CHAPTER 4
The Cheshire Hotel was, as Skip put it, not exactly the ritziest place in town. The wallpaper in the lobby was peeling, the sofa in the waiting area was frayed and frazzled, and the coffee table in front of it was balancing on three legs. The lights in the chandelier above blinked with a last flicker of life, and there was a dark red stain on the carpet that either came from a wine bottle or a dead body. Kinda reminded me of the building where I rented my office, which in a way made me feel right at home. It was, however, the last place one would expect to find the wife of the town’s richest man.
Behind the check-in desk was a tall, thin man with his back to the lobby. He was wearing a sweaty undershirt almost as stained as the rug on the floor, and at first, I thought he was checking keys on the board behind the counter.
As I stepped up to the desk, I soon realized that was not the case. “Excuse me. Sir?”
The man responded with a grunt, then a groan, then a visible shudder ran down his spine. Yet he did not turn around to acknowledge me .
“Sir? Hello?” I dinged the bell on the desk.
The man simply groaned even louder.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
Suddenly from somewhere out of sight I heard, “For Pete’s sake, we can hear you… we’re just choosing to ignore you!”
Instantly I recognized the voice. “Stella?” I turned to look around the lobby but there was no sign of her.
“Buck? Is that you?”
I crouched low, glancing under the broken-legged coffee table then squatting even lower to look under the tattered sofa. “Stella? Where are you?”
“I’m right here, you big patsy!” From behind the counter trotted Stella, shimmying about as she pulled her stockings up and her dress down, at the same time licking the suspicious sheen off her lips. “What the hell are you doing here? Did you follow me?”
“No! Did you follow me ?”
“No! You told me to go out and find myself a good time, which is exactly what I was doing… until we got rudely interrupted. Ain’t that right, Lanky Larry?”
Lanky Larry spun around behind the counter, still shuddering as though teetering on the brink of pleasure while he fumbled with his trousers and hitched up his suspenders.
Apparently, Stella felt right at home in this dive too. “Sorry to barge in on your romantic tête-à-tête , but I’m here to see the manager of this fine establishment and ask a few questions.”
“Ooh, is this about the case?” Stella tippy-tapped excitedly in her heels. “Are we on a new case right now?”
“ I’m on a new case right now. You look like you’re too busy tootin’ Lanky Larry’s trombone to solve anything.”
“On the contrary,” Stella said, waggling a finger at me. “Tootin’ Larry’s trombone could in fact work in our favor right now.” She turned to the man behind the counter. “ Hey, you up there in the clouds. If you ever want me to finish that tune, you’ll tell Buck Baxter here whatever he wants to know. Capiche ?”
Lanky Larry still looked as though he was dealing with the situation in his trousers when he muffled a grunt and asked me, “What is it you wanna know?”
“Apparently you’ve had a man and woman check in briefly—maybe only for a couple of hours or so—on more than one occasion in the past few days.”
He looked at me with a vague expression on his face. “Mister, this is a sleazy, two-bit hotel. That’s what happens every day.”
“Let me be more specific. You’ve had a handsome young fella with a rather wealthy looking female—fancy clothes, perfect hair, fine French perfume—checking in lately. She’s the kinda dame who don’t usually check in to a place like this. You catch my drift?”
Lanky Larry twigged on. “Oh yeah, I remember them. They sneak in real quiet, go upstairs for an hour or two, then take off before sunrise. Only…” He pondered a moment, gathering the few thoughts he had.
“Only what?” I asked.
“Only, he ain’t the only one invited to the party each night.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, she ain’t just pitchin’ woo with the one fella. Once they check in, three or four other mugs head on up to their room. All of ’em dressed the same—black suits, black hats, black ties. I don’t doubt their havin’ one helluva time up there… and yet, I ain’t never heard a peep outta that room. No records playing, no laughin’ or screamin’ or glasses clinkin’. Whatever they get up to in there, they’re as quiet as church mice.”
“Even a church mouse can get up to no good,” Stella said, screwing up her face with suspicion.
“I agree.” I turned back to the manager. “Lanky Larry, you think we could borrow the key to that room and have a quick look around? ”
Lanky Larry hesitated uneasily. “It’s hotel policy not to—”
“Ah, don’t be such a stupid putz!” Stella lambasted. “You want the key to my heart? Then hand over the key to that room already.”
