The Vernon Motor Hotel was one of twenty-odd between Washington and Alexandria, set back off the highway on a lush rise of emerald grass. Between the transplanted elms a shiny hardtop drive wound toward the center Georgian portico. On either side of the lobby building brick wings curved back, each unit served by its own driveway and porte-cochere. It looked clean, tidy and expensive as a Caribbean cruise. Novak parked on the main drive and cut across the lawn.
There was no car beside Number 37. That could mean something or nothing. As he walked he loosened his revolver in its holster and eyed the doorway ahead. A white-jacketed waiter was pedaling a shiny red bicycle along the sidewalk, balancing a covered tray on his padded head. Novak watched him park the bike, dismount and ring a doorbell.
When the waiter had disappeared inside, Novak stepped up to the door numbered 37 and pressed the button. Then he stepped to one side.
From a shade elm a robin swooped toward the grass, lighted and began stalking over the close-cropped greenery, cocking its head from side to side. From inside Number 37 no sound of moving feet, no shouted query. Novak rang again, wondering if Barada was driving his own car these days.
Still no answer.
Looking around, Novak waited until the waiter was pedaling back toward the kitchen and then he turned the doorknob. The door was locked. Glacing down he saw the lock was a cheap model with a keyhole in the pushbutton on the knob. He felt for his folder of spring-steel picks, selected one and went to work. Down the line a door opened and a man appeared lugging a heavy suitcase. His wife followed with an overnight bag and half a page of advice. Novak palmed the pick and stared at the white-painted door numbers. After a while he heard an engine start and when he glanced around, a blue Dodge with Arkansas plates was pulling away. Novak stepped close to the door and inserted the pick again. Finally the button popped out and the knob turned.
Novak went quickly inside and locked the door handle.
It was a two-room unit, small sitting room, bedroom and shower-bath. Novak clicked on a table lamp and looked around.
There were two suitcases, one open across the seat of a chair. It held some silk shirts, a couple of ties, a pair of alligator shoes with pointed toes, toilet gear and a bottle of rye. The writing table held an almost empty bottle of the same brand, two bottles that had once held ginger ale, a bucket of melted ice and three dirty glasses. He looked at the ashtrays. None of the butts had rouge on them.
The bed had been slept in. The corner held a tumble of dirty laundry. One of the shirts was blue silk, the one Barada had worn last night. In the bureau drawers, nothing but half a dozen monogrammed handkerchiefs.
Novak went back to the sitting room and listened. Then he knelt down and unstrapped the other suitcase. The catch was locked so he opened it with a small pick and unfolded the suitcase on the carpet.
More shirts and ties. Two sharkskin suits. A dozen packs of cards. A leather dice holder and eight ivory dice. A green box of cartridges, some of them missing. Caliber 7.65 mm. That meant Barada was wearing a gun that fired a slug about the size of the one that killed Chalmers Boyd.
Standing up Novak massaged his knees and broke the seal on the bottle of rye. He rinsed a little around his mouth, swallowed and made a sour face. Far from the best available. Recapping the bottle he dropped it back into the open suitcase. Then he turned off the table lamp, fitted himself into an armchair and waited in the darkness.
A car accelerated down the drive, tires squealing as it braked in the distance. Check-out probably. Then silence for a long time.
As he waited his ears grew sensitive. He could hear the whir of a vacuum somewhere in the same wing, goosey laughter from a couple next door, the splash of water in a swimming pool behind the wing.
Sun warming the roof made the joints expand and creak. Now that his eyes were accustomed to darkness, he could make out the furniture from where he sat. Another car idling along the drive. It seemed to slow in front of Number 37, then moved on and Novak let his breathing relax.
His body still pained him, but it was a dull pain today and the liquor was helping. His hands curled over the wooden ends of the chair arms and he flexed his muscles. The door would open any minute, bringing Big Ben Barada.
Then outside sounds seemed to fade away and he could hear only the uneasy creak of the timbers above.
The telephone rasped harshly.
The sound jerked him out of the chair. When he realized what it was he cursed softly and walked toward it. The sound came again, commanding and urgent. He hesitated, then picked up the receiver. Muffling it with his fingers he snapped, “Yeah?”
The voice was a distant disembodied whisper. It breathed, “We’ll have to make it later. No earlier than nine o’clock.”
“Why?”
“I’m being watched. I can’t...” the voice dropped and grew suddenly urgent. “Got to hang up. I’ll call later.” The receiver clicked down.
Novak stared at the receiver in his hand, lowered it and went back to his chair. The call had been meant for Ben Barada. The voice could have been anyone’s. No chance of tracing it.
His eyelids were heavy. He stretched out his feet and yawned. The liquor was making him sleepy. In the warm silent darkness he felt himself drifting away. Closing his eyes he slept.
