Since I was planning another late night, I thought it wise to fortify myself with dinner. As I approached the dining room, Lily-of-the-diamonds-Clarke stormed out with her husband hotfooting it after her as he attempted to get a word in.
“I will go home on Sunday, and you will take me someplace decent for dinner. Surely this wide spot in the road has one!” she snapped.
“But, Lily—”
“Why you had to come here in the first place is beyond me.”
“Honey, I told you—”
“There’s no one to talk to, nothing to do. Having brats in the dining room — in the evening — is the last straw!”
She drew up short, mainly because I was blocking her way. She started around me. I danced to the right. She moved the other way. So did I.
“Don’t you think that little French boy and the Polish girl need to be with their parents after all they’ve been through?” I said, so mad I could spit.
Lily might be rich, but she wasn’t smart enough to recognize I was blocking her way out of contrariness. We did our two-step again.
“What they’ve been through? Their parents chose to run. They let Paris fall to the Germans. Now I’ll have to get my clothes from second-rate New York designers. And God only knows when we’ll have decent champagne again. Get out of my way.”
I did.
She stormed past with her husband still trying to pacify her. At the door to the dining room, Lena Shields had also turned to watch. Our gazes met in shared disgust.
“That takes the prize for selfish,” I said, forgetting the role I was playing.
Lena didn’t notice.
“That sow! She deserves every rotten thing that happens to her!” Behind her black-rimmed glasses her eyes fixed on the retreating couple as if unable to look away. “Pardon me,” she said moving past me. “I’ve lost my appetite.
* * *
Shortly before midnight, I got up and put on an old tweed skirt and a sweater that had been darned on one arm. I laced up a pair of gum-soled shoes. They were ugly things not meant for anyplace but a gym, but they excelled at soaking up sound.
Tonight’s schedule didn’t call for talking to cleaning women in indoor comfort. Over the rest of the outfit I added a warm jacket. My .38 fit under it nicely. With a ham sandwich I’d ordered from Room Service prior to my shuteye stuffed in one pocket, I listened at the hall door long enough to be satisfied no one was coming or going. I eased the door open a sliver.
Click.
Had another door opened? Had one that had been ajar closed? I held my breath and tried not to pinch the small scrap of paper in my fingers. Two minutes passed. I counted the seconds. Finally, as silently as I could, I stepped out.
Alert for sound or movement in the hall, I slipped the scrap of paper between the latch and doorplate of my room. It muffled the faint scrape and snap of metal settling into metal. The door would stay closed and the paper itself wasn’t likely to be noticed.
My steps were noiseless. I crept to the window at the end of the hall. I’d tested it when I returned from the soup kitchen. Now, as then, it glided up so silently I wondered if someone had oiled it. With a final glance back, I ducked through it onto the fire escape.
The metal gave a nearly inaudible chink as I dropped down. Stepping out of view, I pulled the window closed save for a crack large enough for my fingers.
Again I counted two minutes. If anyone had heard me leave, peddling a tale about stepping out for a breath of air would be easier to sell if I wasn’t headed up the metal stairs to the floors above. When the time passed uneventfully, I did just that.
Shifting weight from foot to foot so the metal beneath me creaked as little as possible, I reached the third floor and ducked past a window identical to the one I’d climbed out. Driving through the alley a couple of times in daylight had allowed me to pick a spot on the fire escape that would give me the best vantage point. I could see not only the alley, but also the kitchen door to the hotel and the side street. Anyone coming down from the floor above would have to pass me, and I could move quickly if anyone sneaked out the window on this floor or the one below.
The only problem was sitting crosswise on one of the narrow stairs.
“Watch out for the boogeyman,” a voice teased.
I tensed.
It was only someone leaving the kitchen. Seconds later a figure appeared, flapping a good-humored hand at whoever inside had spoken. Len the bartender, maybe? He turned down the side street.
Not much time passed before a clank at the far end of the alley caught my ear. Then another one, closer. A thin shape bobbed in and out of the edge of the shadows. Punchy making his rounds. It must be twelve-thirty.
He passed beneath me; found something good in the hotel garbage can, to judge by the smack of his lips closing over it; went on his way. More time passed. I ate the ham sandwich. I blew on my hands to keep my fingers limber. Soft as the rustle of leaves in a breeze, I heard the sound of a window sash easing open below me.
My hand slid to the Smith & Wesson. I peered through the metal grid of the step where I sat. An arm emerged from the window. A bundle the size of a tin can arced across the spindly rail of the fire escape and into the alley.
Seconds trickled in a steady stream. Finally, shadows across from the hotel and ten feet further along the alley shifted. A man’s shape emerged, moving quickly. He darted across and bent to retrieve whatever had come out the window.
I’d planned for someone coming in or out, not a duo. While the man made his way to the street, I waited in vain for the sound of the sash below me closing. Only when the man with the bundle had turned out of sight did I hear the sash whisper down.
I breathed a time or two, then went down the stairs, sacrificing some of my previous stealth in the interest of speed. As I neared the window the bundle had gone out, I forced myself back to total caution. It was closed all the way now. The hall beyond it appeared deserted. I hurried past. I flew down the stairs to ground level.
Memory of the garrote across my throat was fresh enough for me to have the .38 in hand as I hit the alley. One quick sweep of the shadows for unfriendly shapes, and I took off for the street.
There. Half a block up. A man who walked with his elbows out. The man in the alley had walked with elbows out. Nice confirmation, though, since the street was otherwise empty. He stopped at the corner. Ducking into a bank entrance in case he looked back, I caught the sound of muffled steps behind me.
They stopped. Someone was following me. The person who minutes ago had tossed something out a window?
Fat white columns framed the front of the bank where I’d taken refuge. There was just space enough for me to squeeze between the nearest one and the front of the building. As the man behind me drew abreast of the column, I circled it like a carved horse on a small and dangerous merry-go-round. I came out behind my stalker, who held something between both hands. He turned into the entryway, expecting to find me. He had a fleeting second for puzzlement. Before he could look around, I yanked his arm double at the small of his back and slammed him face first against the side wall of the entry.
I shoved the Smith & Wesson against his head.
“Drop what you’re holding and do as I say or you’re dead.”
I felt his reflex: Quick tensing, followed by pretended acquiescence. He meant to play along until he could jump me.
Something hit the ground by my feet. I was pretty sure I knew what it was.
“Lock your hands on top of your head. Spread your legs.”
He resisted the second part, knowing it would slow his movements. I slid the tip of the gun to the back of his ear. He complied.
“Okay, Bartoz. How about telling me why you tried to kill me the other night in the alley?”
Up close I could see the cord securing his eye patch. He sneered, the sound of a man who didn’t care whether he lived or died.
“It’s what any Nazi-loving traitor deserves.”