He shifted to his knees, hands raised, slightly cupped, ready to attack. His face was a mess of blood from his broken nose. But single-minded bestiality glared from the pale blue eyes.
I shot him full in the face, at a range of about eight inches. His features seemed to collapse inward but he remained upright on his knees, his body swaying.
He was already dead but instinctively my finger moved twice more on the trigger, pouring two more bullets into that battered face.
Then the body toppled forward and lay inert on the carpet before me, one lifeless arm flopping across my leg. I stayed where I was, gasping for breath, my chest heaving. The side of my head throbbed from the blow by the gun butt and it felt as if at least two or three ribs had been cracked. It was five minutes before I could finally stagger to my feet, and then I had to hold onto the bed table to keep from falling.
At first, I was afraid the sound of three shots would bring someone running, but in my befogged state I couldn't think of what I could do about it if anyone did, so I just stood there stupidly, trying to put my battered senses back together. In any other city in the world, the police would have been knocking on my door within minutes. I had forgotten I was in New York, where few cared and where no one got involved if he could help it.
At last I stepped over Spelman's body and staggered into the bathroom. Ten minutes in a steaming hot shower followed by a couple of minutes of biting cold did wonders for my bruised body and helped clear my mind.
From what Spelman had said, I was pretty sure he hadn't gone to anyone else with his information, once he had figured out who I was. I tracked back in my head. He had said, specifically in fact, something about "when Popeye Franzini finds out." Good enough. I was clear on that score, then, at least for the moment. Or at least I could hope I was.
I still faced a problem right at the moment. Being found in the same room with the battered corpse of Larry Spelman was entirely out of the question. There was no way such a situation could be an asset in my relations with the Franzini family. And I certainly didn't want any interference from the police. I'd have to get rid of him.
And I'd have to get rid of him in a way that he wouldn't be found for a while.
The Franzinis would be upset about Larry Spelman's absence, they would be in a rage if he turned up dead. And a rage can start people thinking: I'd showed up in Beirut one day, and four days later the Mafia's best penman in the Middle East was dead, along with their borrowed Chinese agent. Then, less than twenty-four hours after my arrival in New York, one of Franzini's top lieutenants was killed. It was a trend I didn't want the Franzinis to ponder. Larry Spelman couldn't be found just yet.
I thought about it while I dressed. What do you do with six feet five inches of dead and battered gangster? I couldn't exactly take him down to the lobby and hail a cab.
In my head, I ran through what I knew about the hotel, from the time I had come in the lobby with Louie, Manitti and Locallo, until the moment I had awakened with Wilhelmina's muzzle staring at me. There wasn't much, just a vague impression of heavy red carpets, gilt-framed mirrors, red-jacketed bellhops pushing buttons on self-service elevators, antiseptic hallways, a laundry room a few doors from my room.
Nothing much helped. I looked around my room. I had slept in it for several hours, almost died in it, in fact, but I hadn't really looked at it. It was pretty standard, a little mussed up at the moment, but standard. Standard! That was the key! Virtually every New York hotel room has a not-too-evident connecting door leading to the room next to it. The door was always securely locked, and they never gave you the key unless you had ordered connecting rooms. Nonetheless, that door was always or almost always, there.
Once I had thought of it, it was right there staring me in the face. The door next to the closet, of course. It just blended into the woodwork so nicely that you never really noticed it. I tried the handle perfunctorily, but of course it was locked.
That was no problem. I turned the lights all out in my room and put my eye to the crack between the floor and the bottom edge of the door. There was no light coming from the other side. That meant it was either empty or the occupant was asleep. At that hour, probably asleep, but it was worth checking.
My room was 634. I dialed 636 and held my breath. I was in luck. I let it ring ten times and then hung up. I turned the lights back on and selected two steel picks from the set of six which I always carry in my toilet kit. After another moment, the connecting door was unlocked.
Opening it, I moved quickly to the other wall and turned on the light; it was unoccupied.
Back in my room, I stripped Spelman's body and neatly folded his clothes, putting them in the bottom of my own suitcase. Then I dragged him into the neighboring room. Completely naked, his face a gory mess, he would not be immediately identifiable. And, as far as I could remember, he had never been arrested, so his prints were not on file, and his identification would be even further delayed.
I left Spelman's body inside the shower, with the frosted glass doors shut, and returned to my room to dress.
Downstairs at the front desk, I interrupted the young, red-jacketed clerk. He didn't like being taken away from his paperwork, but he tried not to show it too much. "Yes, sir?"
"I'm in room six-thirty-four, and if six thirty-six, next to me is empty, I'd like to take it for a friend of mine. She's… uh… he's coming in later."
He grinned at me knowingly. "Sure thing, sir. Just register here for your friend." He spun the register pad at me.
Smart ass kid! I signed Irving Fein's name and an address I made up, and paid twenty-three dollars for the first night's rent.
Then I took the key and went back upstairs. I went into 636, took the "Do Not Disturb" sign, and hung it outside the door. I figured that three or four days could pass with that sign on the door before anyone made more than a cursory check.
I went back to my own room and looked at my watch. Four a.m. It had been just an hour since Spelraan woke me up. I yawned and stretched. Then I took off my clothes again and hung them neatly over one of the chairs. This time, I made sure that Wilhelmina was tucked under my pillow before I climbed into bed.
Then I turned out the light. There wasn't much else to do in New York at four o'clock in the morning.
I fell asleep almost instantly.
Chapter 9
The next morning I checked out of "Manny's place" by nine o'clock. Spelman's clothes were packed along with mine in the suitcase, along with one of the sheets and a pillowcase, which had been smeared with blood.
From the Chalfont Plaza, I grabbed a cab heading downtown on Lexington and went to the Chelsea Hotel on Twenty-third Street just off Seventh Avenue. It's kind of a beat up old hotel these days and attracts a lot of odd characters. It had its days of glory, however. Dylan Thomas stayed there, and Arthur Miller and Jeff Berryman. My main reason for moving in there was far from literary nostalgia: Larry Spelman's body wasn't next door.
The first thing I did was to send out for some brown wrapping paper and a ball of twine. Then I carefully wrapped up Spelman's clothes, the sheet and the pillowcase, and took the package over to the post office.
I mailed the package to Popeye Franzini. The return address read "Gaetano Ruggiero, 157 Thompson Street, New York, N.Y. 10011." The longer Spelman's body remained undiscovered the better, but once it was found, I wanted suspicion directed away from me. I didn't know of any specific bad blood between the Ruggieros and Franzinis at the moment, but once that package arrived, there would be.
The current postal system is such that I could depend — with reasonable assurance — on the fact that a third-class package mailed from Twenty-third Street to Prince Street, a distance of about thirty blocks, would take at least a week.