The accusation was so outlandish it threw me. Aware he was tensing to move, I ground the gun barrel into his head.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Contempt permeated his whole being.
“All those measurements you write, with some tale about efficient workers. Watching. Timing. Is it the count you plan to assassinate, or is your President coming to this hotel while he’s in town?”
Several things clicked into place. I stepped back cautiously.
“Bartoz, you’ve got it wrong. And whatever it is you and the count are up to, we’re getting in each other’s way. Keep your hands on your head and turn around slowly. Legs farther apart. Another step this way... and shoulders back against the wall.”
I’d denied him the balance he needed for quick moves. His single eye blazed at me.
“Those measurements you found in my room don’t matter a hill of beans. I’m working on something for the hotel. I needed a reason to wander around. FDR saved this country. He’s got my vote any time he wants it. I don’t know thing one about Count Szarenski, except if he’s who he claims to be, he’s some sort of war hero.”
I’d lowered the Smith & Wesson. His eye flicked to it.
“Don’t try,” I said softly. It was aimed at his midsection. “Across from the hotel parking lot there’s a luggage store. There’s a sign at the side of it that says Chiropractor with an arrow pointing down at some stairs. It’s an after-hours place. You know what that is?”
“A bar. So what? You want us to drink together?”
“Yeah. I’ll buy. I’ll tell you exactly what it is I’m doing. What you tell me is up to you. Sorting this out might keep the two of us from working at cross-purposes.”
He frowned. As good as his English was, my slang had thrown him.
“Keep us from getting in each other’s way,” I clarified.
Reading his expression was impossible.
“And if I don’t?”
“After fifteen minutes, I call the police.” I let my gun hand drop to my side. “Your choice.”
With the toe of my shoe, I skimmed back the object he’d dropped. It was a garrote. I stuffed it into my pocket. Locking eyes with him, I turned my back and walked away.
It was a risk. I knew it. I’d taken one of his toys, but he could have a gun or a knife in his pocket. Dry mouthed, I kept walking. A display of nerve was the thing I thought most likely to work with someone like Bartoz.
* * *
The Chiropractor was faintly stuffy with a hint of dampness. Unable to crack a window, lest noise from its illegal trade draw attention, its only ventilation came from an open door into a storage room under the business upstairs.
I sat at a corner table, watching the door and sipping whiskey. Since I hadn’t told Bartoz the password, I’d slipped the doorman a buck to let him in if he showed. Just as I was wondering what my next move should be if he didn’t appear, he did. A few heads turned to look at him, then lost interest.
“So.” He dropped into the chair across from me and lounged back with the confidence of a man who could hold his own in the roughest of dives. “You want to take me to bed? Where I come from, when a woman buys you a drink she wants to take you to bed.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re in America now.”
He was trying to throw me, to gain the upper hand, but my gambit already had proved more effective than his. It had gotten him here and I hadn’t taken a slug in my back.
The flesh-colored eye patch that didn’t match his skin was, if possible, more unsettling up close than it was at a distance. On opposite sides of the patch, the ends of an angry red scar testified to the slash of a blade. Apart from the patch and the scar, he was good-looking. A chin that was firm without being defiant. A mouth that looked like it might have laughed before it was twisted by bitterness.
“How long have you worked for the count?” I asked, when he’d ordered whiskey too and the waiter had brought it.
“Two years. A lifetime. Why do you ask?”
“Just breaking the ice.”
He considered it.
“Small talk.”
“Yes.” I crossed my arms on the table and leaned across them. “See I’m trying to figure out why you’d get such a crazy idea about me. Even considering the measurements.”
His single eye stared at me without blinking.
“The reason I’m at the hotel, Bartoz, is that the owners think someone has gotten into the safe.”
For the first time he looked startled. Interested even.
“Robbed, you mean?”
“They’re not sure. Nothing appears to be missing. They hired me to investigate. They don’t want me spooking the guests, so I’m pretending to be an efficiency expert.”
His wariness, which I hadn’t noticed was fading, returned full force.
“You are police?”
Shaking my head, I slid him the leather holder displaying the license that said Special Detective. He read it and thrust it back in a fury.
“Secret police!”
Tamping down frustration with him was becoming a challenge.
“No. ‘Special’ means private. A private detective. People hire me to find somebody who’s missing, to see if a family member’s stealing from their business. Things like that.”
He considered a minute. He drank some whiskey as if he needed it.
“Then why are you sneaking around in the alley?”
“When someone goes out a back window – or in – they’re usually up to no good. What are you doing back there?”
“Protecting the count.”
“From what?”
“He has enemies.”
“That’s why you tried to kill me? That’s why you killed that poor girl they found in the trash? To protect the count from enemies you won’t even tell me about?”
He started so the dregs of his whiskey splashed to the rim.
“What girl? I haven’t killed anyone!” His head lowered and he studied his hands for a minute. It made him look almost human. “Not in this country.”
Bartoz drained his glass. I raised my hand and signaled the barman to bring him another. My own head I preferred to keep clear.
“I don’t know anything about a dead girl,” Bartoz said. “I go with the count and some men pick us up. They take us to another part of the city. They think he – the count – can muster support for Poland. Raise money for tanks and equipment since the United States seems content to see Europe bombed without lifting a finger.”
“Raise money how? By selling expensive jewelry?”
He snorted mirthlessly.
“Women’s play, back when the count and his friends were still in their homes. Donating bracelets and necklaces to buy bullets. Stripping them off at tea parties, dumping them into bags. So naive — all of us — imagining such efforts could buy enough rifles and ammunition to hold off the Germans for even a day.”
The waiter delivered a full glass to him along with a murmured advisory. “Twenty minutes till closing.”
Bartoz tilted the whiskey at me in acknowledgment. He sipped.
“The men he meets with organize gatherings,” he said at length. “He speaks. They take a collection.” He looked into the distance the same way I’d seen Mick Connelly do when longing for the country he’d left. “All as futile as the women back home donating their jewelry.”
He tossed back half his refill.
“What’s he looking for at the bank and the post office every morning?”
Caught off guard, Bartoz turned as snooty as a butler.
“That’s not yours to know.” He finished his drink. “We should leave. They close soon.”
I rattled the ice in my glass to show him I had a few sips left. And was still the one with the upper hand.