Early Autumn Part 25

"What can we do for you?"

"Gee," I said. "The sign says a.s.sistant manager."

"A harmless euphemism," he said. He had receding hair and a neat mustache and good color. I noticed that his hands were manicured and his fingernails were buffed. "Euphemism?" I said. "What kind of security person says euphemism?"

"I was a cop in this city for twenty-two years, sailor. You want to try me out."

I shook my head. "Not me," I said, "I need to find out about this lady here."

I showed him Patty Giacomin's picture.

"In what context?" the a.s.sistant manager said.

Trying to explain what I was doing was too complicated. "She's missing," I said. "Husband's worried. Asked me to come down and look.

"She stayed here overnight about once every month," I said. "Last time was about three weeks ago."

"She's not here now?"

"No." I said, "I already checked."

He looked at me for a moment. His shaving lotion was strong and expensive. "You got somebody to vouch for you?" he said. "I don't like talking hotel business with every jerk that comes in here and waves a license at me."

"I liked you better when you were saying things like euphemism," I said.

"I don't care what you like. You got somebody to vouch for you?"

"How about Nicky Hilton?"

He almost smiled. "Best you can do?"

"Look at me in profile," I said. "Could I be anything but trustworthy?"

He heaved a sigh. "Come on," he said. He came out from behind the desk and we walked down the lobby to a c.o.c.ktail lounge. It was almost empty at three in the afternoon. The bartender was a tall trim black man with a tight Afro and big handlebar mustache. The a.s.sistant manager gestured him down the bar with his head.

"What'll it be, Mr. Ritchie," the bartender said.

a.s.sistant Manager Ritchie said, "Jerry, you know this babe?" I held up the picture of Patty Giacomin. Jerry looked at it carefully, his hazel eyes expressionless. He looked at Ritchie.

Ritchie said, "Tell him, Jerry. He's okay."

"Sure," Jerry said, "I know her. She comes in here about once a month, gets fried on Chablis, picks up a guy, and goes out with him. To her room, I a.s.sume."

Ritchie nodded. "Yeah, to her room. Next day she checks out, pays her bill, and we don't see her for a month."

"Different guy each time?" I said.

"Yeah. I guess so," Jerry said. "Couldn't swear there was never somebody twice, but if it was, it was an accident. She was in here to get laid. She didn't care who."

"Know any of the guys?" I said.

Jerry looked at Ritchie. Ritchie said, "No."

"And if you did?" I said.

"I wouldn't tell you," Ritchie said.

"Unless I come back with somebody from your old outfit," I said.

"Come back with a New York cop on a missing person's investigation, we'll spill our guts. Otherwise, you have found out all you're going to."

"Maybe enough," I said.

CHAPTER 30.

We had dinner at the Four Seasons, in the pool room, under the high ceiling near a window on the Fifty-third Street side. Paul had pheasant, among other things, and paid very close attention to everything Susan and I did. We had some wine, and the bill came to $182.37. I have bought cars for less. The next day we went to the Metropolitan Museum in the afternoon and in the evening we took Paul up to Riverside Church to see Alvin Ailey and his group dance.

In the cab going back downtown Paul said, "That's not exactly ballet, is it?"

"Program says contemporary dance," I said.

"I like that too."

"There are surely lots of variations," Susan said, "Tap dance too."

Paul nodded. He stared out the cab window as we went down the West Side Highway and off at Fifty-seventh Street. We were alone, the three of us, going up in the hotel elevator and Paul said, "I want to learn. I'm going to learn how to do that. If I have to go away to school or whatever. I'm going to do that."

Sunday we slept late and in the early afternoon went up to Asia House and looked at nineteenth-century photographs of China. The faces looking back at us from 130 years were as remote and unknowable as patterns on another planet, and yet there they were; human and real, maybe feeling at the moment the shutter clicked a rolling of the stomach, a stirring of the loins.

We took a late-afternoon shuttle back to Boston and drove Susan out to her house. It was after six when we got there. I pulled the Bronco in next to my MG and parked and ran the back window down with the lever on the dash. Susan and Paul got out on their side, I got out on mine. As we walked back to get the luggage, I heard a car engine kick in. I looked up and a 1968 Buick was rolling down the street toward us. The barrel of a long gun appeared in the window. I jumped at Paul and Susan, got my arms around both of them, and took them to the ground with me on top, scrambling to get us all behind the car. The long gun made the urgent bubbling sound an automatic weapon makes and slugs ripped into the sheet metal of the Bronco and then pa.s.sed and the Buick was around the corner and gone before I could even get my gun out.

