remembered the name because later I met Candy Garth, and she seemed to know Madame Serpentina. Why were you looking for her? For Miss Garth, I mean.”
“I don’t remember,” Majewski said. He made no effort to push past her.
The girl stared at him for a moment, then fumbled in her purse and produced a dollar.
Majewski allowed himself a slight grin. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s coming back to me.”
“Was it Madame Serpentina who told you to look for Miss Garth?”
“Huh uh. A guy.”
“A small man with glasses?”
Majewski shook his head. “I didn’t see him. He phoned down to the lobby. I was hoping for a tip out of it, because I knew it was her room and the lady’s a good tipper, but I haven’t seen her since. To tell the truth, I’ve been kind of ducking her because I owe her, but now I’m set to pay her, and I’ll remind her about finding the girl in the white coat for the guy up in her room.”
“You said Madame Serpentina was a good tipper. Will you tell me about that?”
“Boy, you want a whole lot for your buck, don’t you? Ten each for the three guys that carried up her bags.”
“Was the man with the thick glasses with her then?” the girl asked.
“No.” Majewski tried to edge by her. “There wasn’t nobody with her. I never seen this guy. Listen, lady, I’ve given you one hell of a lot more than a buck’s worth. I got to go.”
“Here.” She fumbled in her purse again. “Here’s another dollar, all right? She was alone when she checked in? Did she come in a cab, or do you know?”
“Huh uh.” Majewski paused and snapped his fingers. “Come to think of it, I did see the little guy with the glasses, maybe. See, when we’re not too busy we’re supposed to help the guests bring their stuff in from outside. Then we set it in the lobby while they register.”
The girl nodded.
“Anyway, I think I saw somebody like that—little guy, thick glasses, hat pulled down—talking to her. Then later I saw him in the lobby at registration. I don’t know if that was him on the phone.”
“Did you see him at the hotel after that?”
Majewski shook his head. “Of course, I ain’t been at work much. I work afternoons and evenings—I’m due in a couple hours.”
“How about the woman in the white raincoat? Or the man with the black mustache? I was talking to him in the lobby later. You must have seen us.”
“I never noticed him,” Majewski said. “I ain’t seen the fat lady again either.”
“Here’s my card.” The short girl pressed it into his hand. “Talk to the people you work with. If you find out where the man with the glasses and the woman in the white raincoat live, call me and let me know. Especially the man with the glasses. Or if you see him and can tell me where he is. I’ll pay ten dollars.” She hesitated. “Each. Ten dollars for each one.”
Majewski glanced at the card. “Okay, Miss Duck. But listen, I ought to level with you. You remember when you asked me about the little guy with the glasses a minute ago? And all of a sudden I remembered seein’ him on the sidewalk?”
Sandy Duck nodded.
“Well, the reason I remembered was I just saw him walk past outside.” He pointed beyond her toward the glass door at the front of the newsstand.
She rushed out, then stopped abruptly, looking up and down the street. More philosophically, Majewski followed her.
Cough!
“Take off your shirt,” Dr. Makee rumbled. He himself still wore his tattersall, with herringbone trousers and a bolo tie. His gray herringbone jacket hung from the back of a chair in one corner of his examination room.
“I’m not really sick,” Barnes explained. “I just want to talk.”
“Take it off,” the old doctor said firmly. “I don’t care what the hell you came here for, I’m going to listen to your heart or I won’t talk to you.”
“I can’t pay you.”
“Take it off!” He strode up to Barnes and began to unfasten the buttons himself.
“All right,” Barnes said. “All right.” He pulled loose his tie and hung it on a halltree beside a dusty skeleton, then slipped out of his suitcoat and undid the rest of his shirt buttons.
“That’s better.” The old doctor sipped coffee from a mug on his desk and wiped his white mustache with the back of his hand. “I know you can’t pay. If you could pay, you’d go to a real doctor in the medical center, not to a crazy old retired quack like me. Nobody comes here that can pay, even if some of them do. I know you’re not sick, too. Or anyway, you don’t think you are. I could see that the minute you walked in. A sick man walks one way, a well one another way; but a man who’s sick and doesn’t know it might walk like John Wayne. Hell, John Wayne walked like John Wayne when he was full of cancer. When a man your age comes in here, I always listen to his heart. Suppose you said you weren’t sick, and I accepted it, and you walked out of here and fell down dead on my sidewalk. I’d never forgive myself.”
