Hard Case Crime: House Dick (2 page)

“Mike, Pete Novak. You got a mech working for you named MacDonald—plumbing and air conditioning. Well, tell him to scoot up and see me. Yeah, he’s off at eight, but this can’t wait. If he asks what’s up tell him it’s about his family. Okay.”

Snapping off the intercom Novak unsnapped the butt strap of his shoulder holster and drew out a snub-nose .38. He laid it on his desk near the brown envelope. Squinting in the semi-dark of his office he turned slowly in his chair until he faced the window. Early spring in Washington with fog and light drizzles. The sound of tires on wet paving, the muffled honking of horns through gray, heavy air. The Girl in Gray, Novak thought. Then he heard a noise and turned.

The man who came through the door was as big as Novak, and he wore blue coveralls with
Hotel Tilden
stitched across the chest. His hair was light blonde and curly. He wore round, steel-rimmed glasses and there were squint lines across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. He said, “I’m MacDonald. You want to see me?”

Novak indicated a chair. When MacDonald settled uneasily into it, Novak said, “Ask me why you’re here, Murky.”

MacDonald’s eyes narrowed. “You tell me, copper. What’s the rap?” His eyes flickered toward the envelope, the blue steel revolver.

Novak leaned forward, laid his arms on the desk and said softly, “This hotel chain’s run by a bunch of humanitarians, Murky. Either that or there’s a labor shortage I haven’t heard about. Your application came in, I checked the files and found you’d done a dipsey. For me that disqualified you, but the management hired you anyway, on the basis that you wouldn’t have contact with the public.”

MacDonald’s face was working. “It was a rib-up,” he husked. “They give me a two-specker on a rib-up.”

“Can the excuses,” Novak said. “The boarding schools are bulging with guys who got a bum rap—to hear them tell it. But passing over your last sorrowful tale brings me to a theft that took place here at the Tilden only two weeks ago. A lady from Cleveland, Murky. A blonde divorcée silly enough to stuff some jewels in a desk drawer and waltz down to dinner. Next day when she looked for the dazzlers, guess what? Some were missing.” His left hand lifted the brown envelope and spilled the contents on the desk. Light flashed from a jeweled bracelet, two rings and a sparkling brooch. “Finders keepers?” he said in a smooth, needling voice.

MacDonald’s face was the color of bleached bone. His right hand clawed at the throat of his coverall. He half-rose from the chair.

Novak shook his head disgustedly. “Not even half-smart, Murky. The gal put in a beef about her air conditioning and the record shows you were the mech who went up to fix it—while she was having her mountain trout and vin rose.” He sighed, shifted in his chair and his ring hand moved an inch closer to the butt of his . 38. “Tell me I needed a search warrant to shake down your room, Murky. Tell me you don’t have a glimmer how the loot got taped behind your bureau.” His throat made an unpleasant sound. “On your way, punk. No pink slip for you. Just out. And park the monkey suit in the locker room. It’s hotel property.”

MacDonald was standing, hands clenching and unclenching. He looked like a sick man. “Give me a break,” he whispered.

Novak said, “You got it, Murky. And give me a prayer of thanks tonight. If I turned you in it’d be a tenner this time. And you got kids. As it stands, the dame’ll get the jewels back and be forever grateful. If you’ve got an ounce of sense you’ll feel the same.
Raus!”

MacDonald turned and groped like a sleepwalker toward the door. It opened, sounds from the lobby drifted through, the moving body blocked the light and then the door closed.

Novak’s face twisted into a wry grimace. After a while he got up, patted the .38 back into the shoulder holster and went over to a file safe. He turned the dial combination until a drawer opened and then he went back, returned the jewelry to the envelope, licked the flap, sealed it, and dropped it inside the drawer. Then he opened another drawer, one with employee record cards, and made a notation on one. The file banged shut.

Outside it was darker now. Novak pulled out a key chain and unlocked a low drawer in his metal desk. He fumbled for a moment and pulled out a pint bottle of Irish whisky. Uncapping it, he swallowed an ounce, rolled it around his tongue and let it drain slowly down his throat. He swallowed another ounce, sighed and replaced the bottle. Then he locked the drawer. Mockingly he announced: “Employees will not drink alcoholic beverages while on duty,” wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt and opened the door of a small bathroom. Clicking on the electric razor he buzzed his face lightly. It was a face that looked as if it had seen its share of trouble. Broad forehead, nose laced with fine scars of plastic repair, a lateral scar just under his right eye that could have been made by a slammed hockey puck or brass knuckles; heavy, dark-brown eyebrows over deep-set brown eyes; brown hair streaked with silver; and white teeth that were even only because they had been broken, ground down and capped. The hand that guided the razor showed flat, powerful fingers with knuckles enlarged by violent impact, broad nails trimmed short and square.

