for not having read the police reports more carefully.

'Nothing at all. You know what that means?' He did not give me time to answer. 'It means he got up out of bed to open his door. He knew whoever was out there. James might have been young, but he wasn't a fool about anything but one thing. Pussy. James did want to fuck just about anything good-looking that came his way. There used to be some pretty maids in this hotel, and James got tight with one of them, a girl named Georgia McKee, during the time we were playing at the Black and Tan.'

'When was that?'

'September 1950. Two months before he got killed. He dropped her, just like he dropped every other girl he used to run with. He started seeing a girl who worked at the club. Georgia used to come around and make trouble, until they barred her from the club. She wanted James back.' He was making sure that I understood what he was saying. 'I always thought that Georgia McKee went into James's room and killed him and made it look like the same person who did that whore did him, too. He opened the door. Or she let herself in with her key. Either way. James wouldn't make any fuss, if he thought she was coming back to go to bed with him.'

'You never told the police?'

'I told Bill Damrosch, but by that time, Georgia McKee was out of here.'

'What happened to her?'

'Right after James got killed, she quit the hotel and moved to Tennessee. I guess she had people there. Tell you the truth, I hope she got knifed in a bar.'

After that, the two of us stood facing each other for a couple of seconds.

'James should have had more life,' Glenroy finally said. 'He had something to offer.'

14

It was still too early to call Tom Pasmore, so I asked the desk clerk if he had a Millhaven directory. He went into his office and came back with a fat book. 'How's Glenroy doing today?'

'Fine,' I said. 'Isn't he always?'

'No, but he's always Glenroy,' the clerk said.

I nodded, and leafed through the book to the S's. David Sunchana was listed at an address on North Bayberry Lane, which sounded like it belonged in Elm Hill. I wrote down the number on the paper Tom had given me, and then, on an afterthought, looked up Oscar Writzmann on Fond du Lac Drive. Maybe he would be able to tell me something about the mysterious William Writzmann.

From the pay phone in the St. Alwyn's lobby, I dialled the Sunchanas' number and let it ring a long time before I hung up. They must have been the only people in Elm Hill who didn't have an answering machine.

I went outside and began walking back toward Bob Bandolier's old house. He must have known something, I thought— maybe he had seen Georgia McKee coming out of James Treadwell's room and blackmailed her instead of turning her over to the police.

I turned into South Seventh, looking down, and walked past the Millhauser place before I saw Frank Belknap waving at me from his front lawn. He motioned for me to stay where I was and began walking quickly down the block. When he got closer, he looked back at his front porch and then motioned me backward, toward Livermore. 'Told Hannah I was going out for a walk,' he said. 'Went up and down the street four times, waiting for you to come back.'

He jerked his head toward the avenue, and we walked far enough so he could be sure his wife wouldn't see him talking to me.

'What is it?' I asked.

He was still fighting with himself. 'I met that soldier, the one who threw the Dumkys out of the house next door. He came back the day after to check on the place. Hannah was out shopping. I went out to talk to the fella when I saw him leaving, and he was worse than rude, mister. Tell you the truth, he scared me. He wasn't big, but he looked dangerous—that fella would have killed me in a minute, and I knew it.'

'What happened? Did he threaten you?'

'Well, he did.' Belknap frowned at me. 'I think that fella had just got back from Vietnam, and I don't think