“That’s their usual M.O.?”
“Yes, according to Acton. The advance guard usually gets to the place they’re having the meetings a week or two ahead. It’s quite an operation.”
“Was,” Nathan said. “Nothing unusual about the operation this time?”
Tony lighted another cigarette. He drew on it and looked at the glowing coal and said, “Well,” drawing it out a little.
“Nothing specially unusual, according to Acton,” he said. “Prentis himself came along with the advance party. Sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t. And the Reverend Higgs came along too. Usually he didn’t. Stayed behind and came along with the main party. But sometimes he did. Way Acton put it, ‘if he was caught up.’”
Nathan Shapiro repeated the last two words.
“Yes,” Tony said. “I asked him what he meant and he looked sort of surprised and, it seemed to me, as if he wished he hadn’t said it. Then he said, ‘Getting out the syndicate column and the magazine articles and that sort of thing. He does a lot of editing for the Voice.’”
“Editing?”
“I quote,” Tony said and took a deep drag. Nathan sighed and stubbed out his own cigarette. The smoke from Tony’s still smelled good. “I wondered too, Nate.”
“A ghost,” Shapiro said. “Does sound like that, doesn’t it? Higgs himself didn’t come out with it, but I wondered then. The four of them—Prentis and Higgs and this man Humphrey and Acton. They all moved into the Wexley. Where they are now?”
“Not on the same floor,” Tony said. “That wasn’t cleared for them until the second. Humphrey and Acton and Higgs had rooms there, yes. But Prentis didn’t. He stayed downtown. At the Fifth Avenue Hotel. It’s in the Village. Few blocks from this Village Brawl place, actually. Big old hotel. A lot of permanent residents. Some of them have been there for years, way they look. A—oh, a sedate sort of place. Except recently quite a few boys and girls from N.Y.U. seem to have moved in. Still a very respectable place. Better class than the Wexley.”
He was told he seemed to know it.
“There’s a bar we—I mean I—drop into now and then. Called the Amen Corner. And last summer they had a sidewalk cafe.”
It would, Nathan thought, be another place to put on his list of telephone numbers to try when in search of Detective Anthony Cook. He said, “Acton have any idea why the Reverend Prentis went downtown to this hotel?”
“He said, ‘He was a very conscientious man. It would be like him.’”
Nathan raised both shoulders and eyebrows.
“Yeah,” Tony said. “I wondered too. Seems the Reverend hadn’t saved New York for a couple of years. And likes to be up-to-date on a city’s wicked spots. So, he picked the Village. Hippies and yippies and boys with long hair. Most of them are over in what they call the East Village.”
“Used to be just the lower east side,” Shapiro said. “But there are specimens on Eighth Street, of course. Just a block from the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”
Tony Cook said he would say there were. But then, momentarily, he looked over Nathan Shapiro’s head. Then, rather slowly, he said, “Only—” and let it hang. Shapiro waited.
“At this meeting we went to last night,” Tony said. “This meeting of his. They had a movie to show how wicked New York is. But it wasn’t a movie about the wickedness of Greenwich Village. It was about Forty-second Street. You know the blocks there.”
Nathan knew the blocks.
“Of course,” Tony said, “he may have given the Village a going-over at one of the other meetings.”
“Sure,” Shapiro said. “There’s enough wickedness to go around. Did he make these—these tours of inspection in other cities they saved? London? Los Angeles? Chicago?”
“Sometimes, Acton says. If he hadn’t visited them recently.”
“Had he planned to inspect Chicago before they opened there?”
“Not that Acton knows of. He’d booked Mr. and Mrs. Prentis to Little Rock, which is where they’ve got a house.”
Nathan said, “Mmmm.” He said, “Mrs. Prentis came east this time with the others. On the charter flight?”
“Yeah. According to Acton, anyway. Flew up from Little Rock to Saint Louis the Saturday before they all came along here. She won’t fly on Sunday. Thinks it’s a profanation or something.”
Shapiro said, “Mmmm.” He said, “This motion picture at the meeting last night. All about Forty-second Street?”
“Yeah.”
“Not canned stuff? I mean, old news shots? That sort of thing?”
“Looked pretty recent. He did have a cameraman of his own. Man named—” Tony got a notebook out of his pocket and found a name. “Named Marvin Resnik. And a couple of assistants.”