His hand tested the side of his face for stubble, then clicked the razor off. When he had washed he began to hum a disconnected tune, went into his office and pulled on his coat. Novak liked the feel of the finished worsted; it had been a two-hundred-dollar suit marked down on an off-season sale three years before. The few suits he had were of good quality and tailoring. His brown, pebble-grain brogues had cost close to forty dollars six years ago. He had a matching pair in black for hotel reception work, patent leathers for black-tie hotel parties and a pair of suede chukka boots for off-duty wear. Novak was a man who traveled light but what little he carried was as good as he could buy.

Nearly seven o’clock. He closed the blinds on the dark street, turned and peered across the dim office at his secretary’s empty desk. Mary had checked out at five, but his job knew no hours. At five o’clock he had been bluffing Murky’s landlady into letting him search the mechanic’s room for a mythical set of hotel keys. Maybe tonight some guy would pull a Dutchman and a frantic clerk would screech him down to the hotel before the cops arrived. Or a chippy would be entertaining gentleman callers at so much a head. Not at the Tilden, sister. Peddle it somewhere else. Hell, in a three-hundred-and-forty-room hotel anything could happen.

As he turned off the desk lamp he felt a chill creep through the office. A lonely place. At this hour very lonely. The Lost and Found Department, only you had to handle more than compacts and wallets and forgotten razors. Drunks too drunk to remember who they were or who rolled them, badger game couples, barroom hustlers, check artists, high-class panhandlers, con men, maids with larcenous fingers, pimping bellhops...Novak moistened his lips, grabbed his hat and jammed his hands into his pockets. A sweet job—like garbage collecting.

As he opened the door to the lobby he muttered to himself, “Well, you promised Mother you’d have a white-collar job,” and closed the door quietly.

Novak’s heels clicked across lobby marble as he walked toward the hotel exit. Beside him Jimmy Grant materialized. “Gee, Pete, what a dish that Miss Norton, huh?”

“Sure is. Now get the gleam out of your eyes, sonny.”

“New luggage, Pete. Had that store smell. And heavy. Boy, them bags musta had a dozen gold ingots apiece.”

“Legit?”

The hop shrugged. “Could be. No ring and not a society broad.”

“Why not?”

“She slipped me two bucks. Them’s that really got it don’t paper the streets with the stuff. Not this year.”

Novak tapped his cheek lightly. “You might make an investigator at that.”

Jimmy grinned. “Boy, did you look funny holding that pup she shoved at you. I didn’t hear no fast comeback, neither.”

“There’s a time for throwaway dialogue and a time to hold silence. That’s life, kiddo.” He moved on and out to the sidewalk. He turned down K Street, bought a
Star
from the kid on the corner and flagged a passing cab.

Between courses at the
ristorante italiano
out on New York Avenue he thumbed through the evening paper. Mama brought over a chianti bottle wrapped in straw and said, “I like you to try, Pete. Just offa the boat.”

“I don’t go much for wine, Mama. Been kicked in the belly too much.”

“Si, but this different.” Uncorking it she filled a small glass, poured another for herself. It had the thin clear taste of good red house wine. Novak said so. Mama smiled. “Beats anything French, Pete. Here, you keep the bottle.”

“Some other night, Mama.”

“Okay.” She corked it. “This your bottle, remember.”

“I’ll remember.”

“And bring a girl.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “Alla time you come alone. Why you never bring girl? Food not good enough?”

Novak managed a laugh. “Hell, it’s the best food in town. A girl? I had a girl once. Maybe once was enough.”

Mama frowned. Her lips opened to say something but a waiter hurried up with a steaming plate of
scaloppine.
Novak tucked a napkin under his chin and started in. When he looked up again Mama was back at the cash register watching the bartender thoughtfully.

