J
ake Gold called the office a little after noontime the following Tuesday. “We gotta talk,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “What's up?”
“Not on the phone.”
“Sounds mysterious, Jake.”
“Mysterious is hardly the word for it.” Jake sounded as if he was out of breath.
“So, give me a hint.”
“I'll tell you all about it when I see you. This is gonna blow your mind.”
“How's this afternoon? I'm free anytime after three.”
He hesitated. “Better make it tomorrow,” he said. “I got a couple loose ends to clear up first.”
I checked my appointment calendar. “One o'clock okay? Meet me here. We'll have lunch.”
“Perfect,” he said. “I'll see you then.”
The next day, Wednesday, one o'clock came and went, and by two-thirty my stomach was growling and Jake still hadn't showed up. I went out to the reception area and asked Julie if he'd called to cancel or postpone our appointment.
She shook her head.
“That's not like Jake,” I said.
Julie nodded. “Meanwhile, I'm hungry.”
“Me, too. Whose turn?”
“Yours.”
So I went out to the deli and picked up a tuna on toasted wheat for Julie, a corned beef and Swiss cheese on pumpernickel for me, two bags of potato chips, and two Pepsi Colas. Each sandwich came with a giant kosher dill pickle.
I got back to the office a little after three. Jake still hadn't showed up, nor had he called. Julie turned on the answering machine, and we ate our sandwiches off waxed paper on the coffee table in my office.
After we finished, I lit a cigarette and said, “Jake had something important to tell me. He said it would blow my mind.”
“If you're worried about him,” Julie said, “you should call him.”
“He's not living at home. I don't know how to reach him.”
She grinned. “We got that caller ID, remember?”
“Oh, right. So you could keep track of all my calls, make sure I didn't overlook anything billable.”
“I logged the phone number he called from yesterday.”
“You're amazing.”
“I know,” she said.
She went out to her desk and was back a minute later with a phone number written on a scrap of paper. I took it over to my desk and dialed it.
“King's,” answered a man's heavily accented voice.
“I'd like to speak to Jake Gold,” I said, wondering who or what the hell King's was.
“Who zat?”
“Mr. Gold.” I spelled it for him.
“Okay. Hang on.” He put me on hold, then came back on the line a minute later. “No Gold, sorry.”
“What is this place?” I said.
“Wha' place?”
I took in a long breath and let it out slowly. “King's. What's King's?”
“Motel, man. Wha'd you think?”
“And there's no Jake Gold staying there?”
“I tol you, no.”
“What about yesterday? He might've checked out last night or this morning.”
“You want me to look?”
“Please.”
“Sure, man. No sweat.” He put me on hold again. This time he was gone for close to five minutes. Then he said, “Sorry, man. Nobody name Gold.”
“Could someone not staying there have used your phone?”
“Not this one. Maybe in one of the rooms, huh?”
“Do you keep a record of calls made from the rooms?”
“Oh, sure. Gotta charge'em. Outgoing calls, they come through the switchboard here.”
“Then I want you to check your records and tell me about a phone call that was made around twelve-fifteen yesterday afternoon.” I gave him my office number. “Do that for me, okay?”
“Listen, manâ”
“It's a police matter,” I said. “I appreciate your cooperation.”
“Like I got nuthin' else to do,” he grumbled. But he put me on hold again. When he came back on, he said, “Yeah. Unit Ten.”
“Who's staying in Unit Ten?”
“Mr. Silver.”
Real clever, Jake. “John Silver, right?” I said.
“Yeah, tha's him.”
“Suppose you ring Mr. Silver's room for me, okay?”
“You got it, man.”
I let it ring a dozen times. Jake didn't answer, nor did my friend at the switchboard pick up, so I disconnected and hit the redial button.
“King's.”
“No answer from Mr. Silver,” I said. “He is still registered there, isn't he?”
“Oh, yeah. Paid by the week. You get good deal for a week.”
“Where are you located?”
“Route Nine.”
“Where on Route Nine?”
“Framingham, man. Practically next to Ken's, you know?”
“Ken's Steak House?”
“You got it.”
“Listen,” I said, “do you know who Mr.âumâMr. Silver is?”
“Oh, sure. Tall old guy, funny hair. I check him in. I see him come and go.”
“Did you see him come or go today?”
“No, man. I been here since eight. Din see him all day. But he don' have to check with me, you know.”
“Okay, listen,” I said. “I want you to give him a message for me, okay? It's very important. I want him to get it just as soon as he comes in. The message is this: Call Brady Coyne immediately.” I spelled my name and recited both my office and home phone numbers.
“Wait a minute,” mumbled the guy. “How you spell
immediately
?”
I told him and repeated the two phone numbers.
“Okay,” he said.
“It's very important,” I said.
“Gotcha, man. Police business, huh?”
“Exactly.”
J
ake didn't call that afternoon, nor did he call me at home that evening or at the office on Thursday. It worried me. It was out of character for Jake to blow off an appointment, especially one he'd set up himself. He would've called if he couldn't make it. And if he couldn't call ahead of time, he'd call later.
