Slow Burn (31 page)

"He looks
pretty good when he's cleaned up," I said.

"He has a
drinking problem."

"No, he
doesn't," I said. "As a matter of fact, what he has is a stopping
problem. He drinks; he gets drunk; he falls down. It's no problem to him."

"That's an
old joke and it's not funny."

"I wasn't
trying to be. You can't operate when you're drunk because it's a state of
consciousness you're not accustomed to. Everything seems out of whack. For them
it's exactly the opposite. Drunk is what they do best. It's what they're used
to. It's being sober that they can't handle."

"Was Mr.
Paris drinking at the time?"

"Yes,"
I said. "If he can help it, Mr. Paris is always drinking."

She shrugged.
"Ifs the law, Mr. Waterman. Impaired witnesses have no standing in court.
Witnesses who merely have a history of habitual impairment have been excluded.
None of these people of yours are credible witnesses. If I'd had any idea who
these so-called operatives of yours were,

I never would
have expended the police manpower to bring them in." "Let’s go look
at the tape."

She scooped her
stuff into a disorderly pile. "Get out, Waterman. I'll cut you some slack
for effort. Be glad I don't lock your butt up with the rest of them."

"What
about my crew?"

"Mr. Paris
is already back on the street."

"And the
rest of them? I thought we had a deal."

"The deal
was that you give me something I can use. You gave me nothing. All you did,
assuming Mr. Paris is telling the truth and that his information is accurate,
is give me more questions than I started with. Get out, Waterman, before I
change my mind."

"Don't you
want to hear the rest of what I know?"

"What you
and the rest of that ragged assemblage know, Mr. Waterman, is of absolutely no
interest to me."

I smiled
inwardly. I'd done my end. I'd given her the key, but she refused to use it. I
felt like Pontius Pilate. If I'd had a basin, I'd have washed my hands before
leaving.

Come on, Marty,
don't be an asshole. If the tape was so goddamn important, they wouldn't have
given it back to you guys." "Nice talk, Leo. Are you always this
charming when you want something?"

"You know
what I mean."

"Your
carte blanche status is a thing of the past around here, Leo. I got brand-new
orders about you. Straight from the top. You've gone from the preferred list to
the suspect ~list. From the penthouse to the outhouse. Just like I knew - you
would."

"I'm not a
suspect, Marty."

"Then ask
the cops to see their copy."

"I don't
want to see the part the cops have."

"You're
not well, you know that?"

"Can you
wind up the tape to a specific minute?"

"Sure. But
I'm not going to." He looked at his watch. "It's six-fifteen, Leo.
I'm having one of the worst weeks of my life. I've been here since six this
morning. I had better hours at the precinct and the bennies were better. I'm
out of here."

"Come on,
man. With a little luck, maybe I can get this whole thing out of your hair once
and for all. Maybe get you a few strokes from the suits while we're at
it."

Marty took a
deep breath. 'Tor all I know, we've already run back over the tape. Those are
ninety-six-hour canisters. We've only got three of them. When they gave it
back, I put it back into service."

"Could you
check?"

He was gone for
a full ten minutes before he poked his head into his office and hailed me.
"Come out here, Leo."

The outer room
had been empty when I'd come in, lit only by the blue flickering of the banks
of screens. The overheads were on now. Marty had separated Stimpy from whatever
he was up to. The kid sat at the console, his stubby fingers poised.

Marty said,
"We're going to do this one time with feeling, Leo. Just so you'll leave
me the hell alone. Then I'm going to go home and beat my dog. What minute of
scintillating hall view did you have in mind?"

"Wind it
to two twenty-five," I said, "just in case the time in the elevators
varies from the time in the cameras."

"It can't.
It comes from the same source," Stimpy said.

"Then wind
the tape all the way to two-thirty."

He typed for a
moment on the keyboard and then pushed Enter. The tape console on my left began
to hiss. Stimpy sat back. Marty went into his office. The tape machine clicked
to a stop.

"Here we
are," said Stimpy. "Ready?" "Ready."

"Real time
or fast forward?" "Real time."

He pushed a
button and the screen above our heads came to life.

The bottom of
the picture had the date and the time. Two-thirty and twelve seconds, thirteen.
I closed my eyes and pictured it in my head. Imagining the doors closing in the
lobby and the trip up to the eighth floor. The slight shudder as the elevator
locked in place. The doors opening. They step out; they jump back in; the doors
close again. The car moves up one floor. Same deal. George gets off. The doors
close.

I opened my
eyes. Stimpy was measuring me for a strait-jacket. The time on the screen reads
two thirty-four. Nothing but blank hallway. I concentrated on the grainy image,
but nothing appeared. Then a shadow flickered.

"Stop,"
I said. "Go back."

"How
far?"

"Maybe ten
seconds' worth."

He pushed some
buttons. The screen went blank and then popped back to life. I squinted at it.
"There. . . . see that?" "See what? I didn't see anything."
"Go back again."

When the film
started over, I put my finger on the screen.

"Watch
right here," I said, pointing at a section of carpet directly in front of
the elevator. "Watch the light."

Our heads
nearly touched as we pressed our faces to the glass. Again a trapezoid of light
swept across the section of carpet from right to left, then stayed there.

"What is
that?" Stimpy asked.

'It's the light
from the inside of the elevator. They're lined with mirrors and reflective as
hell. Somebody is standing in there with the door open. Can you go back to the
beginning so we can time how long they're standing in there?"