"Lay still," I said. "They could make a U-turn." I had the gun out now and crouched behind the engine block. The car didn't come back and the street was quiet again. The neighbors didn't even open a door. Probably didn't know what they'd heard. Automatic fire doesn't sound like a gunshot.

"Okay," I said. "Let's unpack."

Susan said, "Jesus Christ," as she got up. The front of her dress was littered with gra.s.s blades and small leaves. Paul didn't say anything, but he stayed close to me as we carried the bags into the house.

"What was that about?" Susan said in her kitchen.

"I annoyed a guy," I said. "Probably Harry Cotton, Paul."

Paul nodded.

"Who's Harry Cotton?" Susan said. She was making coffee.

"Guy that Mel Giacomin did business with."

"And why is he shooting at you, and, incidentally, us?"

"I have been looking into the relations.h.i.+p between Harry and Mel Giacomin. And Harry doesn't like it."

"Are we going to call the police?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It would blow what I'm working on."

"Maybe you'd better tell me in more detail what you're working on," Susan said. "Since it seems to be getting me shot at."

"Okay," I said. "You know I have been trying for some purchase on Paul's parents so I could get them off his back."

"Blackmail," Susan said.

"Yes. Well, I've got it. I can produce a batch of evidence that Mel Giacomin was involved in a major arson scheme to burn down buildings for the insurance. He was in it with Harry Cotton, who's a big-league bad person in town. I can't prove Harry's part, but if I give what I've got to Marty Quirk, it's only time till the fuzz can. So I got something fairly heavy on Mel. To get it I've had to lean on some people including Harry Cotton and he's mad at me. He put out a contract."

"To kill you?" Susan said.

"Yes, he's employed people to kill me."

"How do you know?" Paul said.

"He tried to hire Hawk," I said.

"Aren't you scared?" Paul said.

"Yes. But like I said, there's nothing to be done about that, so I don't spend much time thinking about it."

"I'm scared," Susan said.

"Me too," Paul said.

"Okay, we all are. They're not after you. You just happened to be there."

Susan said, "One of the things I'm scared for is you." She was cutting celery up into a stainless-steel bowl that already contained white meat tuna fish. I reached across from the kitchen table and patted her hip.

"I got what I needed on Patty Giacomin this past weekend in New York."

Paul said, "What was it?"

I said, "This is tough. She went to New York each month to pick up strange men in the bar at the hotel."

Paul said, "Oh."

"I thought about not telling you that," I said. "But whatever we are doing, it doesn't work well on lying."

Paul nodded. Susan frowned. "There's nothing illegal in that."

"No, but Patty will bend to it. She won't want to look at herself in that light. It wouldn't help in custody or alimony fights, in the future. If any. It's enough ammunition for me."

Susan said, "Poor woman."

"Yeah, it's kind of tough to think about how desperate she was for whatever it was she thought she'd find. I don't a.s.sume she found it, that way."

"Promiscuity doesn't have to be a sign of unhappiness in a woman," Susan said.

"Once a month, in a distant city, with strangers, while drunk?"

Susan looked at Paul. "So why don't we call the police about these men shooting at us?" she said.

"It would be hard to explain without bringing in Mel and Harry and such. I don't want Mel in jail. I want him out earning money so he can support his kid and pay for his education and stuff."

"Yes, I see that." Susan mixed some mayonnaise into her tuna salad.

"I'll stay with you tonight, and tomorrow I'll see what I can do to wrap this thing up."

"What are you going to do about the contract?" Paul said.

"I'll probably have to talk with Harry about that," I said.

Susan nodded. "I knew that would come."

"You have a better thought?"

"No, it's just you're so predictable. You're going to talk with him because he shot at us. If it had just been you..." She shrugged.

"Well, I need to get him out of my way if we're going to get Paul into dance school."

Susan was putting tuna salad on whole-wheat bread. The coffee had stopped perking. Her shoulders were stiff and angry.

"I cannot let some gorilla shoot at you," I said. "I cannot. It's against the rules."

Paul said, "What rules?"

Susan said, "His. Don't ask him to explain them now. I can't stand it" She put the platter of sandwiches on the table and poured some coffee. "At least take Hawk with you," she said. "Will you do that? At least take Hawk. You have Paul to think of too." She took a carton of milk out of the refrigerator and poured Paul a gla.s.s. "And me," she said. Her hand shook slightly as she poured the milk.

" 'I could not love thee, dear, so much,'" I said, " 'loved I not honor more.' "

"s.h.i.+t," Susan said.