Winter at Death's Hotel (33 page)

Cleary's face worked its way through several expressions and settled into one of hurt dignity. Grady bent his head as if he were afraid the Commissioner was about to hit him. They went out silently; as they did, the Harvard man caught the door and came in, closing it behind him.

“This morning,” Roosevelt intoned, “I am ashamed to be associated with this police department.”

“But are they?”

“Of course they aren't!” Roosevelt sat in his desk chair and gnawed on his knuckles. “Cleary gave me a cock-and-bull tale that wouldn't have fooled a three-year-old. What have you found?”

“I spoke with Roscoe Harding, who's rightfully enraged. He says that it's true that they asked for money to pay off journalists. I gather he didn't mind bribing people; it's not getting the result he wanted that's set him off. He's talking about a lawsuit.”

“Let him sue the newspaper. Cleary said, by the way, that the author of that wretchedly written piece is a woman. Can that be true?”

“Unlikely, Chief, but I'll check. We have a man on his way to interview Carver of the New Britannic; I suppose it'll be the same story—gave money to pay off journalists, and so on. Concerned, like Harding, for his public reputation.”

“And apparently utterly unsurprised that two New York police detectives had their palms out.”

“Quite. I've sent a clerk down to City Hall to delve into the records and double-check what was in the newspaper. One of our colleagues in the Brooklyn force is going to have a look at Cleary's house; the address is apparently quite a good one. We'll have to check the Brooklyn real estate records, too.” He lit a cigarette, offered the open case to Roosevelt, who refused, and snapped it shut. “It's all quite damning, Chief. Do you want to turn it over to the Ethical Squad?”

“Not yet. I wish to know first whether we have an argument with the newspapers. We must be absolutely sure that we aren't skating on the thin ice of journalistic fiction.”

“You can't make this stuff up, Chief.”

Roosevelt gave a kind of snort. “All right, get me the head of Ethical; tell him I want to discuss charges. Then get me the department legal brains. And somebody who knows the banks and real estate. We need to put our heads together to see how we follow the money, and how far.” He folded his hands in front of him. “So far, you know, this is ‘peanuts,' as the saying is. That is its charm. Its routineness, its common vulgarity. I suppose that we have here two policemen who have spent their lives taking bribes. Are they the end of the yarn that will pull the whole ball apart, or are they simply a thread that will unravel a bit of the skein and leave the rest intact? That is a mixed metaphor, although the general field of subject matter is the same, namely that of women's work—knitting and sewing. I wouldn't do it if I were writing.” He pushed out his mustached lip. “If it's only the two of them, then they'll serve as an example to all the other sergeants and lieutenants who are ‘on the take.' I cannot presume to put the fear of God into them, but I can certainly put in the fear of Roosevelt!”

***

Louisa had tried twice more to call Minnie at the newspaper. The first time, a bored male voice had said that she wasn't in; the second time, a different male voice asked who it was, meaning that Minnie
was
in. He'd gone off, presumably to tell her, and when he came back, all he said was, “She isn't here.” And he had rung off.

She
won't talk to me. She was there and when she knew who was calling, she refused to talk to me.

Louisa went up to her room. She hadn't expected Minnie to reject her like that. She had thought that they would both treat what had happened as a bit of foolishness, a reversion to girlhood. A “crush.” She took hotel notepaper from the pigeonhole in the desk and wrote:
“Dear Minnie, I hope you feel as silly as I do at this moment. I think we've stumbled over a pebble on the path to friendship. We shouldn't take it seriously. I do want to see you and talk this out thoroughly and finally so that we can go on being real friends. Yours sincerely, Louisa (Doyle)”

She had to take it down to Reception to have it mailed, for the annex lacked the rather clever mail chutes that allowed guests in the hotel proper simply to drop their letters through a slot. The chutes had glass fronts; it was rather amusing to wait by the elevator and see several envelopes plummet past, headed one couldn't guess where.

Minnie would have the note tomorrow. Then she would telephone or come by. Nonetheless, Louisa was upset. Worried, saddened, deflated: she couldn't describe her condition.
As
if
I
were
feeling
a
bit
ill
and
were
waiting
to
be
very
ill. Or as if I were waiting for something terrible to happen.
She paced back and forth in her small bedroom, then a little after five could stand it no more and went downstairs yet again. She gave Reception the number of the Express; she corraled one of the boys and led him to the telephone closet. She gave him a coin.

“Here is what I want you to do. When you get the switchboard at the number that will be called, tell them you want the newsroom. When you get the newsroom, ask to speak to A. M. Fitch. If they ask who's calling, tell them you have some information. Understand? ‘I have some information.' Then, when Miss Fitch—it's a woman—comes to the telephone, hand the earpiece to me and leave the closet. Do you understand?”

She thought that his male voice would keep Minnie from knowing who was calling. And that, in fact, was what happened: the boy did as he had been told; he handed her the earpiece; Louisa, face red and heart pounding, had leaned close to the mouthpiece and had said, “Minnie, it's Louisa.”

And the call had ended as Minnie had rung off.

She
hates
me.
She corrected herself:
She
fears
me.
She corrected herself again.
Or
herself.

***

At nine o'clock that night, Minnie Fitch was reading over the proofreader's corrections on the next day's article, nodding her head and making almost no marks on the typeset copy. She thought it was good, awfully, awfully good. She had had to dance very fast over things she hadn't been able to learn, most of all how well or badly the Murder Squad had done in finding the Butcher, but the piece was intriguing and rather racy, as she had intended. Her editor had said, “It'll sell papers.” From him, that was high praise.

She tried not to think of Louisa, because to think of Louisa was to think of The Moment. The Moment of The Kiss. Every time she thought of it, it was as if she'd been hit with something. How had such a thing happened? How could she?

