Читать книгу The Little Sister - Raymond Chandler - Страница 10

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Once, long ago, it must have had a certain elegance. But no more. The memories of old cigars clung to its lobby like the dirty gilt on its ceiling and the sagging springs of its leather lounging chairs. The marble of the desk had turned a yellowish brown with age. But the floor carpet was new and had a hard look, like the room clerk. I passed him up and strolled over to the cigar counter in the corner and put down a quarter for a package of Camels. The girl behind the counter was a straw blonde with a long neck and tired eyes. She put the cigarettes in front of me, added a packet of matches, dropped my change into a slotted box marked “The Community Chest Thanks You.”

“You’d want me to do that, wouldn’t you,” she said, smiling patiently. “You’d want to give your change to the poor little underprivileged kids with bent legs and stuff, wouldn’t you?”

“Suppose I didn’t,” I said.

“I dig up seven cents,” the girl said, “and it would be very painful.” She had a low lingering voice with a sort of moist caress in it like a damp bath towel. I put a quarter after the seven cents. She gave me her big smile then. It showed more of her tonsils.

“You’re nice,” she said. “I can see you’re nice. A lot of fellows would have come in here and made a pass at a girl. Just think. Over seven cents. A pass.”

“Who’s the house peeper here now?” I asked her, without taking up the option.

“There’s two of them.” She did something slow and elegant to the back of her head, exhibiting what seemed like more than one handful of blood-red fingernails in the process. “Mr. Hady is on nights and Mr. Flack is on days. It’s day now so it would be Mr. Flack would be on.”

“Where could I find him?”

She leaned over the counter and let me smell her hair, pointing with a half-inch fingernail toward the elevator bank. “It’s down along that corridor there, next to the porter’s room. You can’t miss the porter’s room on account of it has a half-door and says PORTER on the upper part in gold letters. Only that half is folded back like, so I guess maybe you can’t see it.”

“I’ll see it,” I said. “Even if I have to get a hinge screwed to my neck. What does this Flack look like?”

“Well,” she said, “he’s a little squatty number, with a bit of a mustache. A sort of chunky type. Thick-set like, only not tall.” Her fingers moved languidly along the counter to where I could have touched them without jumping. “He’s not interesting,” she said. “Why bother?”

“Business,” I said, and made off before she threw a half-nelson on me.

I looked back at her from the elevators. She was staring after me with an expression she probably would have said was thoughtful.

The porter’s room was halfway down the corridor to the Spring Street entrance. The door beyond it was half open. I looked around its edge, then went in and closed it behind me.

A man was sitting at a small desk which had dust on it, a very large ash tray and very little else. He was short and thick-set. He had something dark and bristly under his nose about an inch long. I sat down across from him and put a card on the desk.

He reached for the card without excitement, read it, turned it over and read the back with as much care as the front. There was nothing on the back to read. He picked half of a cigar out of his ash tray and burned his nose lighting it.

“What’s the gripe?” he growled at me.

“No gripe. You Flack?”

He didn’t bother to answer. He gave me a steady look which may or may not have concealed his thoughts, depending on whether he had any to conceal.

“Like to get a line on one of the customers,” I said.

“What name?” Flack asked, with no enthusiasm.

“I don’t know what name he’s using here. He’s in Room 332.”

“What name was he using before he came here?” Flack asked.

“I don’t know that either.”

“Well, what did he look like?” Flack was suspicious now. He reread my card but it added nothing to his knowledge.

“I never saw him, so far as I know.”

Flack said: “I must be overworked. I don’t get it.”

“I had a call from him,” I said. “He wanted to see me.”

“Am I stopping you?”

“Look, Flack. A man in my business makes enemies at times. You ought to know that. This party wants something done. Tells me to come on over, forgets to give his name, and hangs up. I figured I’d do a little checking before I went up there.”

Flack took the cigar out of his mouth and said patiently: “I’m in terrible shape. I still don’t get it. Nothing makes sense to me any more.”

I leaned over the desk and spoke to him slowly and distinctly: “The whole thing could be a nice way to get me into a hotel room and knock me off and then quietly check out. You wouldn’t want anything like that to happen in your hotel, would you, Flack?”

“Supposing I cared,” he said, “you figure you’re that important?”

“Do you smoke that piece of rope because you like it or because you think it makes you look tough?”

“For forty-five bucks a week,” Flack said, “would I smoke anything better?” He eyed me steadily.

“No expense account yet,” I told him. “No deal yet.”

He made a sad sound and got up wearily and went out of the room. I lit one of my cigarettes and waited. He came back in a short time and dropped a registration card on the desk. Dr. G. W. Hambleton, El Centro, California was written on it in a firm round hand in ink. The clerk had written other things on it, including the room number and daily rate. Flack pointed a finger that needed a manicure or failing that a nailbrush.

“Came in at 2.47 p.m.,” he said. “Just today, that is. Nothing on his bill. One day’s rent. No phone calls. No nothing. That what you want?”

“What does he look like?” I asked.

“I didn’t see him. You think I stand out there by the desk and take pictures of them while they register?”

“Thanks,” I said. “Dr. G. W. Hambleton, El Centro. Much obliged.” I handed him back the registration card.

“Anything I ought to know,” Flack said as I went out, “don’t forget where I live. That is, if you call it living.”

I nodded and went out. There are days like that. Everybody you meet is a dope. You begin to look at yourself in the glass and wonder.