The Tough Guys

Porter scribbled something on a pad and nodded. I waved for the waiter, told him to bring a phone, and dialed the Enfield Hotel. After a minute the operator informed me that Terry wasn't in her room. I hung up scowling and Dan wanted to know what the matter was. "Terry's not around. She wasn't there when I called from Phoenix."

"You know how dames are."

"I told her to stay put."

"For two days? You're nuts. She's around the hotel someplace. Have her paged."

"No," I said, "I'm going up there myself. I don't want to broadcast anything." I looked at Cal Porter. "Okay with you . . . or did Phoenix put a hold order on me?"

For the first time Cal let a smile show. "They would have liked to. In fact, over somebody's protestations out there, they suggested it. You stirred up a big one."

"You'll do the stirring if you can get somebody to really shake down the late Mrs. Massley's effects out there."

Dan flipped another cigarette into his mouth. "And what do I do, boss man?" he grinned.

"More legwork. See if you can get anybody to identify Richard Castor as having shipped out of Rio bound for the States. I doubt if he would have traveled first class."

Both of them were watching me closely now.

I said, "I think Rhino Massley slipped back here intending to pick up his old documents in order to finance another bankroll to buy Elena Harris back with. I think it was Massley who contacted Terry, knowing that somewhere in her mother's effects was his big hope."

Porter nodded curtly. "There's only one hole."

We both waited for it.

"Rhino's got a crazy fixation against women. Then suddenly he's all gone over this Harris girl?"

It was something that had bothered me too, but I dismissed it with the only thing I could think of. "There's an exception to every rule, Mr. Porter. Meanwhile, it's the only line of reasoning we have."

I let them think about it, told them I'd call back later and walked out.

The maid was a short, doughty old woman, and she was certain about it. She didn't quibble or hedge and the fin I had given her hadn't bought a story. The girl in my room who had registered in as my wife wasn't there and hadn't been all day. Previously she wouldn't let anyone in, even to make up the room. Twice the day before, room service had brought in a tray, but that was all. However, this morning when the maid had tried the door with her master key since there was no Do Not Disturb sign out and the door was not locked from inside, she went in, cleaned up, and went out.

Then, for some oblique reason of her own, she asked, "Your wife, was it?" and when I nodded curtly she made a universal grimace, the superior smile of those who know. She thought, too, she knew why the fin and why my questions and said quickly, "She gave quite a party, mister, I'll say that. There were cigar butts around and the room was all pulled apart."

I said thanks and let it drop there. I couldn't have said more because my throat was tight with a cold fear. I went back inside and opened the drawers of the dresser. Her things were there, carelessly thrown around, showing all the signs of having been hurriedly searched. Deliberately, I checked every spot in the room, but the things I was looking for, her mother's personal effects, weren't there.

Terry was gone. Why? There had been men here. Why? Yet, I knew some of these things. Like the men. It's surprising how great a force the unlawful comprise. They had men to do the legwork, money to buy pieces of knowledge, experience to follow up the slightest detail. And they had a motive. Mannie Waller's men had been here, all right. I let the picture of it run through my mind, then it stopped being quite so grim. They were here and left, but not with Terry, otherwise there would have been no cigar butts or careless searches.

I picked up the phone, settled the whole thing on my lap, and lifted the receiver. And even as I was giving the desk clerk Dan Litvak's number I saw the note. She had stuck it under the phone base itself and all that time it had stayed there, hidden until now. Very simply it read:

Darling, I was contacted at the Sherman and the arrangement is almost the same as before. This time I was to carry mother's personal items in the identifying suitcase, but rather than that I'm leaving them in your hole in the wall. Don't worry. I'll be all right. Love you.

Terry.

The idiot? What the hell gets into women that they think they can walk head-on into men playing guns and walk right out again! My hands shook so that I could hardly hold the phone and when Dan finally came on the same shake was back in my voice.

I said, "Terry's gone. Rhino made his contact."

"You sure it was Rhino?"

"That's what I'm calling for. You have anything on Castor?"

"Not yet. Now what about Terry?"

I gave him the picture quickly as far as I saw it. "Suppose I pass this on to Cal. He'll want to go all-out on it."

"Go to it. I'll see if I can find Terry."

"How?"

"She said the arrangements were almost the same as before. Rhino is someplace in my neighborhood and she's to meet him there. There's nobody I don't know around home plate and, if Terry has been there, somebody would have spotted her. If she goes through with this contact and comes out of it, she'll try to reach me either here or at my pad on the street. Give me two hours and we'll all meet at my place. Got that?"

"Yeah, but how about you taking some help along."

"No dice, kid. A team would be spotted too fast. Me those people will talk to. Anybody else, nix. And if they think I'm working with cops they'll clam up on me, too. We have to play it like this."

"Okay then. If that's how you call it. See you later. Watch it."

I said I would and hung up.

Once it began, night came on with a desperate rush. Over the city the belly-rumbling of the storm to the west closed the shops early.

I had walked the street from Seventh to the river, then back again, questioning those who would know if anyone would, asking them, in turn, to question others. Yes, Terry had been seen, all right, by two persons next to my own building. She came to my place, stayed a few minutes, and left. Where she went to, or where she was now, nobody could tell me.

There wasn't any sense going to my apartment now. All she did was leave those meaningless things of her mother's in my trick closet, the hole in the wall she first hid in. How long ago? Years . . . months? It hardly seemed like days.

So I kept on asking, people in doorways, the paperman on the corner, the kids, the hack drivers waiting just off the avenues. They were nice, they were sympathetic, but they couldn't help.

And when the rain started I turned up my collar and gave up. Inside me I had that terrible disjointed feeling that comes with a hangover and your nervous signals get all crossed until you're ready to scream with despair. I walked back to my apartment, went in, closed the door and reached to switch on the light.

I needn't have bothered. Somebody else did it for me.

Mannie Waller, fat and ugly-looking, squatting on the couch, said, "We only had to wait, wise guy. Sooner or later you'd come back to your hole in the wall, all right." The three with him just smiled. Big smiles.

He glanced around, his nose wrinkled in disgust. I followed his eyes, looking at the wreckage of the place, the broken chairs, the upturned drawers, the litter from the pillow and mattress. I couldn't help grinning, though. It was a lousy joke, but still a joke. Mannie was thinking about the wrong hole in the wall.

What a sucker I turned out to be. Sure, Mannie had seen Terry's note. He had even left it there for me to see too, and if I had, I would have come roaring over like a white knight and been roasted in my own armor. The cleaning woman in the hotel had probably covered up Terry's note inadvertently, and I had assumed that only I saw it.

"It's funny?" Mannie asked. "Show him it ain't funny, Ruby."

I tried to cover up but I wasn't quick enough. A gun barrel raked the back of my scalp and I went down on my