Dead of Night

Chapter four: Sitting corpse

Our chariot trade entertains the notion that an assistant manager is merely a convenient mustache stationed in the lobby so upon request he can direct the high-heeled half of our clientele to “the first door on the left upstairs on the mezzanine.” Truth is, some bow ties aren’t good for much else. Reidy Duman is.

Reidy doesn’t make with a headwaiter’s hot buttered hauteur. But he chums with our upper-crust patrons as easily as he gets along with the staff. High score in any hostelry.

So I was glad to see his long-nosed, cleft-chinned countenance poking in from the other bedroom, a minute after Auguste left.

For one thing, the Plaza Royale has a rock-ribbed rule: never unlock a closet in absence of guest — unless an assistant manager is nigh. For another, I couldn’t search the suite and keep an eye on Lanerd, at the same time.

It wouldn’t be fair to suggest he was acting like a man who’d used a steak knife with felonious intent; I’d had no experience along those lines. But he wasn’t acting with the aplomb you’d expect of a business wizard with an international rep. I didn’t turn my back on him, tell you that.

“You dine here in the suite, Mister Lanerd?”

“No.” He didn’t seem to be paying attention to the Stack O’ Jack yammer-yammer any longer; wasn’t even watching the screen. “I have to speak at that banquet downstairs, hour or so. Miss Marino had dinner here with her maid, far’s I know.”

The whoop-it-up lad on the program soothed some party at the other end of the phone, for having guessed Miss Mystery was Dinah Shore and anyhow she was still a great big winner because wasn’t she getting a fine pair of Koblers for free? “How long you been here, Mister Lanerd?”

“About fifteen minutes.” Lanerd backed against the wall as Reidy came in from the other bedroom. If he wasn’t rigid with apprehension, he gave a good imitation of it.

“Evening.” Reidy sensed electricity in the air. He was bland as butter. “Everything all right?” He might have been addressing the wonder-boy.

I answered, “Trying to find out, Reidy. Guest’s out of her suite. Mister Lanerd’s here at her invitation but doesn’t know when she’ll return.” I didn’t mention that he couldn’t have been in the suite with her more than a couple of minutes, if his statement about arriving fifteen minutes ago was on the up and up. It had been just that long since I saw her in the lobby.

“Wait, wait now, Vine.” Lanerd made that ducal gesture of the vertical palm. “Since it’s been necessary to let you in on our secret, no reason you shouldn’t know Miss Marino’s expected back right after the show.” He checked with his wrist watch. “Say, twenty-five minutes.”

He acted as if that explained everything. It didn’t clarify the reason for his standing guard over an empty room, while this Mystery Mamma was at the studio. But Reidy nodded sagely, as if he understood everything, including my going to work with master keys on the two big closets opening off the living-room.

I gave him the gist while I opened doors, switched lights on and off, peered in at empty coat hangers, rawhide luggage marked with T.M.

“Miss Marino’s the gimmick-girl on Mister Lanerd’s Stack O’ Jack video showdeo. They’ve been keeping her under cover; anybody who spotted her as the Mystery Miss would be in line for twenty-five thousand, if he happened to be on the right phone at the same time.”

“The name doesn’t mean much to me.” Reidy shrugged. “But I can understand now why we haven’t seen much of her.”

“Yair, sure.” I wasn’t sure. Those tower suites are all air-conditioned, but I was sweating like a fry cook at the fat kettle. I’d keyed my way into one guest’s rooms, strong-armed another important patron, and trumpeted a hurry call for an assistant manager. For what?

A gun. A splotch of blood. A missing steak knife. But so far, nothing else. Empty closets in the old corral. If that was all, one and all would be extremely vexed. With reason.

Lanerd trailed me into Miss Marino’s bedroom, stood a yard away from the blood-prints on the door without noticing them, apparently, while I gave the quick peek under the twin beds. Blanko.

“Marks on the carpet.” I wanted to wise Reidy to the fact there was more reason for my snooping than met the casual glance.

