Novak sighed. “True, Percy. Only too true. But with guests of Miss Norton’s special qualifications I’m a habitual offender; try as I may to resist, it’s hopeless.” Gathering the terrier into a small furry bundle, he pressed it on the clerk. “Be a good fellow and call Doc Robinson, huh? Let’s give our guests a little service.”
Then he turned, brushed Skye hair from his arms, smoothed his tie and walked around the end of the reception counter toward a door marked Personnel.
He tossed his hat at a stand in the corner, pulled off his coat and opened the Venetian blinds. Gray light from K Street filtered into his office. Novak lighted the lamp on his desk, sucked a lungful of smoke from his cigarette, butted it. Then he pulled a small envelope from his coat pocket, laid it on his desk and sat down. One hand pressed the intercom button and he spoke to the Tilden’s chief engineer.
“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.