“Let’s go back to the living room.” I limped into the tunnel and pointed out the window. A city the size of Macau is not spectacular much above the twentieth floor. The contours of the hills are lost, and the quaintness of the colonial buildings is impossible to distinguish without binoculars. Who wants to pay a thousand a night to look at the view through binoculars? “What is that? That tall wall with all the windows, at the top of what looks like a long stairway, what is it?”
“Those are the ruins of St. Paul’s. You were practically there when you came to my office. You want to go see them?”
“A lot of stair-climbing to see ruins on a hot afternoon,” I said.
“It is well to look up to God, Inspector.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “but I don’t need a heart attack in the process.” I pointed a little to the right. “And those ruins, next to Paul’s?”
“The hilltop fort. The Portuguese built it in the early sixteen hundreds. It’s a nice climb up the hill. The view from there is much better than from here, or it would be if this hotel were blown up. You probably can’t make it out, but the Portuguese consulate is down in front of the fort, at the bottom of the hill. Interesting building, very colonial. Extremely yellow.”
“Is there a room safe?”
“No, I think the Consul General keeps his valuables at home.”
“I mean in this room.”
“Of course.” We walked over to the dressing area, more dark wood, subdued lighting, muted colors. It was exactly the place to mourn the loss of a year’s worth of bribes in a single game of baccarat. “The safe is in the top drawer of the dresser. Would you like to put something in for safekeeping?”
“No, thank you.” I bounced up and down on my toes. “A suitcase full of body parts wouldn’t have rolled very well on this carpet,” I said.
“It was an expensive suitcase.” Luís opened the drawer and touched some buttons on the safe. “I think they design them for all contingencies. Besides, the floor from the bathroom is marble and, as I told you, the body was butchered in the bathroom. Rolling from the bath to the front door would have been no problem.”
“And the hallway carpet?”
“The rich are like you and me, Inspector, only smarter, more devious. They don’t let carpeting stand in their way.”
“Anything else I need to see, before you tell me what you left out in your first rendition of what was in that folder?”
“You have seen all. Shall we return to the living room to sit? You take the couch. I’ll take the desk chair.”
“And the red leather one?”
“I prefer to let it rest in peace.”
8
“So, you intend to stay with this case. You have a dogged nature; that much is clear from the way you looked at Lulu.”
It was hard not to look at Lulu. She occupied most of the field of vision. “I don’t like the smell of things.” I also didn’t like the couch. The cushions were made of concrete.
Luís sighed. “All right, I have a few more things to tell you.”
“You mean you have another version to unload?”
“Not entirely. Simply adding a layer of detail may prove to you that there is no need for you to remain in Macau. It really is a click-clack case.”
“Click-clack.”
“Open and shut. File and forget. Up the chimney and out to sea.” He pondered his next move. “We know what happened. We know who did it. The people who viewed the tapes see no crack for the daylight of doubt to enter. All we lack is a confession. Or rather, all we lack is a signature. The confession we have already written.”
“Really? We tend to wait awhile to write it out.”
“The murderer checked into the hotel at six thirty P.M. the ninth of October, a Sunday, under the name of Raoul Penza, having passed through Immigration ninety minutes earlier. He had arrived on the four P.M. ferry from Hong Kong, with a super-class ticket purchased at the ferry terminal earlier in the morning, around ten A.M. On the ferry, he refused the food tray with a gracious nod and dozed.”
“Don’t drown me in extraneous details, Luís. It takes ten minutes to get from the ferry terminal to here, but it took him an hour and a half. Surely, he didn’t have to wait in line that long at Immigration. Perhaps it was even arranged so that he didn’t have to wait in line at all.” I paused; Luís filled the space with nothing but a blank stare. “He stopped somewhere?”
“That is our feeling as well.”
“Meaning you have no idea where.”
“Not yet. I can tell you it was not at one of the large casinos.”
“The boys in the orange coats are sure of that?”
“They are.”
“What about a small casino?”
“There are establishments, and then there are establishments. In any case, to resume, Senhor Penza was definitely downstairs in the lobby at six thirty P.M. He gave his home address as Residencia Julia Calle Six, Number Twenty-four, at Fourteenth Street, Isabelita, Santo Domingo.”
“He wasn’t preregistered?”
“No, he did not have a reservation. May I continue?”
“Claro, sim.”
“You speak Portuguese like a Russian, Inspector.” Luís thumbed through a small notebook. “There is such an address. In fact, there is also a Raoul Penza in Santo Domingo. He is a baker at a place called De la Casa Pain, and he has never applied for a passport. So right away, we know we have a little problem, wouldn’t you agree?”
There it was again-the “little problem.” I wasn’t about to agree to anything. “Not to get off track, but I like to fill in the details as things move along. It saves time later. Who checked him in?”
“The desk clerk was an intelligent young woman, named Lilley Li.” He turned the page of the notebook. “She is observant, good memory, single, witty, and lithe.”
“One of us should propose.”
“One of us should.”
“And what does lithe Lilley remember?”
“Our man wanted a room overlooking the blessed ruins of St. Paul’s. He was not looking for anything ostentatious-a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom with plenty of hot water, and a balcony. Lilley told him she could satisfy some of his needs.”
“Lilley, darling,” I said, “you should be more careful.”
“She was, actually. She wisely pushed the signal for the Assistant Manager to appear.”