"Easy."

It took no time
at all to return to the moment when the door began to open. Two thirty-four and
fifty-two seconds. Stimpy released the button and the tape began to move.

At two
thirty-nine and five seconds, the door began to close. A little over five
minutes of standing in an elevator with the door open.

George had been
right. They'd gone up. And then stood there for a little over five minutes
before going elsewhere. Presumably to the movies. Maybe they'd used the five
minutes to decide which movie to go to. All nice and neat, except for two
things, one of them minor and one of them major.

On a minor
note, I had a small problem with the idea of them walking out of Bound because
they didn't like it. Bound was, as a matter of fact, one hell of a good movie,
and I had some difficulty imagining anyone who wasn't experiencing chest pains
or some other life-threatening incident walking out in the middle of it. That
one was minor, because, like the man said, there's no accounting for taste. I
know noids who didn't like Pulp Fiction.

The other one
bothered me more. Why the earlier trip to eight? Digital spasticity was not an
option. If they'd pushed a button, it had been on purpose, because, as we all
knew, there was no button for the fourteenth floor.

Finding Marie
was easy. I spotted her behind the registration desk as soon as I came
downstairs from the security office. She was sorting registration cards and
entering the information into the computer when I approached the desk. Her
small mouth was set in a weary grimace, as if she were either right at the end
of a long, tiring shift or, even worse, just beginning one.

She looked up
and gave me the most dazzling smile she had left.

"Good
afternoon, Mr. Waterman." She semi-beamed.

Ah, the perils
of top-down management! It seemed that the news of my complete loss of status
had not as yet filtered down to the rank and file. "Good afternoon, Marie,
and how are you?"

"Tired.
It's been so busy. Usually it comes in spurts, but today, it seems like it
hasn't let up since I got here."

"Jeez, I
almost feel guilty asking you for a favor."

"No
problem, Mr. Waterman." She looked down at the desk. "I've only got
another half hour. What can I do for you? Whatever it is will be better than
this," she said, indicating the cards.

"On the
eighth floor . . ," I began. She stiffened at the sound of the words.
"Mr. Reese's room was the second door on the right, if you turned left out
of the elevators. That was number eight-fourteen."

She nodded
slightly, so I kept on talking.

"In that
same section, down that same hall, what's the room number of the last room on
the left?"

It took her a
moment to realize that I had finished speaking.

"I'd have
to look," she said after an awkward silence. From a cubbyhole in the right
side of the desk, she produced a brown plastic loose-leaf notebook with the
hotel's name and logo printed on the front,

I watched as
she thumbed through a series of plastic-encased pages. Finally, she began to
count. "Six," she said, turning a page. "Seven and eight."
She swiveled the notebook my way. The elevators were on my side of the page. I
mentally turned left and let my eyes walk to the end of the corridor. Eight
fifty-nine. It was room eight fifty-nine.

"Can you
look up room eight fifty-nine on your computer?"

"What did
you want to know?"

"Whether
it's been rented this week and by who."

I was tempted
to say "whom," like a credentialed person, but caught myself in time.

She pushed
buttons and squinted myopically at the screen.

"It* was
in service Sunday through Tuesday." She pushed another button.
"Wednesday night we had a reservation, but it was a no-show. Last night
the room was empty, and tonight we have a reservation for a Mr. and Mrs.
Collins, and there's a visa number."

"Who
rented the room Sunday through Tuesday?"

"A Mr.
Brad Young."

"Is there
a card number?"

Another button,
another screen.

"He paid
in cash."

"What
about the reservation for Wednesday night? Is there a credit card number for
that?"

It took her a
moment. "No, which is a little odd."

"Because
you guys don't take reservations without a valid credit card number,
right?"

"Right,"
she said. "Unless . . ."

"Unless
what?"

"Unless,
say, the party was already a customer." "Like this Mr. Brad
Young."

"Exactly
... a customer like Mr. Young, who'd been paying cash by the day. That's a good
example. If somebody like that called the desk and said he wanted to extend his
stay, we'd generally just do it for him, you know, as a courtesy. It's not
strictly according to policy, but we do it anyhow."

"Did Mr.
Young cancel?" "Not that I can see."

"Can you
tell who it was that registered this Brad Young?"

She put a
fingertip on the screen. "Ginger." "Is Ginger on duty?"

"Ginger's
on vacation. Tahoe for a week. It's their tenth anniversary." Marie read
my mind. "Not much help, I'm afraid."

"The hotel
employs a room-service waiter named Rodrigo something. Is he working?"

"You mean
Rod Tavares. I'd have to check the schedule." "I'd really appreciate
it," I said.

I waited as she
opened the door at the rear of the registration area and stepped inside. She
was gone for less than a minute.

"Rodrigo's
off till Monday. Twelve to eight."

"Could you
by any chance get me his address and phone number?" She'd begun to shake
her head before I'd even finished.

"Staff
information is confidential. We just had a whole workshop on that. I'm sorry,
but . . ."

I took a
chance. The way I saw it, the only other time she'd ever seen me, I'd been in
tight with the boss. I figured I could milk the halo effect. I pulled Gloria
Ricci's business card from my pocket and flipped it over to the back.

"That's
Ms. Ricci's home number. How about if you give her a call? That way you'll be
covered." I handed her the card.

I never thought
she'd do it. I'd have bet a body part that, rather than have to call Ricci at
home, she'd just give me the info. I was wrong.