She sent the pages back to composition and looked around to see what things she wanted to take home with her.

“
Fitch!
”

She turned. “What?”

One of the older reporters was standing at the far end where the telephones were. “It's for you,
again
!” They were all pissed at her because most of the calls had been for her that day—cranks, admirers, a few threats, doubtless from cops. And calls from Louisa.

“Man or woman?”

“A man. Your heart's desire.”

She wound her way among the desks. None of the usual remarks came her way. That's what a move above the fold did for you—respect, some real, some fake, a lot of envy, but an improvement either way.

“Fitch here.” She was prepared for Louisa's voice again, ready to hang up.

“Ah, it's a female you are!” It was a good voice, a little hearty, certainly Irish, apparently good humored.

“I'm sorry, I'm busy; we're putting out a newspaper. What is it you want?”

“Oh, darlin', if I went into that, we'd be all night. It's not what I want, it's what I'm offering, y'see.”

“Okay, what're you offering?” Her heart was beating too fast because of fear that it had been Louisa. She tried to take a deep breath.

“It'd be in the way of information, love. Ye do
pay
for information, now, don't ye?”

She became cautious. “Sometimes. Depends.”

“On the quality, I hope, because what I've got is the best, the very best.”

“About what?”

“What would it be, darlin', but the coppers and that hotel ye wrote about.”

“How come you have that kind of information?” Louisa had been driven out of her head; she was thinking
another
scoop, above the fold, a move up…

“Amn't I what you'd call close to them, dear.”

“You a cop?”

He laughed. “That would be telling.”

“And the hotel?”

“I don't want to say too much without I'm paid, y'see? I've awready had an offer from the
World
; they come to me, not me to them, but as I thought ye'd broke the thing, I'd give you first crack. Fer a consideration, as it were.”

“Come to the
Express
newsroom. I'll wait until ten.”

“Aw, no, darlin', I wasn't born yesterday, as the saying is. Ye got to come to me. Alone. I don't want to find meself with five lawyers and two tough boys instead of a dear woman, as I know you are.”

“Where?”

“Ye know the fountain in Bowling Green?”

She thought of the place: the very foot of Manhattan, all commercial buildings now, the fountain derelict. But well lighted at night. She hesitated—the caller could be a crank, a hoodlum, a cop wanting to take revenge for Cleary and Grady. Even a cop sent by Cleary and Grady. That worried her: how far would somebody like Cleary go to get revenge?

She said, “People will know where I'm going, get me? Just so you won't try to get cute.”

“I'm never cute, darlin', as you'll see when you get a look at me mug. The fountain at ten o'clock?”

She didn't like it. Yet she knew she had to do it; it was part of the business. Still… She said, “Give me a detail that'll convince me. Give me a reason for trusting you enough to go out.”

There was a silence. Then he said, “The doorman at the New Britannic. He knows more than he lets on.
Lots
more. And that's all I'll say until I see some silverbacks.”

“What's he know?”

“That would be tellin' without bein' paid, darlin'. Will ye meet me, yes or no?”

In
for
a
penny, in for a pound
. “Ten o'clock at the fountain.”

She rang off. Ten minutes to get over there, spend an hour with him, that would be eleven; then back if he gave her anything good—could she get it into the later editions tomorrow? Only if it was something big. What? Maybe what he'd said—things the doorman knew. Maybe about the French maid who'd disappeared, maybe more than that. Like what?
Good
Christ, could he have meant the doorman was
him
? Was she about to get the whole thing?
Her heart thumped.

When she left the building, she had told nobody anything. She was going home, she had said. She was afraid they would steal her scoop.

***

Alexander Newcome was in a dive called The Golden Pit on MacDougal Street. He was still more or less sober but on his way to being good and drunk. He intended to be
very
good and drunk. And he wanted to do something for which being good and drunk was the best state.

The Golden Pit was a low place reached by a flight of stone steps down from the street. The patrons were men, a lot of them badly dressed and not too clean, but some of them were like Newcome, older and well turned out. The spiffy ones didn't have much to do with each other; the poorer, younger ones did. A few of both sorts sat at tables, but there were only three tables in the whole place, and everybody else either stood or they sat on benches like church pews that ran around the walls. A bar took up one side of the room; the other walls—there were only two, the room triangular—except for scuffed wainscoting and a few cheap engravings, were bare.

Newcome was on his feet. He moved slowly around the room, a glass in his hand, because if you went to the Pit, you had to buy a drink. You didn't have to drink it, however; Newcome had been advised not to, as the drinks were said to contain things like benzene and turpentine and shoe dye for color. So Newcome circulated slowly, as most of the well-dressed men did. When he had made a complete circle and come back to the bar he rested his back against it and put his glass down.

“Another?” a barman said at once.

“Not yet.”

“You've held on to that one pretty long.”

Newcome thought he'd rather gag down the contents of the spittoon than drink what was in the glass, but he didn't say so. He wanted to get drunk, but not here, and he wanted to get drunk, but not alone.

He looked around the walls. On his right, below an engraving of the Colosseum, was a face he hadn't noticed before, probably a new arrival. Newcome, who was wearing a silk hat and a cashmere overcoat and who had a silver-topped stick in his right hand, cocked an eyebrow.

The young tough by the wall looked back with rather a sneer.

Newcome tipped his head back as a summons.

The young man looked at him, his face sullen, his arms crossed, then shrugged and came slowly toward Newcome, weaving around other men who were in his way.

“Yeah?”

“I thought you looked as if you needed a drink.”

“Not the shit they serve here.”

“I was thinking of moving on to more salubrious climes.”

“Where's that at?”

“I was thinking of Street's, and then perhaps the Burnt Rag for some giggles. And then perhaps a Turkish bath to rid ourselves of the after-effects of what we've drunk, and then someplace private.”