No movies he wanted to see, no fights in town. Not even an automobile show at the Armory. Too early in the year for open-air concerts at Watergate. Nothing to do but go back to his apartment and read, or clean his .38. As he walked along the sidewalk he decided he ought to return to the hotel and write a file memorandum on Murky MacDonald for circulation to the hotel protective association. Mary could cut a stencil and have it mailed by mid-morning. Then he could sleep late and to hell with the Tilden.

A legless bum was propped against a lamppost, formless as a battered trash can. Novak dropped a quarter in the reaching hand and passed on, setting his lips at the husky thanks. A hustler strolled furtively in the shadows, shiny patent-leather purse, a ruby glow tipping her cigarette. He shrugged her aside and walked on. From a bar came raucous laughter, the drone of a TV program turned up too loud, the stench of stale beer hugging the spring night.

At the corner he piled into a cab and rode back to the Tilden. Percy was still at the desk. When he saw Novak he waved his pen like a conductor’s baton and shrilled, “Thank goodness you’ve come, Mr. Novak. The most terrible thing has happened!”

Novak pushed back his hat. “Beetles in the flower shop, Percy?”

The clerk flushed and made a distracted gesture with one hand. “Please, Mr. Novak, this is no time for joking.”

“For me it is,” Novak said sourly. “I went off duty hours ago.” He turned and scanned the lobby. “See? I’m not even here.”

“Of course you’re here. And the guest in 515 needs your services. Oh, very badly. All of her jewels are missing.”

Suite 515 drew thirty-five dollars a day plus District tax and it had been redecorated at a time when Mayan motifs were all the rage among the decorator set. The furniture was angular wood-and-metal, and around the rust-colored carpet crawled a feathered serpent calculated to resemble a frieze of gray volcanic stone. What the place lacked in fireside comfort it made up in tony design.

Mrs. Chalmers Boyd was a tinted brunette in the mid-forties with bon-bon jowls and arms like rolls of biscuit dough. Her fleshy feet were jammed into pointed slippers two sizes too small and her face was heavily powdered to improve an uncertain complexion. The registration card put her and her husband from Winnetka, Illinois, with a double-A rating marked by the credit office. For a lady who was missing a small fortune in jewels, Mrs. Chalmers Boyd had herself under perfect control. No smelling salts, no house physician administering sedatives. Nothing. She looked as placid as a brewer’s wife.

Novak said, “Suppose you tell me what happened, Mrs. Boyd.”

The button nose wrinkled and she said, “They’re all insured. Everything. I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“The insurance company might be glad of any assistance you could render.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so. Well, I reported the theft to the desk as soon as I discovered it. I’d been shopping, you know—Garfinckels, Rizak’s, the usual places. Then when I came back here to dress for dinner I had a sort of a funny feeling about them. Normally I wouldn’t have opened the box until I was dressed and ready to select something to wear, but this time I went straight for the jewel box.”

“It was kept where, Mrs. Boyd?”

“Why, in one of my suitcases. There, on the luggage rack.” A fat arm gestured indifferently.

“Locked?”

The pudgy face moved slowly, negatively. Little eyes glinted mischievously. “I’m afraid not. No...I always tell Chalmers, what’s the use of having jewels if you have to keep them locked up all the time? So they’re insured. Heavily insured. Why, the annual premiums are a disgrace.”

“I can well imagine.” Novak got up and walked over to the luggage rack where a heavy rawhide suitcase lay open. One side held frilly nightclothes, the other, twenty or thirty pairs of stockings. As he rumpled through the nylon, Mrs. Boyd said, “Would you care for a drink, Mr. Novak?”

“Thanks, no. You go ahead, though. I bet you could use a bracer about now, Mrs. Boyd.”

“Julia,” she purred. “Yes, I think I could. All the makings are in the fridge, Mr. Novak. Would you mind terribly?”

“Promise not to tell the bartenders’ union,” he said and walked into the kitchenette. From the refrigerator he extracted ice cubes, a split of ginger ale and a badly abused bottle of rye. Her voice called, “Not too much ginger.”

Novak frowned, built a two-ounce highball and carried it back. Fingers like pale cigars curled around the glass. Her tongue dipped tentatively, Julia Boyd nodded in satisfaction and she suggested that Novak sit down.

He said, “Lost jewelry isn’t really my line, Mrs. Boyd, so I won’t shake down the place. Naturally the Tilden wants you to have your jewelry back, and if one of our employees is involved we’ll do all we can to have it returned. The hotel is insured, of course. By the way, what coverage have you got?”