what he was saying with a look of bored indifference on his face.
They stood either side of the reception desk. There was an overhead light that fell directly on the man with the suitcase. I took a good look at him.
He wasn’t the type of man I would expect Dolores to make a journey with. He was short and thickset and nudging sixty. His fleshy face was covered with tiny, broken veins of a heavy drinker. Now I could get a good view of him in the light, I could see his clothes were shabby and looked as if he had had them for a long time. His blue suit was shiny at the elbows; his grey felt hat was dirty and greasy. The only thing new about his attire was his tie: a gaudy thing of pale blue with horses’ heads in yellow.
As he talked to the night clerk, he kept wiping his face with a soiled handkerchief, and even at the distance from where I was standing, I could see he was nervous and upset.
Finally he gave the night clerk some money and the night clerk pushed the register towards him. The man signed the book, took the room key the night clerk dropped on the counter, then, picking up his suitcase, he crossed the lobby and disappeared up a flight of dimly lit stairs.
I stood there hesitating, then I pushed open the double glass doors and walked into the lobby.
II
The night clerk watched me come, his old, jaded face expressionless.
I arrived at the counter and leaned on it. There could be only one way to handle a man like this, I told myself after I had a close-up of him. His threadbare suit and his frayed cuffs told of his poverty. ‘I want information about the man who’s just gone upstairs,’ I said briskly.
Taking out my wallet, I produced a ten-dollar bill, let him get a good look at it before I began to fold it into a neat spill. Then I put it between the first and second knuckles of my left hand so it stuck up like a flag and rested my hand on the counter within three feet of him.
The night clerk’s eyes shifted from me to the folded bill. He began to breathe heavily through his pinched nostrils and his face showed slight animation.
‘We don’t reckon to give information about our clients,’ he said, a hesitant note in his voice. ‘Who might you be, mister?’
‘A man who buys information with a ten-dollar bill,’ I said.
He hunched his shoulders and closed his eyes while he appeared to think. Like that, he reminded me of a scraggy, broody hen. Then he opened his eyes and looked once more at the bill.
‘You’re not a cop,’ he said as if speaking to himself. ‘And you’re not a private dick.’
His jaded eyes shifted from the bill to my face and he searched earnestly for a clue, but it didn’t get him anywhere.
‘Never mind who I am,’ I said. ‘What’s his name?’
His hand that looked as if he had forgotten to wash it for several days, moved timidly towards the bill. I let him get to within a few inches of it, then I moved it out of his reach.
‘What’s his name?’ I repeated.
He sighed.
‘I don’t know. I bet it isn’t what he has written in the book,’ and he pushed the register towards me.
I read: J
‘Turner,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘If I had a dollar for every John Turner in this book, I’d be rich enough to quit this lousy job.’
‘Did he say why he was this late and how long he was staying?’
The night clerk hunched his shoulders again.
‘If I held the money, mister, it would help my memory. When you reach my age, you’ll be surprised how bad your memory gets.’
I dropped the bill on the counter.
‘Let it lie there,’ I said. ‘You keep an eye on it.’
He leaned over the bill and breathed gently on it, then he looked up and asked, ‘What was that you wanted to know, mister?’
I repeated the question.
‘He said he had lost the last train out and was catching the first one in the morning. He has a call in for seven o’clock.’
‘A train to where?’
He shook his head regretfully.
‘He didn’t say. It wouldn’t be Frisco. There isn’t a train to Frisco tomorrow at half past seven. Could be San Diego. The last train to San Diego left at half past two this morning, and the first one out leaves at half past seven.’
I thought for a moment, then asked: ‘What’s his room number?’
The night clerk put his finger on the bill and very slowly, very gently, began to draw it towards him.
‘Room 28,’ he said, ‘but don’t get any wild ideas. No one goes upstairs without they hire a room first.’
‘Room 27 or 29 vacant?’
He looked over his shoulder at the line of keys hanging on the keyboard, then without taking his finger off the bill, he reached out his left hand and took the key of room 29 off its hook.
He laid it down before me, and then with a movement as fast as a lizard nailing a fly, he whipped the ten- dollar bill out of sight.
‘Two bucks for the night,’ he said. ‘It’s not a bad room: anyway, it’s better than his.’
I shelled out the two bucks, then I picked up the key.
‘Just in case I oversleep,’ I said, ‘give me a call at half past six.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Up the stairs, first floor, turn left at the head of the stairs.’
I thanked him, crossed the lobby and climbed the stairs to the first floor.
The passage lights were dim. The carpet I walked on felt paper thin; the doors I passed were shabby and the paint faded. A faint smell of cabbage water, bad plumbing and unwashed bodies hung over the passage. The Washington was obviously not one of the class hotels of Palm City.
As I approached room 27, I stepped lightly and paused outside room 28 to listen. I didn’t hear anything, so I moved on to room 29, slid the key into the lock, turned it gently and eased open the door. I groped for the light switch, found it and turned on the light.
I entered a rabbit hutch of a room, careful to tread softly. I shut the door and then looked around.
There was a bed, a toilet basin, a strip of carpet and two upright chairs. On the wall, over the bed, was an engraving of a woman with wings and a wisp of tulle across her fat behind. She was hammering with clenched fists on an iron-studded door. She probably represented love locked out and if love was anything like her, it was a good thing the door looked so impregnable.
I crossed the room and sank on to the bed.
The time by my strap watch was ten minutes to three and I suddenly felt completely bushed. It had been the most eventful and disturbing Saturday of my life and I wondered uneasily where I was going from here.
I was tempted to stretch out on the bed, dressed as I was, and catch up with some sleep. I was actually giving way to the temptation when I heard the ping of a telephone bell: the ping you hear when you lift the receiver. It came from the room next door.
I was immediately wide awake and listening.
The man who had signed himself in the register as Turner, said: ‘Send up a bottle of Scotch and some ice, and let’s have some service.’
There was a pause, then he growled: ‘I don’t give a damn. Just let’s have it without a lot of argument,’ and he hung up.
For several moments I sat staring down at the dusty carpet, then, with an effort, I pushed myself off the bed and tiptoed to the door, cased it open and then turned off the light in the room. I supported myself against the door
