For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,49

Donald Trump, alongside similar ones of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, like in one of Trump’s many high-class buildings here in Atlantic City. This hotel also had not been designed with one of those fabulous space-wasting configurations that allows for a guard rail about chest high overlooking a drop of several hundred feet to the casino floor, presumably to take in all the grandeur of the surroundings, but enough to turn anyone into Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo.

Instead, there were aisles and aisles of nondescript hotel room doors, and they didn’t seem to be numbered in any recognizable pattern, or maybe it was just my level of anticipation. My heart was racing a bit, I was sweating (despite the air conditioning, which brought the hallway to a comfortable Antarctic level), and my mind was reeling. All the way down here in the car, my only thought was to get to Madlyn Beckwirth’s door. Now I was practically there (if I could ever figure out the pattern), and I had absolutely no idea how to proceed beyond knocking.

In my mind’s eye was a picture of me walking into Gary Beckwirth’s living room, more or less carrying his errant wife by the scruff of the neck like a truant child, and depositing her on his incredibly expensive Persian rug. But first I had to persuade the elusive Mrs. Beckwirth to return, since I had no intention (nor, in all likelihood, ability) to force her physically. And Madlyn had sounded on the phone very much like someone who was not in any hurry to come home.

If I were Elvis Cole, I could just get Joe Pike to stand guard at the door, and if Madlyn got past me and tried to run out, he could give her a casual forearm to the forehead and we’d both carry her (or Joe could sling her over his shoulder) to the car and drive her home, all the while philosophizing about how a woman’s place is with her husband and child, and how we sometimes had to bend the rules a little to suit our own unique moral code.

But I wasn’t Elvis Cole. I wasn’t even Nat “King” Cole, and I’ll bet he would have had a better plan to get Madlyn out of the room, even if he has been dead since the 1960s. Anyone who could sing “The Ballad Of Cat Ballou,” “Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer,” and “Mona Lisa” all in one career was clearly a man of broad and varied talents.

Lost in these deep and helpful thoughts, I flinched a bit when I looked up and saw the number “2203” to my immediate left. Through sheer chance, I had found the correct room. Great. Now all I had to do was formulate a plan, convince Madlyn Beckwirth to come with me, and then figure out how in the name of Ferdinand Magellan to get back to the elevators. Maybe I should have stopped at the $6.99 all-you-can-eat buffet for some bread crumbs to drop.

I had gotten this far without a plan, so I decided to proceed without a plan, and raised my hand to knock on the door. But I froze. Suppose someone else was in there with Madlyn. I mean, suppose someone else was in there, you know, with Madlyn. I guess that’s why God invented knocking, so he’d have time to find his pants. The guy with Madlyn, I mean, not God.

On the second try, I managed to get my knuckle to make physical contact with the door. What I didn’t expect was that the door would actually open inward, and that made me take a step back in surprise. It had been left open a crack, like Cary Grant used to do when he was expecting room service and couldn’t be bothered to walk across the room to answer the door. Maybe there was somebody in there with Madlyn.

I knocked on the open door again, which is not terribly easy to do—you have to reach. It’s especially hard to knock loudly, but that’s exactly what I did, bruising a knuckle or two in the process.

“Um. . . Mrs. Beckwirth?” I called inside.

It had that feel to it. A room in which there are no people. I don’t know how you can tell, but you can. I took a step inside. It wasn’t dark—the room-darkening curtains were open. There was a very nice view of the Boardwalk, and the beach and ocean beyond. Must have cost a considerable amount,