And why register under a phony name?
This is going to blow your mind
, he'd said.
I called King's Motel after Julie left for the day. A woman with no accent answered this time. I asked her to ring Jake's room. Ten rings, no answer. I disconnected, then called her back. She told me Mr. Silver had not checked out. I asked her if she'd mind going to Unit Ten and knocking on his door. She said she couldn't leave the desk. When I told her it was a police matter, she decided maybe she could do it after all.
She came back on the line five minutes later. “Mr. Silver's got his Do Not Disturb sign on the door,” she said. “I knocked, but he didn't answer.”
“Could you use your key, go in?”
“Sure,” she said. “And get fired.”
“I left a note for him yesterday,” I said. “Would you mind checking his room slot, see if he picked it up? It's from Brady Coyne. That's me.”
“Okay.” A minute later she said, “Nope. Your message is still here.”
I thanked the woman and hung up.
Where the hell was Jake?
The question nagged me the whole time it took me to walk across the city to my apartment on the waterfront, and it nagged me while I changed out of my lawyer suit into my flannel shirt and jeans, and it nagged me while I sipped my glass of Rebel Yell and ice in my living room.
The more I thought about it, the more it worried me.
Jake had been through a lot. He'd lost Brian, he'd stopped working, he'd left his wife. Any one of those things was a certifiable reason for profound depression.
He'd hardly sounded depressed when he called me on the phone to make the appointment he'd broken. When I talked to him, in fact, he'd sounded manic.
It was an easy decision. I went down to the parking garage, got into my car, and headed for Route Nine in Framingham.
It took nearly three-quarters of an hour to get there. Route Nine in Framingham is a divided highway lined with commerce:
restaurants and night clubs, carpet warehouses and computer stores, giant shopping malls with twenty-acre parking lots. Every hundred yards or so a light stops traffic to make it easy for shoppers to enter and leave the places where they want to spend their money, and to hell with anybody who just wants to keep going.
Fluffy snowflakes the size of pennies whirled in my headlights, and a big neon sign with blinking bulbs heralding KING'S MOTEL appeared out of the blur. Under it, a smaller lighted sign read VACANCY. I got into the right-hand lane, thanked the green arrow on the traffic light, pulled into the parking area, and found a slot by the end of the building directly in front of Unit Ten.
King's Motel was a big oblong building with a white-brick facade, an overhanging roof, and an outside corridor running the length of the second floor. Ten units up, ten units down, front and back. Forty units in all. A tiny in-ground pool, now empty, sat directly beside the highway.
Back in the seventies (when I guessed it was built), King's Motel probably had been considered elegant. Now it looked like it had stopped trying.
I went directly to Unit Ten. A dim yellow bulb glowed beside the door, and the DO NOT DISTURB sign still hung on the doorknob.
I knocked on the door. When there was no answer from inside, I knocked louder and called, “Hey, Jake. It's Brady. Open up.”
He did not open up.
I tried the knob, but it was locked.
I spotted the neon-red OFFICE sign in a window down at the other end. I walked down there, opened the door, and went in.
A middle-aged woman with honey-colored skin and high cheekbones was talking on the phone behind a chest-high counter. She glanced at me, turned her back and whispered something into the phone, then hung up.
She put her elbows on the counter and smiled. “Want a room?”
“No,” I said. “I talked to you a couple hours ago. I want you to let me into Unit Ten.”
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I told youâ”
“You said you were worried about getting fired,” I said. “I appreciate that, and I don't mean to threaten you. But if you don't let me into that room, you will regret it, I promise.”
She rolled her eyes. “And that's not a threat?”
I shrugged. “Okay, it's a threat.”
“Did you say you were a cop?”
“No. I said it was police business. I'm a lawyer.”
“Can I ask you why you've got to get into that room?”
“Because I'm worried that your guestâmy friend and clientâmight've killed himself in there.”
She laughed quickly. Then she narrowed her eyes. “You're serious.”
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
She nodded. “Okay. Let's go.”
She took a key off a hook, slipped on a jacket, and I followed her back to Unit Ten.
She hesitated at the door, then knocked softly. “Sir?” she called.
When there was no answer, she shrugged and used her key to unlock the door. She pushed it open for me. “Go ahead,” she said. “I'm not going in there.”
I stood in the open doorway and looked inside. A muted television flickered at the foot of the bed. All the lights were turned off. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness.
Then I saw the silhouette of a human figure slumped in the upholstered chair against the wall on the other side of the bed. I stepped inside the doorway, and that's when I caught the foul, sweet smell of death.
“Jesus,” I mumbled.
I backed out and pulled the door closed.
The woman touched my arm. “What ⦠?”
“You wait here,” I told her. “Be sure nobody goes in there. I'm going to use your phone.”
I went back to the motel office and called state police headquarters, which happened to be located just a few miles down Route Nine from King's Motel.
When the dispatcher, or receptionist, or whoever it was answered, I told him I had to speak to Lieutenant Horowitz.