Looking for Rachel Wallace

10

The corridor was silent and Ritz-y, with gold-patterned wallpaper. I wondered if they’d make love before they ordered dinner. I would. I hoped they wouldn’t. It had been a while since lunch and would be a long wait for dinner if it worked out wrong.

I leaned against the wall opposite their door. If they were making love, I didn’t want to hear. The concept of love between two women didn’t have much affect on me in the abstract. But if I imagined them at it, and speculated on exactly how they went about it, it seemed sort of too bad, demeaning. Actually maybe Susan and I weren’t all that slick in the actual doing ourselves. When you thought about it, maybe none of us were doing Swan Lake. “What’s right is what feels good afterwards,” I said out loud in the empty corridor. Hemingway said that. Smart man, Hemingway. Spent very little time hanging around hotel corridors with no supper.

Down the corridor to my left a tall thin man with a black mustache and a double-breasted gray pinstripe suit came out of his room and past me, heading for the elevator. There was a silver pin in his collar under the modest knot of his tie. His black shoes glistened with polish. Class. Even more class than a wet Adidas T-shirt. The hell with him. He probably did not have a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver with a four-inch barrel. And I did. How’s that for class? I mumbled at his back as he went into the elevator.

About fifteen minutes later a housekeeper went bustling past me down the corridor and knocked on a door. No one answered, and the housekeeper let herself in with a key on a long chain. She was in for maybe a minute and came back past me and into the service elevator. She probably didn’t have a .38 either.

I amused myself by trying to see how many lyrics I could sing to songs written by Johnny Mercer. I was halfway through “Memphis in June” when a pleasant-looking gray-haired man with a large red nose got out of the elevator and walked down the corridor toward me. He had on gray slacks and a blue blazer. On the blazer pocket was a small name plate that said Asst. Mgr.

His blazer also hung funny over his right hip, the way it does when you are carrying a gun in a hip holster. He smiled as he approached me. I noticed that the blazer was unbuttoned and his left hand was in a half fist. He sort of tapped it against his thigh, knuckles toward me.

“Are you locked out of your room, sir?” he said with a big smile. He was a big guy and had a big stomach, but he didn’t look slow and he didn’t look soft. His teeth had been capped.

I said, “House man, right?”

“Callahan,” he said, “I’m the assistant night manager.”

“Spenser,” I said. “I’m going to take out my wallet and show you some ID.”

“You’re not registered here, Mr. Spenser.”

“No, I’m working. I’m looking out for Rachel Wallace, who is registered here.”

I handed him my license. He looked at it and looked at me. “Nice picture,” he said.

“Well, that’s my bad side,” I said.

“It’s full face,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Do I detect a weapon of some sort under your left arm, Mr. Spenser?”

“Yes. It makes us even—you got one on your right hip.”

He smiled again. His half-clenched left fist tapped against his thigh.

“I’m in kind of a puzzle, Mr. Spenser. If you really are guarding Miss Wallace, I can’t very well ask you to leave. On the other hand you could be lying. I guess we better ask her.”

“Not right now,” I said. “I think she’s busy.”

“ ‘Fraid we’ll have to anyway.”

“How do I know you’re really the house dick?”

“Assistant manager,” he said. “Says so right on my coat.”

“Anyone can get a coat. How do I know this isn’t a ploy to get her to open the door?”

He rolled his lower lip out. “Got a point there,” he said. “What we do is go down the end of the hall by the elevators and call on the house phone. You can see the whole corridor and I can see you that way.”

I nodded. We walked down to the phone side by side, watching each other and being careful. I was paying most attention to the half-dosed fist. For a man his size it was a small fist. At the phones he tucked the phone between his cheek and shoulder and dialed with his right hand. He knew the number without looking. She took a long while to answer.

“Sorry to bother you, Miss Wallace … Ms. Wallace … Yeah … Well, this is Callahan, the assistant manager. Do you have a man named Spenser providing personal security for you? … Unh-huh … Describe him to me, if you would … No, we just spotted him outside your room and thought we’d better check … Yes, ma’am. Yes, that’ll be fine. Thank you.” He hung up.

“Okay,” he said with a big friendly smile. “She validated you.” He put his left hand into the side pocket of his blazer and took it out.

“What did you have in your hand?” I said. “Roll of quarters?”

“Dimes,” he said. “Got a small hand.”

“Who whistled on me—the housekeeper.”

He nodded.

I said, “Are you looking out for Ms. Wallace special?”

“We’re a little special on her,” he said. “Got a call from a homicide dick said there’d been threats on her life.”

“Who called you—Quirk?”

“Yeah, know him?”

I nodded.

“Friend of his?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said.

We walked back down the corridor toward Rachel’s room. “Good cop,” Callahan said.

I nodded. “Very tough,” I said.

“So I hear. I hear he’s as tough as there is in this town.”

“Top three,” I said. “Who else?”

“Guy named Hawk,” I said. “He ever shows up in your hotel, don’t try to take him with a roll of dimes.”

“Who’s the third?”

I smiled at him and ducked my head. “Aw, hell,” I said.

He did his big friendly smile again. “Well, good we don’t have to find that out,” he said. His voice was steady. He seemed able to repress his terror. “Not tonight anyway.” He nodded at me. “Have a good day,” he said, and moved off placidly down the corridor. I must have frightened him to death.

I went back to my Johnny Mercer lyrics. I was on the third verse of “Midnight Sun” when a room service waiter came off the elevator pushing a table. He stopped at Rachel’s door and knocked. He smiled at me as he waited. The door opened on the chain and a small vertical plane of Rachel Wallace’s face appeared.

I said, “It’s okay, Rachel. I’m here.” The waiter smiled at me again, as if I’d said something clever. The door closed and in a moment re-opened. The waiter went in, and I came in behind him. Rachel was in a dark-brown full-length robe with white piping. She wore no make-up. Julie Wells wasn’t in the room. The bathroom door was closed, and I could hear the shower going. Both beds were a little rumpled but still made.

The waiter opened up the table and began to lay out the supper. I leaned against the wall by the window and watched him. When he was through, Rachel Wallace signed the bill, added in a tip, and gave it back to him. He smiled—smiled at me—and went out.

Rachel looked at the table. There were flowers in the center.

“You can go for tonight, Spenser,” she said. “We’ll eat and go to bed. Be here at eight tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Where we going first?”

“We’re going out to Channel Four and do a talk show.”

Julie Wells came out of the bathroom. She had a small towel wrapped around her head and a large one wrapped around her body. It covered her but not by much. She said, “Hi, Spenser,” and smiled at me. Everyone smiled at me. Lovable. A real pussycat.

“Hello.” I didn’t belong there. There was something powerfully non-male in the room, and I felt its pressure. “Okay, Rachel. I’ll say good night. Don’t open the door. Don’t even open it to push that cart into the hall. I’ll be here at eight.”

They both smiled. Neither of them said anything. I went to the door at a normal pace. I did not run. “Don’t forget the chain,” I said. “And the deadbolt from inside.”

They both smiled at me and nodded. Julie Wells’s towel seemed to be shrinking. My mouth felt a little dry. “I’ll stay outside until I hear the bolt turn.”

Smile. Nod.

“Good night,” I said, and went out and closed the door. I heard the bolt slide and the chain go in. I went down in the elevator and out onto Arlington Street with my mouth still dry, feeling a bit unlovely.