Reidy knew what the marks meant, took the ball away from me for a minute. “Why should Miss Marino want to block her door? Strictly against fire regulations, you know.” He might have been speaking to me.

Lanerd started to explain. “My agency has naturally insisted on her taking all possible precautions for remaining incognito—” He didn’t finish.

I’d switched on the bulb in the closet nearest the corridor in Miss Marino’s bedroom; Lanerd and Reidy could see the legs the second the light went on. Man’s legs amid a mass of femme footwear. Big legs in black dress pants, big feet stretched out so polished toes glinted in the glare.

I got down on one knee, pulled the hangered dresses and night things aside so I could see the rest of him. He’d been propped up with his back to the closet wall and his knees hunched up under his chin. His right hand lay on a pair of golden slippers.

His head lolled over on one side; the eyes were open, so was his mouth. He wasn’t as big as his legs had made me expect, but he must have been over six feet; the long, narrow, bony face made him look tall. It wasn’t a handsome face but its thin, high forehead lent him a look of alertness. For all the good it may have done him.

Lanerd muttered, “Crysake! For crysake! That’s torn it!”

Reidy stayed behind Lanerd, called past the adman’s shoulder, “Dead, Gil?” He knew the answer.

I bent over so I could see the gashes in the back of the dead man’s tux between the shoulder blades, the soggy streaks crawling like snail slime down toward the small of his spine. Maybe you get used to that sort of thing if you see enough of it. Looking at that was more than enough for me. I had to swallow hard before I said, “Somebody worked on him with a knife.”

I shoved back the silkies on the dress hangers, looked in the corners of the closet for the steak knife. It wasn’t there.

Reidy asked what a hotel man naturally would, “He a guest, Gil?”

“Doubt it.” Without moving him too much, I felt in the dead man’s pockets for a wallet or keys or letters. The wallet was there; there was silver in his pockets; I didn’t remove either. There was a holster under his left armpit. It was loaded. He’d never had a chance to pull it.

Lanerd cleared his throat. “Name was Roffis. He was a — a guard — here to protect our star performer—”

“She wasn’t the only one who needed protection.” Reidy’s face was oyster-gray.

I knew what Duman was thinking, but it didn’t seem possible. If Lanerd had done the butcher job, his clothes would have shown it. It wasn’t reasonable to suppose he’d have waited around the suite after the murder. There were other points, but I didn’t want to go into them then. I went to the phone.

“Hold it! Hold it, godsake!” Lanerd made his stop-sign gesture again. “You don’t want to call the cops!”

“I don’t?” I picked up the handset. “Let me have Mona, honeychile. This’s Mister V.” Mona’s our switchboard super, a very crisp cookie in the headwork department.

Lanerd held out both palms, pleading, “There’s a hell of a lot of things you don’t know about this business. If you’ll wait about ten minutes, Miss Millett will be back and—”

“Millett?”

“That’s right, that’s right!” Lanerd smoothed his carved-marble hair with both hands. “Miss Marino is Tildy Millett.”

Reidy was startled. “The Queen of Skates? Here in the house?”

“Oh, oh!” My surprise wasn’t due to her checking in under a nom de hotel. Plenty of people do, besides the John-Smith-and-wife couples who check in those midtown flea-bags after the niteries close. What jolted me was that I’d seen the Sweetheart of the Silver Skates, that’s the way they usually billed her, half a dozen times at the Music Hall, and she hadn’t looked anything like the lovely señorita with the fancy comb.

Lanerd went on distractedly. “That’s why she wears that eye-patch disguise and keeps out of sight all she can. But—”

Mona murmured, “’Sme, Mister V. What’ll it be?”

“Slight delay,” I told her. “I’ll call back. Sit on this plug, will you?”

She said she would. I racked the phone, turned to Lanerd.

“Your idea she murdered this guy?” I asked.

“No, no.” He groaned. “Stake my life she didn’t. It’s worse than that. The person who did that” — he stared at Roffis in horror — “is trying to kill her, too.”