The Men From the Boys - Ed Lacy

They were all kids, under twenty, and the one on the bed, a crew-cut blond, said, “What is this? My friends are merely resting and...”

“Cut it, chum. You got this room as a single for two and a half. Your friends want to rest, let them register, or pay another two and a half each.”

The three kids were blushing and finally the one on the bed said, “Look, mister, we're hosteling, and we haven't much money. It's only one night. Can't you give us a break?”

“And if I lose my job because of this, who'll give me a break? Tell you what, pay another two and a half and you can stay here.”

“Can we get a larger room?”

. “Look, I can throw you all the hell out of here! A larger room is another five bucks. What's it going to be?”

The three clowns held a short conference, then got up two and a half. I told them, “Next time, don't try pulling any crap like this,” and opened the door.

One of the crew-cuts sitting up in his sleeping bag asked, “Do we get a receipt?”

“You want one?” I asked, giving them the growl, stepping back into the room.

Blond-boy said quickly, “No, that's okay.”

I went back down to the lobby, gave Kenny and Dewey a buck to split, went to my room and showered, even put powder between my toes—as though it made any diff if I got athlete's foot now.

Stretching out on the bed I listened to my belly rumble and thought about Lawrence, and if I'd been too rough on the kid. I'd only told him the truth, except for that line about rushing home to Dot. I was on my way to see a babe. But it still was the truth—I never two-timed Dot; nothing came of that night because I never got to see the babe.

The house phone buzzed. Dewey said, “Outside call for you, Marty.” A second later Bill Ash asked, “Marty?”

“Aha. What's up?”

“Nothing much. Your former wife Flo called me, wanted your address. I gave her a line about I'd try and find it, to call me back in the morning. What shall I tell her?”

“Give her the Grover. Anything breaking on Lawrence?”

“No. We finally dug up a witness, some fishing bug named Bridgewater who lives across the street. He was practicing flycasting in his room and...”

“He was what?”

“Told you he's a fishing nut. He was trying out a new reel, hitting the open window with the fly from across his room. He says he saw Lawrence—a cop—go into the hallway— and a couple seconds later, when he was casting again, he saw a tall man, well dressed, in a coconut straw, leaving the house. Didn't see his face, and of course didn't think anything about it at the time. It isn't much to go on.”

“Smith is tall.”

“For the love of tears, break it off, Marty! There's over two hundred thousand tall men in New York City.”

“But if it had been a runt, that would rule Bob out. Now, we...”

“Marty, Marty, slow down. I just came home, trying to take a bath, relax, so don't get me worked up. Ah... Marty... Flo... uh... what's this she said about you saying you expect to be dead by the end of the week?”

“What? Oh, that—I was jazzing around with her. You know, guys our age never know when the old ticker gives the final chug. Flo is the dramatic type.”

“She sure is. Well, I'm going to get some rest now. You do the same. Yeah, don't get Lawrence excited. Don't know what you told him, but the hospital complained to us, and Dot is up in the air.”

“You know how badge-happy he is. I was merely letting him in on some of the fine aspects of our trade. Take your bath, Bill.”

We hung up and I lay on the bed, fanning myself with a newspaper. I glanced at the paper. Seems they still hadn't found Mr. Mudd, the mad bank robber. The rest of the paper was full of tripe about Cocky Anderson, so I went back to fanning myself, thought about Flo, about Bill taking the trouble to worry about me after we'd almost slugged each other. All the years we were a team Bill and I were good friends, yet never too close. He was married from the start, never chased around. And one cocktail was enough for Bill —said only an unhappy man drank. Might be something to that.

Closest I ever came to really making Bill's character was when we killed time by playing penny rummy. He'd make a stack of ten pennies, then pile the rest of his coppers into stacks even with the first one... and then carefully count the pennies in each pile.

But Bill minded his own business, never said a word when I was tanked on the job, or when I made a fool of myself over a broad—that's enough to find in a friend. And the way he stuck to his plump Marge, a real pot. He never liked Dot and me busting up, and he sure couldn't figure Flo, although you could see his desire for her in his eyes. I remember once, when she hooked me into buying her a fur cape, Bill asked me, “What does she do right?”