He woke with a jerk, grabbing at his holster, then heard the car backfire again. A sports car with a noisy muffler. The engine caught, held, and the car throomed away. Blinking, he shook himself and stood up. His wristwatch showed 12:20. No telling when Barada might come back. Novak crossed to the door, pressed his ear to the panel and listened. No outside sounds. Opening the door a crack he peered out and then he eased through the doorway and began striding across the grass. A waiter pedaled past on a bicycle. A new station wagon pulled up in front of Number 35 and a bellhop helped the young couple unload. No one paid any attention to Novak. He got behind the wheel of his car, started the engine and drove back into Washington.
Mary was still out for lunch but she had left a typed message. Credit Central had called back with some information on Dr. Edward Bikel. He had done time in the forties for check altering, beat a federal rap for selling a phony cancer cure, and was last known to be in Chicago operating a health food store. His credit rating was zero. None of it was any surprise to Novak. He folded the sheet into his billfold and idled into the coffee shop. The redhead had gone off duty and the waitress who brought his Salisbury steak had a beak like a crow’s and a face with more lines than a contour map. Novak sipped a pint of homogenized milk, drank a cup of coffee and signed the check. As he walked across the lobby Jimmy Grant drifted over. “She just got back, Pete. About five minutes ago. Anything else?”
Novak shook his head. “That’s all for now, kid. Go hustle some shiny quarters.” He went over to the elevators and rode one to the fifth floor. Stopping at Paula Norton’s door he pushed the bell button.
After a while he heard her muffled voice. “Who is it?”
“Novak.”
“Go away.”
“A couple of words, beautiful.”
The door opened the length of the snub chain. She was wearing a dressing gown and her feet were bare. “What is it?”
“All the way,” he said. “I’m not going to beat you up. I’m not your ex-husband.”
She shivered and the chain rattled free. Stepping back she let Novak enter. When the door was shut he said, “Ben wasn’t there. I waited for him but no show. Only a phone call.” He shrugged. “So much for that. I’m going to talk to fatty now, tell her I braced you for the jewelry but got nothing. That should hold her for now.”
“Such faith in me,” she sneered. “Sure it won’t bend your professional ethics?”
His hands caught her wrists and held them until she stopped struggling. As he drew her to him he muttered, “After what I did for you last night my ethics show more curves than a pretzel. Remember that, beautiful.” He pressed her lips against his and felt her body quiver and go slack. When he opened his eyes he saw that hers were glistening.
Huskily she said, “I had no right to say what I did. I guess I’m half-crazy with worry. Ben, the jewelry, the old lady...What I ought to do is get stone drunk.”
“I’ve heard worse ideas.”
“Can’t I change to another room? Every time I go into the bedroom I think of Chalmers lying there. And the widow across the hall. Good Lord, I’ve never been in a spot like this.”
“Since the police are mildly interested in you they might get even more interested if you changed your room. Waiting’s tough but none of this would have happened if you hadn’t started to exploit that streak of larceny in your beautiful body. At that you’re getting off easy. If staying in your room is bad, think what it would be like down at Police Headquarters trying to explain away a dead lover in your bedroom. And I haven’t even twisted your arms, the way I’ll tell it to Mrs. Boyd. So, between highballs, count your blessings.”
“I will,” she said throatily. “I’ll do everything you say.”
Opening the door, he backed into the hallway.
Crossing to Suite 515, he rang the bell and waited.
Instead of Bikel, Julia Boyd opened the door. Her face registered surprise. “Oh, I thought it would be the police.”
As he closed the door he said, “More questions?”
“Not that.” She shrugged. “They aren’t ready to release Chalmer’s body for burial. I thought once an autopsy was over, the next of kin could claim the body.”
“Not always. Guess that postpones your departure plans.”
She patted the side of her hair with one pudgy hand. “I’m not leaving without my jewelry, Mr. Novak. Oh, no!” Turning she walked further into the room. Her stout legs were clad in bulging slacks. There were fluffy slippers on her bare feet. A heavy cotton brassiere showed through the lacy white blouse. “Well,” she demanded, “did you get it from her?”
Novak shook out a cigarette and lighted it. “Not yet,” he said slowly. “She was out all morning, just got back a little while ago. I moved in on her then.” He smiled wolfishly. “A hard baby,” he purred. “Took plenty of punishment.”
Julia Boyd’s face broke into a lustful smile. “You really beat her up, huh?”
“She’s huddled up on the sofa sobbing like a baby.” He blew smoke at the chandelier. “Look, Mrs. Boyd— Julia, I mean—I don’t think she has the stuff. Either that or she’s the toughest pigeon I ever pummeled.”
“Nonsense. You can’t handle her kind with velvet gloves. She’s tough, all right—tough enough to kill my husband. Now go back there and get my jewelry.”
