Murder on a Hot Tin Roof

Chapter 14

THE ELEVATOR RIDE GOING DOWN wasn’t as eventful as the one going up. The other Puerto Rican operator was older, less excitable, and more attentive to the landing than the takeoff. He piloted our car to a sure, steady descent and parked it perfectly at the bottom. I gave him a grateful smile, then swooshed into the hotel lobby, heading straight for the main desk.

The gaunt, middle-aged man behind the counter gave me a look of total boredom and exhaustion. “May I help you?” he asked, clearly hoping my answer would be no.

“Oh, yes, please!” I begged, adopting, once again (and much to the desk clerk’s dismay), the role of a frantic neice. “I’m very, very upset! I was supposed to meet my aunt here today, in her room on the ninth floor, but now there’s somebody else in ninety-six! I don’t know what happened! Did she move to another room, or did she check out altogether? I don’t know where to go or what to do!”

The man sighed and shrugged his thin shoulders. “Room ninety-six, you say? Let me check on that for you. What’s your aunt’s name?”

“Aunt Doobie,” I said, madly searching for an appropriate surname to tack on the end. “Isn’t that funny?” I stalled. “I’m so used to using her nickname, I can’t think of her real name… Oh, now I remember!” I cried. “It’s Gordon!” (At least that seemed a likely choice.) “Mrs. Dorothea Gordon.”

“I’ll take a look,” he said, heaving another weary sigh, opening the guest ledger and slowly sliding his finger down the page. “Gordon… Gordon… Gordon… uh, no, miss… nobody by the name of Gordon is registered in the hotel at this time. Is it possible your aunt made a reservation under a different name?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” I said, fluttering my lashes and giving him an urgent, pleading look. “All I know is she was supposed to be in room ninety-six. And I’m supposed to be meeting her there right now!” I was working myself up to ask for the name of the room’s current occupant, but it turned out I didn’t have to.

“Well, there must be some mistake,” the droopy desk clerk said, “because a Mr. Jonathan Smith checked into that room on Friday and reserved it for the rest of the holiday weekend.” He paused and gave me a pleading look. “Are you sure your aunt isn’t registered in room ninety-six of another hotel? Perhaps the Plaza? It’s just across the park, you know.” He inched his hand toward the phone. “If you’d like, I could call the Plaza and ask them-”

“No, thanks!” I hurriedly replied. “I’ll just pop over there and see for myself.” I gave the tired but dutiful fellow an appreciative smile, then made a run for the hotel exit. I saw no reason to stick around.

Except for the air-conditioning, I soon realized (i.e., the very second I stepped outside to the street). The thick, steamy afternoon heat was so overwhelming I wanted to duck back into the Mayflower and reserve a nice cool room for myself. I would have done it, too, if I could have been sure to get a room on the ninth floor, or-to phrase it in a simpler, more direct way-if I’d had enough money.

But all I had left in my purse was a half dollar. One measly fifty-cent piece. It was enough to get me home on the subway, but it wouldn’t buy me a hamburger at the White Horse, or a pizza at John’s, or even a chicken salad sandwich at Chock Full-which was a rotten shame because I was hungry.

Maybe Abby will be home, I thought as I trudged back to the Columbus Circle subway stop. Maybe she has some bagels left over from breakfast. It was either that or the leftover bread, salami, cheese, and green pepper I had in my own Frigidaire. I focused my hopes on a bagel-not because it was my dining preference, but because it would come with some lively conversation and an ice-cold gin and tonic on the side.

“AUN T DOOBIE IS A MAN?!” ABBY croaked. She was obviously excited by the news.

“I didn’t say that!” I cried. “What I said was, there was a man in Aunt Doobie’s room. There’s a big difference, you know. You’re always jumping to conclusions!” I took a quick drag on my cigarette and exhaled with a swoosh. “The guy could be Aunt Doobie’s son, or her lover, or her husband, for all we know. Or, he could be a man named Jonathan Smith who just happened to check into room ninety-six right after Aunt Doobie left.”

“Doobie who?” Jimmy asked. The brilliant and beautiful bearded poet had been sitting at Abby’s kitchen table with us for over an hour, listening to every detail I recounted about my afternoon crime-busting adventures, and he still didn’t have a clue.

“Never mind, Daddy-O,” Abby said, curling her fingers through his sleek dark Vandyke and blowing her words directly into his ear. “Mama will tell you all about it later, when we’re alone. Here, have another piece of pizza.” She held the last slice of our cheese and tomato pie up to his mouth and fed him like a baby-or a dog, depending on your point of view.

Speaking of dogs, Jimmy’s best friend and constant canine companion-the miniature dachshund named Otto-was at the table, too (or under it, I guess you would say). He was curled up in a soft brown wad and sleeping soundly in his master’s lap. I was dying for Otto to wake up and and come sit on my lap instead, as he’d often done in the past. That way I wouldn’t feel so lonely, or so much like a third wheel.

“John Smith!” I barked, trying to get Abby’s attention again (and wake Otto up). “Did you ever hear a more obvious alias? Couldn’t the lazy creep have made up a better pseudonym than that? He may be handsome but he sure as hell isn’t creative!”