“Bill, I look at her and there's nothing she can do wrong,” I'd told him, but he couldn't understand that. He liked to think of himself as a “family man,” but that was a lot of slop; to him a woman was part of the home, like a rug— once you got a rug you had a rug and that was it.

I reached over and picked up my wrist watch from the bed table. The band was almost rotten with sweat. It was after ten. I got up and started to get dressed, including my gun and a flash. I went out to the lobby and Dewey was totaling the day's phone charges. He said, “Still muggy. Sure wish it would rain and break this heat.”

I took a linen-closet key from the key rack when he wasn't looking, told him, “I'm going to my room and I don't want to be disturbed.”

“Starting that again, Marty?”

“I have some business to take care of, but if anybody asks I'm still in my room. I'll be back in about an hour or so.”

“Marty, you know I'm not strong. What if somebody starts a rumpus?”

“Sock 'em with one of your wine bottles—a full one,” I said, walking back toward the service elevator. There was a back entrance to the Grover that was rarely used—my tail might or might not be covering it, but at the moment I didn't want to see him.

I ran the elevator up to the eighth floor, quietly walked by an open door where Barbara and a girl named Jean were sipping iced tea and playing gin.

When the Grover was built, there had been an apartment house set smack up against one side of it. A fire is said to have wrecked this building back in 1910 and it was made over into business lofts. Two years ago we started missing a lot of linen till I found some jerky wino had noticed that the fire escape of the loft building at one point practically touched the window of the eighth-floor linen closet. I'd put a folding steel gate on the inside of the window.

The damn closet was full of hot stale air, and I was running sweat by the time I got the bars out of the way, the window open. It was a snap to step out on the dark fire escape, go over the roof, then down a rear fire escape. These industrial joints are deserted at night and this one was too small for a night watchman. Not a soul was on the street when I stepped out, my gun in my pocket.

I wiped the sweat from my hands and face, stopped at a drugstore to buy a package of mints and roll of tape, headed for Lande's store. They were unloading at the docks nearby and had the big lights on, but the rest of the street was deserted. I taped off a section of the door glass close to the lock, quietly busted this with my gun, put on my gloves, and stuck the pieces of glass and tape in my pocket. Then I reached through the hole and opened the door.

Inside I shut my eyes for a minute and when I opened them I could see pretty good in the semidarkness. I don't know what I expected to see or find, but I didn't see a damn thing—it looked like the inside of the Bay meat store. The icebox was a square room about 15' x 15' and I stepped inside and flashed the light a few times, covering all but a thin ray with my hand. There was a big grinding machine and a large flat tin pan for holding the chopped meat, scales, rows of empty shelves with long white enameled pans, meat hooks on the wall, a roll of liverwurst and one of salami hanging from two hooks. In one corner there was a pile of canned hams, and under the chopped meat table I saw a box of smoked tongues. There was a light layer of fresh sawdust covering the floor. And a clean chopping block with knives and a cleaver stuck in one end of the block.

Everything looked all right—the trouble was I didn't know enough about the butcher business to know what “all wrong” would be.

But at least it was comfortably cool inside the icebox and through a window I could watch the store and the street. The hams came from Germany and being so close to the docks, Lande could be running a dope depot. I took a cleaver and busted open one of the cans of ham, split a smoked tongue in half. The tongue tasted fine. The ham was all cold grease—but ham.

I took the busted ham and tongue out with me and it was like stepping into a damp oven. I opened the door of the freezer next to the icebox. No light came on, but a cold blast of air gave me the creeps. Fumbling along the wall I found a switch, and the light went on. I jumped inside and slammed the door shut—through the open door of die freezer the light could be seen from the street.

There wasn't any window in the freezer and I didn't like the deal—if anybody had been following me, or if the broken door glass should be discovered, I was up the creek—a cold one. Anyway, I wasn't sweating about it—it was too damn cold. My breath turned to fog and my head felt like an icicle.

The freezer was loaded with meats—steaks, cans of livers, pork loins, tripe, pig's feet, turkeys and chickens—all of them frozen stiff and neatly packed in plastic bags with tags on them. From the wall hooks large turkeys and sides of meat hung, all wrapped in bags. On the sawdust floor I saw large wooden and cardboard boxes full of slabs of fat, pig's knuckles, cans of lard. I tried opening one of the bags of steak, but the meat was hard as a rock.

