Crang Mysteries 6-Book Bundle. Jack Batten

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СКАЧАТЬ the technique’s called, it’s a mustard-checker.”

      “I missed the mustard.”

      “Well, the thing I did was a . . . variant.”

      “Variation’ll do.”

      “The Colombian guys, the teachers, they taught us you go up to one of those hot-dog stands on the street. Customer in a suit’s standing there. Got the frank in his hand. You squirt him with the mustard bottle, and it’s all, Jesus, I’m sorry, mister, wiping the yellow stuff off. Same time you’re dipping for his wallet.”

      James reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and lifted out Fenk’s room key. It was attached to a round strip of plastic that had 814 cut into it.

      “What’re we waiting for?” I said.

      James pointed through the windshield.

      “Him down there.”

      Fenk hadn’t finished his drink or his ogle.

      “Might’ve only come out for a soda pop,” James said. “We get in the room, and next thing he’s back, gets another key from downstairs, walks in.”

      After ten minutes, Fenk left the patio. He didn’t turn back to the hotel. He went the other way, out of our view into the pedestrian traffic on Yonge.

      The Silverdore lobby had wallpaper that imitated marble, and plastic trim that suggested wood. A chandelier, on the gaudy side, hung from the low ceiling. It seemed to be made of real glass. The elevators were to the right. James and I rode one to the eighth floor, and James rapped smartly on the door to 814.

      “Just in case he’s got a roommate,” James said. “Girlfriend, you know, assistant.”

      “Could only be Della Street.”

      James knocked again. The hall was empty.

      “That one of your jokes?” James said. “The Della Street?”

      “Very small.”

      “Sometimes you could explain them. I’m not totally stupid, you might not know it.”

      “You’re not even a little stupid, James. Just a little young.”

      James put the key into the lock to 814.

      I said, “But, sure, I’ll alert you when a joke’s gone by. Do some verbal underlining.”

      James opened the door, and we stepped inside. Fenk had a suite, and James and I were in the sitting room. It reminded me of Ralph Goddard’s family room. It lacked Ralph’s Motolounger, but for dubious decor it compensated with a painting of a dusky bare-breasted beauty. The painting was on velvet. There wasn’t much sign of Fenk in the room. Some papers on the desk, the September Penthouse on the sofa. But there was a significant sign of Dave Goddard. His spanking new saxophone case rested on the sofa beside Penthouse.

      “Bingo,” I said.

      I snapped open the case.

      “Hold the bingo.”

      The case was empty. Or almost empty. It contained the strap that Dave wore to hold his saxophone when he played. It didn’t contain the saxophone. The case’s lining was ripped open at the top of one side, and the rip, carefully done as if with scissors, extended from end to end of the case.

      James, standing beside me, said, “Something had’ve been in there. Inside the cloth. Only reason for it to be torn like that.”

      “I was thinking along those lines, something hidden in the case, just yesterday afternoon.”

      “You know where it probably is, whatever was in there? In the briefcase the guy was carrying who’s staying here. Fenk’s briefcase.”

      “Maybe. But where’s the saxophone? It’s the reason for this little break-and-enter. A tenor saxophone.”

      There were three doors leading off the sitting room, one to the hall and the other two, it stood to reason, to the bedroom and a closet.

      “You know what a tenor saxophone looks like?” I asked James.

      “Does it matter?” James said. “I find one musical instrument, it’s the instrument we’re looking for, I would think.”

      “Excellent logic, James.”

      James opened the closet door. The closet was empty of everything except wooden hangers, the kind you can’t take with you.

      “Do the bedroom,” I said.

      I crossed over to the desk. The first paper I picked up was a contract that said on page one it was between Wholesome Productions Inc. and Alternate Film Festival Limited. On the back page, Fenk had signed for Wholesome in a hand that was easily readable. Wholesome? The sinister smut peddler had a sense of irony. Cam Charles hadn’t signed for Alternate. The signature belong to someone whose first name was Trevor. I couldn’t make out the second name. But a guess wasn’t hard. Couldn’t be more than one Trevor connected to the Alternate Film Festival. Trevor Dalgleish.

      The contract was thick with clauses that lawyers stick in to button down events that might screw up a deal. Bankruptcy of one of the parties, earthquake, end of the world, failure to pay the lawyers’ fees. The only clause that counted was the one where the party of the first part granted to the party of the second part the right to screen the aforesaid Hell’s Barrio one time only in the course of the aforesaid Alternate Festival. Criminal law was simpler, no parties or aforesaids, just the crown and the bad guys.

      The rest of the papers on the desk were press releases and a program for the festival. Someone, Fenk I guessed, had circled Hell’s Barrio on the program. It was being shown Monday night at eight. I leafed through the press releases. Three of them were devoted to A Quarter to Three, Harp Manley’s movie. The Hell’s Barrio release, one page long, had handwriting in the right margin. The writing was in black ink and in the same firm hand that signed the contract for Wholesome Productions, and it spelled out three names. The first two names were Vietnamese. I’d read Fire in the Lake, I’d seen Good Morning, Vietnam, and I knew Vietnamese names when I saw them. Another argument in favour of the well-informed life. The third name, the one after the Vietnamese, I recognized. Trevor Dalgleish’s.

      Trevor’s had a line under it and a telephone number beside it. Same black ink, same firm hand. The phone number began with 921. That put it midtown, probably around Avenue Road. There was a white pen on the desk with Silverdore Hotel stamped on it and a scratch pad with the same designation. I used the pen to write Trevor’s name on the pad and started on the phone number. I wrote 921, and that was as far as I got when someone out in the hall put a key in the lock to room 814 and turned the knob.

      It was ten feet from the desk to the bedroom. What was the world record for the ten-foot dash? I broke it getting from desk to bedroom. James had left the bedroom door open. I closed it behind me.

      “Someone out there,” I said. My voice surprised me. It was low, which was okay, and shaky, which wasn’t.

      The room had two double beds. Fenk’s suitcase sat on the bed closest to the door, and James was СКАЧАТЬ