“He’s handsome?” Abby asked, perking up like a flower in a shower. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“Some things are better left unsaid.” I took another sip of my drink (gin and tonic, just like I’d wanted), and another drag on my cigarette. “Besides,” I added, “what do the man’s physical attractions have to do with anything? Apart from your ongoing quest for new models, that is.”

“Maybe nothing,” Abby said, gazing off into the mysterious distance like a daft fortuneteller, “or maybe everything.” She emphasized the last word in her sentence with a deep, spooky undertone. You could almost hear the thunder rolling in the background.

I put out my cigarette and lit another. “Get real, Abby! With you, it’s always the looks that count. With me, it’s the name. And I’d bet my whole bankroll this guy’s real name is

not John Smith. It could be Hamlet or Heathcliff or Alfred Hitchcock-but it’s not John Smith. Maybe it’s Randy. The burning question is, why did he register at the Mayflower under an alias?”

“Oh, don’t be such a cube, Paige!” Abby scoffed. “There are thousands of reasons why people use phony names when they’re checking into hotels. Do I have to list them for you?”

“Please spare me,” I said, realizing the futility of pursuing the issue. Maybe John Smith was Aunt Doobie, and maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he knew Gray Gordon, and maybe he didn’t. He could be a vicious, cold-blooded killer, or just an out-of-town businessman trying to sleep off an all-night bender in his private, air-conditioned hotel room. Since there was no way on earth either Abby or I could know the truth at this point, why continue this silly guessing game?

“What about Willy?” I asked, flipping the page to a different puzzle. “You don’t think he could be the killer, do you? I’m convinced he’s not. He’s too high-strung and squeamish. The only reason he’d ever use a knife would be to chop celery or carve a radish rose.”

“Who’s jumping to conclusions now?” Abby said, arching one of her eyebrows to a peak and spreading her lips in a contemptuous smirk. “Willy was obviously in love with Gray, and Gray wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Unrequited love, you dig? That’s the likeliest murder motive known to man. And Willy has the same blood type as the murderer! How can you ignore the only bit of real evidence that has come up in the case so far?”

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling foolish, realizing that Abby was right. “It’s just that I

like Willy,” I mumbled in self-defense. “And I feel a strong urge to protect him.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jimmy said, speaking in the same deep, sexy baritone that had made him a celebrated reader of his own dopey poems. “Maybe you got it backwards, babe. Maybe what Willy needs is an

erection, not protection.” Jimmy shot up straighter in his chair and started snickering like an idiot, so proud of his feeble rhyme he was about to pop.

Abby giggled and started twirling her fingers through his beard again.

Startled by the sudden noise and movement, Otto jumped off Jimmy’s lap and skittered over to me. He huddled around my ankles and gazed up at me-with the softest, sweetest, sleepiest brown eyes you ever saw in your life. I picked the little pooch up and settled him in my own lap, stroking his head and velvety back until he feel asleep again.

Sometimes, I mused, happily petting the warm little weiner-shaped pup, there actually is such a thing as justice in the world.

LATER IN THE EVENING-AFTER WE’D discussed the inscrutable murder case to death, and worn the grooves off Abby’s new Miles Davis record, and consumed at least five gin and tonics and a hundred cigarettes each-Abby stood up from the table and announced that it was time for us to go.

Oh, no, not again. “Go where?!” I sputtered. Remembering the last time she’d dragged me off to points unknown, I sat rooted to my chair, firmly deciding that I wasn’t going anywhere but home.

“To the Vanguard, of course,” she said. “Jimmy’s going to recite his new poem there tonight. It’s a masterpiece! It’s a far-out Independence Day epic, and he’s going to read it at the stroke of midnight. Isn’t that cool?”

“It’s totally cool,” I said, “and I appreciate the invitation. But I can’t possibly go out tonight. In the first place, I’m not dressed for it.” (My yellow piqué sundress and red patent stilettos belonged at an afternoon tea party, not a midnight soiree at the local jazz joint.) “And in the second place, Dan’s supposed to call me later-right after twelve, when the rates change.”

“But you already spoke to him this morning!” Abby yelped.

“So what? Is there some law that says I can’t speak to him twice?”

“How can he afford two long-distance calls in one day? It’ll cost him an arm and a leg.”

“Dan’s not a pauper, you know. And maybe he’d rather lose limbs than lose contact with me.” I shot her a stubborn smile.

Abby flipped her long braid from one shoulder to the other and leaned over the back of her chair like a gargoyle. “Oh, come on, Paige!” she said, whimpering (just like Otto does when he has to pee). “Jimmy and I both really want you to be there. It’s important. You dig what I’m saying?”

I dug what she was saying all right. She was dreading the poetry reading every bit as much as I was, and she expected me to come with her-whether I wanted to or not.

I groaned to myself and gave her a nasty, I’m-going-to-make-you-pay-for-this look.

She grinned and gave me a look that said,

Stop whining, sister. I just treated you to a feast of pizza and gin. The least you can do is keep me company in my hour of need.

“Oh, all right!” I snapped, picking Otto up off my lap and setting him down on the floor. “You win! But if Dan has a fit wondering where I am, it’ll be on your head. He worries about me a lot, you know.”

“I worry about you, too,” Abby said, with a snort. “Now hurry up. Go change your clothes.”