It was so cold I could barely breathe and every time I glanced at the thick door I felt like I was locked in a tomb. I unscrewed the bulb and there was a bad moment when I finally found the door and couldn't open it. You had to press the handle hard and hit the door with your shoulder. I came tumbling out into the dark store, shook for a second with a chill, then the muggy heat got me and I started to sweat, or thaw out.

I shut the door and the boom of the door closing filled the store and I stood very still for a moment, hand on my gun. But everything was all right. I went into Lande's office, pulled out two drawers and took them back into the freezer, screwed the light on. All I saw was bills and orders. I went through his checkbook and everything looked okay. These wholesale cats even had a daily news bulletin giving them the names of all restaurants and stores being sued.

I screwed the light off, went out and put the drawers back, picked up some mail and a cashbox, went back to my ice den. There was a key sticking in the tin cashbox and about six bucks in change, petty-cash vouchers for stamps and string. The mail seemed all ads and bills. I went out, slamming the door in a hurry so the light wouldn't be seen, returned the box and mail to the office. The store was a bust as far as I was concerned, although if he was running dope that would be the link, and you can have a fortune of the junk in a pound candy box.

I took the ham and the tongue, made sure the street was empty, then stepped out and walked up Front Street. I dumped the glass and tape from the door down a sewer opening, left the tongue and the open can of ham atop a garbage can—if the cats didn't get it, the market bums would when they made rounds, collecting for their Mulligan stew.

Via the fire escapes I got back into the Grover, put the gloves, flash, and gun in my room, then walked casually out to the desk. I'd been gone exactly an hour and thirty-three minutes. “How's things?” I asked Dewey.

“Nothing much. Marty, this Doc Dupre called again. Why don't you call him and get him off my back? You owe him money?”

“He wants his pound of flesh, rotten flesh,” I said, enjoying my own little joke again and suddenly realizing that for the first time in days, at the moment I felt swell, no stink in my mouth, no tight feeling in my gut.

Dewey said, “Also, I keep telling you to call King. He said to call him at his house tonight.”

“All right, you told me. Dewey, anybody check in today?” If my tail was a clever slob he might be stopping at the Grover.

“Those kids. And a trucker.”

“The trucker—old customer?”

“Yeah, the fat one who hustles watermelons up from Georgia.”

“Where's your empty-room check sheet?”

He arched the shaggy eyebrows over his watery eyes. “One minute you're stroking the duck, the next you're an eager beaver. Here's the sheet.”

“Dewey, I want a favor. Keep your bottle under the desk, don't go into the back room tonight, don't leave the desk. If anybody looks funny, or if anybody registers, call me in my room at once.”

“In a jam?”

“I don't know, could be.”

I went into the-office and phoned King at his house. He shrilled, “It's near eleven—what do you mean by calling me so late, Bond?”

“Want me to hang up?”

“See here, Bond, I'm sick of your high-handed ways. Either you stay on the job or...”

“Oh what? King, people in glass cat houses shouldn't talk so loud, or make any trouble.”

“How dare you talk to me like that? I'll have you thrown out of your room and ...!”

“I didn't call to hear you blow your nose. Listen, King, far as you're concerned I'm on vacation for a few days, so stop pestering me, keep out of my way.”

“As manager of the Grover, neither I nor the office will stand for such impertinence from...!”

“Bag of bones, J won't tell you twice to stop running your mouth. As for that fancy office, tell them I'm coming down and underneath all the gold lettering on the door, where it says real estate, appraisals, insurance, I'll add... pimping. Now, don't make waves!” I hung up, then went from floor to floor, starting with the check room in the basement, full of a lot of old trunks and boxes, checking the empty rooms. It isn't hard to sneak into a hotel, especially the fourth-rate ones, and there's little chance of getting caught if you only stay a night.

The rooms were okay. I dropped into, the girls' room. Barbara was playing cards with a new babe—a tall strong blonde who looked fresh from the farm. Barbara asked, “Marty, where you been? Still feeling punk?”