Shapiro said, “Mmmm,” again. He said, “No shots of the Village?”
“Not last night, anyway. Could be he didn’t find the kind of wickedness that would make a good picture.”
For some seconds, Shapiro looked at Tony Cook, apparently without seeing him. Tony started to get up. He had a report to type out. If he had become invisible to Nate, he might as well, he thought, get on with the chore. It was a chore he didn’t like.
“Tell you,” Shapiro said, “maybe you’d better go down to this Fifth Avenue Hotel. Dig around a little. Two weeks away from the others, if it was that way, he’d have had a chance to make contacts. We might widen things out a bit.” He sighed. Things were wide enough already, and vague enough.
Tony stood up. He said, “O.K., Nate.” He started out of the office.
“Trouble is,” Shapiro said, “Now all the people we’ve been talking to—all those connected with this mission of Prentis’s—stand to lose. Because the mission falls apart and, religious or not, they’ve got livings to make. If we can find somebody outside it might help.”
Tony said, “Yeah,” again and that he saw what Shapiro meant.
When he had gone, Shapiro swung his typewriter in front of him. He ran forms into it and filled in a few spaces. Then he looked at the sheets sadly. Reports have to be typed out, according to regulations. But there is little point in typing on fog. He swung the typewriter away again and took up his telephone and asked to be connected with Captain William Weigand. The operator said, “Sorry, Lieutenant. The captain’s in court. On the Peridenti one.”
Angelo Peridenti was on trial for the murder of a former associate in a trucking corporation. The police were sure, but Peridenti had a lot of money and, hence, a lot of lawyers.
Shapiro went downstairs and got a car and said, “Up to the Wexley,” to the driver.
Tony Cook went downtown by subway. It wasn’t raining quite as hard as it had been, and when he walked from the Sheridan Square station east to the Fifth Avenue Hotel the wind was behind him. Which put the wind from west or northwest; a clearing wind. It hadn’t got around to clearing yet, but it would. By evening, they’d be able to walk to the movie on dry sidewalks. If she really held out for the movie.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel is massive. It has been at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street for a long time. You can go into it from Ninth Street and come into the big lobby near the desk. You can look across the lobby at a spreading dining room, and one evening when Tony had stopped in the bar, which is on the Fifth Avenue side, there had been a big party in the dining room, with an orchestra and dancing. A wedding reception, he had thought it was.
A pleasant woman at the desk said, “Last month? I don’t know. We’re jam-packed. We have been all winter.” She looked at the picture of Jonathan Prentis. She shook her head. She said, “There’re so many of them, Mr. Cook. Coming and going.”
She went into a small office behind the desk and came out with a middle-aged and immaculate man. “The resident manager, Mr. Cook,” she said. “Perhaps he can help you with your problem.” She said, “Yes, Mr. Williams,” to a man standing behind Cook. “You have a reservation. If you’ll just sign—”
Tony moved aside out of the way. There was a couple behind Mr. Willia
ms, with luggage surrounding them.
“Mrs. Gaines says you’re a detective,” the resident manager said. “Inquiring about a former guest of ours?”
Tony said, “Yes,” and took his badge out of his pocket and showed it. The resident manager looked at it and said, “Ah,” and then, “Perhaps we’d better step into the office. Door at the end of the desk.” He pointed to the door he meant and, when Tony Cook took the few steps to it, opened the door for him. Inside, the resident manager sat behind a desk and motioned Tony to a chair and said, “Now this guest, Mr. Cook?”
Tony repeated what he had told the woman who appeared to be Mrs. Gaines. He said, “A man named Jonathan Prentis. Supposed to have checked in late last month. Probably on the twentieth.”
“We’ll have to check our—” the resident manager said and then, with emphasis, “Jonathan Prentis? The man who—” He did not finish but shook his head instead.
“Yes,” Cook said. “The same man.”
“A tragic thing,” the resident manager said. “A great man. A dedicated man. Quite near here it happened, wasn’t it? A—er—place called the Village Brawl. But that was only last night. You’re asking about last month.”
“He may have been in this part of town then,” Tony said. “Probably nothing to do with his death. But we have to check things out. If you would have a look at—”
“Of course,” the resident manager said. “Of course, Mr. Cook.”
