The Con Man (87th Precinct) - By Ed McBain Page 0,24

the smell. He adjusted his nostrils the way he would adjust his shoulder holster, glanced around quickly, and then walked to the desk.

The clerk watched him as he crossed the lobby. The clerk watched him carefully. An April fly, not yet feeling its summer oats, buzzed lazily around the desk. A brass spittoon at the base of the desk dripped with misaimed spittle. The smell in the lobby was a smell of slovenliness and dissolution. Brown reached the desk. He started to open his mouth.

“I’ll give it to you straight,” the desk clerk said. “We don’t take niggers.”

Brown didn’t even blink. “You don’t, huh?” he asked.

“We don’t.” The clerk was a young man, his hairline receding even though he was not yet twenty-six. He had a hawkish nose and pale-green eyes. An acne pimple festered near his right nose flap. “Nothing personal,” he said. “I only work here, and those are the orders.”

“Glad to know how you feel,” Brown said, smiling. “Trouble is, I didn’t ask.”

“Huh?” the clerk said.

“Now, you have to understand there’s nothing I’d like better than a room in this hotel. I just come up from a cotton patch down South where we fertilize our cotton with human excrement. I lived in a leaky tarpaper shack, and so you can imagine what a palace your fine, splendid hotel looks like to me. I think it would be too much for me to bear just being allowed to stay in one of your rooms. Why, just being here in the lobby is like coming close to paradise.”

“Go ahead,” the clerk said, “make wise cracks. You still don’t get a room. I’m being honest with you. You should thank me.”

“Oh, I do, I do,” Brown said. “I thank you from the bottom of my cotton-pickin’ heart. Is there a man named Frederick Deutsch registered here?”

“Who wants to know?” the clerk asked.

Brown smiled and sweetly said, “I want to know. Jus’ li’l ol’ cotton-pickin’ me.” He reached into his back pocket and flipped his wallet open to his shield. The clerk blinked. Brown continued smiling.

“I was only joking about the room,” the clerk said. “We got lots of Negro people staying here.”

“I’ll bet the place is just packed with them,” Brown said. “Is Deutsch registered here, or isn’t he?”

“The name don’t ring a bell,” the clerk said. “He a transient?”

“A regular,” Brown said.

“I got no Deutsches in my regulars.”

“Let’s see the list.”

“Sure, but there aint a Deutsch on it. I know my steadies by heart.”

“Let’s see it anyway, huh?” Brown said.

The clerk sighed, dug under the counter, and came up with a register. He turned it on the desktop so that Brown could see it. Rapidly, Brown ran his finger down the page.

“Who’s Frank Darren?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“Frank Darren.” Brown pointed at the name. “This one.”

“Oh.” The clerk shrugged. “A guy. One of the guests.”

“How long’s he been here?”

“Couple years now, I guess. Even more than that.”

“He register as Darren when he checked in?”

“Sure.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Tall guy, kind of skinny. Blue eyes, long hair. Why?”

“He in now?”

“I think so, yeah. Why?”

“What room’s he in?”

“312,” the clerk said. “I thought you was looking for somebody named Deutsch?”

“I am,” Brown said. “Give me the key to 312.”

“What for? You need a warrant before you go busting in on—”

“If I have to go all the way home for a warrant,” Brown said levelly, “I’ll also pick up one for violation of PL 514, excluding a citizen by reason of color from the equal enjoyment of any accommodation furnished by innkeepers or—”

Hastily, the clerk handed him the key. Brown nodded and crossed to the elevator. He stabbed at the button and waited patiently while the elevator crept down to the lobby. When it opened, a blonde chambermaid stepped out of it, winking at the elevator operator.

“Three,” Brown said.

The elevator operator stared at him. “Did you see the clerk?”

“I saw the clerk, and the clerk saw me. Now, let’s cut the bull and get this car in motion.”

The elevator operator stepped back, and Brown entered the car. He leaned back against the back wall as the car climbed. Darren, of course, might very well be Darren and not Deutsch, he reasoned. But an elementary piece of police knowledge was that a man registering under a phony name—especially if his luggage, shirts, or handkerchiefs were monogrammed—would generally pick a name with the same initials as his real name. Frederick Deutsch, Frank Darren—it was worth a try. Besides, the RKC card had given this as Deutsch’s last