Lanky Larry instantly spun on his heels, grabbed a key off the board behind him, and slapped it down on the counter. “Room sixty-nine. You might wanna take the stairs, the elevator keeps getting stuck. We think there’s a stiff in the bottom of the shaft, but nobody wants to look.”
“That explains the smell in here,” I muttered.
“And here I was thinkin’ it was my breath after that baloney and pickle sandwich I had for lunch,” added Stella. “I tell ya, you gotta be careful what you put in your mouth these days.”
We didn’t need the key to room sixty-nine after all. When we got there, we found the door already ajar. Cautiously I nudged it open with one hand.
The room was dank and dingy. The dying light of day struggled to break through the closed curtain, only managing to peep through the tears and holes that had been eaten through by moths. I reached inside the door and flicked on the light. The bed had been roughly made, and given the number of stains on the sheets there was no telling how often they were washed and changed. In one corner was a writing desk with a broken lamp, and against the far wall stood a wooden closet beside a crookedly hanging painting of a daffodil-filled vase, the only splash of color in the room.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Stella asked quietly, as though the room had ears.
“I’m not entirely sure, but this unlocked door makes me think we’re not the only ones looking for it.”
I stepped inside the room with Stella on my heels, almost literally. I closed the door behind us. “Harry believes his mother is having an affair. What we want to know is the identity of the fella involved.”
“Or fellas,” Stella pointed out. “Lanky Larry practically said there was a Roman orgy going on up here.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. There’s no real evidence yet that Mrs. Hart is even having an affair.”
“I think those stained sheets on the bed would beg to differ.”
“Given the state of this place there’s no telling if those are new or old. Just start searching the room, would ya? The gentleman could have dropped something out of his wallet or left a matchbook from his favorite dive bar behind. It’s not like the maid does a bang-up job of tidying up. There could be anything in here that might give us a lead.”
I started with the unemptied trashcan under the writing desk while Stella looked under the bed. I found nothing but a shriveled brown apple core, a scrunched-up cigarette packet and a chewed-up ball of gum that looked as though it had turned as hard as stone. Meanwhile, Stella crawled out from under the bed and dusted her hands off.
“Anything under there?”
“Not unless you wanna question a big dead rat to see what he knows.”
I turned to the closet and opened the door.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see the fist till it clocked me square in the face.
I stumbled backward and fell on my ass on the floor.
The closet doors flew open and a goon with a patch over one eye lunged at me.
Stella screamed.
The goon landed on top of me and threw another punch while I was down, this time hitting me in the jaw.
Stella grabbed the trashcan and tried to wallop the guy over the head, but he shoved her so hard she hit the ground and slid across the room.
I tried to fight back, but the grinning one-eyed goon seized my fist and began crushing it. He laughed and uttered something in German.
I replied by kneeing him as hard as I could in the balls.
He gasped in pain, let go of my fist, and I smashed my knuckles into his nose.
He staggered backward and I reached for him, grabbing the lapel of his jacket.
I was about to throw another punch, but he yanked free of my grasp, lurching backward and stumbling for the door.
I pulled myself off the floor and tried to race after him, but my head was spinning and by the time I teetered out the door, the goon had already disappeared down the stairwell.
I turned back to the room and helped Stella up. “You okay?”
“Better than you,” she said, sizing up my face and pulling the handkerchief out of the breast pocket of my jacket before dabbing it to my cheek which was wet with blood. “He really walloped you good.”
I winced. “Ow. That hurts.”
“Don’t be such a big baby, I’m tryin’ to clean you up before you bleed all over the floor. God knows this poor room don’t need you adding to its woes.”
“I wasn’t saying ‘ow’ to the cheek.” I looked down at my still bunched-up fist and opened my palm.
Stella followed my gaze as we both looked down at a lapel pin sticking into my finger.
I winced again as I pulled it out of my finger, then turned it over in my hand to see the emblem on the front.
“What’s that?” Stella asked, unfamiliar with the criss-crossed symbol in my hand.
“If I ain’t mistaken, it’s the emblem for a new political party starting to rear its ugly head over in Germany. I think they call it a swastika.” I held the red, white, and black pin up for closer inspection. “Something tells me Mrs. Hart ain’t having no run-of-the-mill affair.”