Novak let himself down on the sofa and stared up at her. “Her ex-husband is in town—Ben Barada. That mean anything to you?”
“It means you’ll have to work fast.”
He shook his head slowly. “Barada’s a factor we ought to consider. He’s not long out of Joliet, and broke, the way she tells it. I figure he followed her here, latched onto the jewelry and blew town. Maybe he killed your husband in the process.”
Her eyes were slits in an unbaked pie. “You gone soft on her?” she hissed.
“No, ma’am. I’m trying to find a logical answer—and your jewelry. Shoving her around didn’t get us anywhere. Maybe there’s another way.” He let his voice trail off doubtfully.
“What?”
“Tell the police about Barada, let them haul him in and squeeze out what they can.”
Her face seemed in deep thought. Finally she said, “No. I don’t want that.”
“Don’t you want your husband’s murderer caught?”
“I mainly want my jewelry back before she has a chance to cash it in and hire defense attorneys with my money.”
Novak leaned back and gazed up at the cool green ceiling. “I don’t think they’ll arrest her,” he said thoughtfully. “The body was found here and there’s nothing to suggest she was ever in here, and logic’s against your husband inviting her in. Alive he was a heavy man; dead he would be even heavier. Think a jury would believe a girl as slight as Paula could wrestle his dead weight through two doors and onto this sofa?”
Her face was the color of a ripe grape. “You fool,” she wheezed, “I tell you that woman killed my husband. I insist you search her rooms and baggage. The evidence is there. It must be. That’s not much to do for a thousand dollars.”
Novak stood up. “Suppose I told you I’d searched her room and her bags—and found nothing.”
Julia Boyd swore. “She’s bought you off, that’s what’s happened. Damn, who can a helpless widow turn to?”
“Ed Bikel,” Novak said. “He’s about the size and build for a prowl job. And he can probably pick a lock as good as the next follow. Sorry we didn’t make out as a team, Mrs. Boyd, but all this has been pretty far out of my usual line. You’re a sturdy figure of a woman. Why not charge over there and take up where I left off?”
“You’re walking out on me?”
“Guess so.” He moved toward the doorway. “Oh, one thing, Mrs. Boyd. If you didn’t know it before, that pink mixture Bikel doses you with is loaded with mescaline. Nightmare juice. No wonder you’ve been getting hallucinations. That’s what the stuff’s for.”
“Mesca...mesca—what?” she stuttered, face paling.
“Mescaline. Where the Doc comes from, the Indians make a brew of buds from a special cactus plant. That’s how they do those crazy stunts with snakes and hot coals. Their medicine men take it for visions. It stops time, turns the world green, purple and gold. Dangerous stuff, Mrs. Boyd—in non-professional hands. Now might be the time to change to something milder.”
One hand clawed a roll of fat around her throat.
“The Doc’s hanging by a thread. The law around here is all federal, and even possession is a crime. You might mention that to him the next time he ambles up with a teaspoon.”
Opening the door he went out.
His hands felt clammy but his face wore a smile. As he walked along the corridor he saw Bikel’s door jerk open. Novak stopped, half-turned and fussed with his cigarette. The sound of angry voices reached along the corridor. A door slammed and Novak turned.
Someone was running toward the elevators.
Novak jogged, slowed and saw a woman pressing the DOWN button. As he strolled quietly toward her he heard a sound of sniffling, saw her fumble a handkerchief from her purse, dry her eyes and blow her nose. She was breathing in quick gasps. A little birdlike woman in an old blue rayon dress, a black straw hat with a half-veil and scuffed black walking shoes. The elevator door opened and they entered together. Her shoulders moved jerkily and she kept her face covered with the handkerchief. Once he thought he heard a stifled moan, but it could have been only a strain on the elevator cable.
When the doors slid apart she straightened and buried the handkerchief in her purse. Her thin lips were almost colorless but her cheeks were flushed. Gray streaks threaded her hair. The skin of her hands was roughened, the knuckles large. A woman who was no stranger to hard labor. As she left the elevator Novak followed her through the lobby and out to the street. She hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked up Seventeenth Street.
Novak expected her to hail a taxi or head for a streetcar stop but she crossed the intersection with quick, determined steps and Novak followed. The light held him and when he could cross she was nearly a block away. At Rhode Island she turned left and scurried around to the side door of a brownstone Gothic church. When Novak reached the door he saw a legend above it in old English script: Chapel. Enter and Meditate. Join the Fellowship of Prayer.
He felt sorry for the little woman. There had been strong, bitter words between her and Bikel and now she was in the chapel seeking consolation and strength. As he thought about her kneeling in the dimness, he felt a surge of dislike toward Bikel. That smug fraud. What right did he have to bring unhappiness to anyone? Novak weighed going in and talking to her, but being approached by a stranger might upset her even more.
Moodily he walked back to the Tilden.