He used the telephone. He kept on using it for other purposes while Tony waited. A young woman with a very short skirt came in and put papers on the desk. The resident manager said, “Here we are,” and then, “Maybe you’ll want to look at it yourself, Mr. Cook,” and reached the papers across the desk to Tony.
The one on top, clipped to the one under it, was a typed letter, on a letterhead which read, “Mission of Redemption, Inc.,” with a St. Louis, Missouri, address printed under it. The letter, written on February 14 from St. Louis, requested the reservation of a single room from February 20 to March 2 for Mr. Jonathan Prentis—a single room with bath, preferably an inside room away from traffic. The letter was signed “T. S. Acton.” At the bottom of the letter somebody had written, with a ballpoint, “Conf. 2/18. ltr & phone.”
The letter was clipped to a receipted bill. Jonathan Prentis had checked in on February 20 and out again on March 2. He had had Room 1106 and had paid twenty-two dollars a day for it. Plus tax. He had been charged with several telephone calls marked “Local” and with one “Lg. Dis.” to Little Rock, Arkansas. The number to which that call had been made was typed in, and Tony copied it down.
The resident manager finished talking on the telephone and Tony slid the receipted bill and the letter back across the desk. He said, “Doesn’t seem to have eaten here. Unless he paid cash, of course.”
“The restaurant and the hotel operate separately,” the resident manager said. “Actually, the restaurant is a concession. They will charge through us, but they prefer to be paid direct.”
“You don’t remember Mr. Prentis yourself?” Tony asked him. “Tall, dark man. Rather good-looking. Dressed like a priest. Most of the time, anyway.”
The resident manager shook his head. He said, “There are so many, Mr. Cook. Coming and going so rapidly. Unless there is—unless something special comes up, I’m not likely to remember individuals. Some—er—complaint about service. Yes, that might come to me. But we have very few complaints here. In clerical garb, you say?”
“Yes. Part of the time, anyway.”
“But many of the clergy stay with us,” the resident manager said. “Are confident that this is—call it a respectable place to stay. A quiet place, if you know what I mean.”
Tony said he did.
“No—er—boisterous parties,” the resident manager said. “We discourage that sort of thing.”
Tony said he was sure they did. He said that, if there were no objections, he’d ask around a little to see if any of the staff remembered Mr. Prentis.
“Of course,” the resident manager said, and lifted a telephone which was ringing at him. “By all means, Mr. Cook.”
A bellman in uniform was sitting on a bench opposite the desk. He came promptly to his feet when Cook stopped in front of him, came with a smile and said, “Sir?” But he did not remember, especially, a tall dark man, possibly dressed like a priest. That didn’t mean he hadn’t seen him. It meant that February twentieth was a long time ago and there were lots of tall dark men—and short light men—in between. He’d ask the other guys. He’d be glad to. If he found one who remembered he’d—what should he do?
He should call the local police precinct and say he had a message for Detective Cook. If one of the other bellmen remembered a Reverend Mr. Jonathan Prentis and anything—well, anything special—about him. The bellman said, “Yes, sir.”
Cook went through the big lobby and turned left and went into the bar, which was also a café. It was by then almost four in the afternoon, and the tables were empty. But there was a man sitting at the end of the bar with a drink in front of him. He was reading the New York Post over his drink. There was a man behind the bar, polishing glasses in an unhurried sort of way. He put down the glass he was polishing when Tony pulled a stool out and sat on it. He said, “Yes, sir?”
It was early for it, but Tony said, “Bourbon on the rocks. Old Fitzgerald.” He didn’t for a moment know why he had specified a brand, and then he remembered that Old Fitzgerald was what somebody had been drinking the night before at the Village Brawl. With ginger ale, for God’s sake.
When the drink was in front of him, he got out the photograph of Jonathan Prentis. He said, “Ever see this man? He apparently was here at the hotel a while back. Remember whether he ever dropped in here?”
The barman said, “Huh?” and Tony showed him the badge.
The barman looked at the picture and shook his head and said, “Wanted for something? People who come in here are respectable people. People like professors from N.Y.U.”
“Not wanted for anything,” Tony Cook said. “He’s dead. Murdered a few blocks from here. Man named Prentis.”
The barman looked again at the picture and shook his head again and said, “Nope. Don’t remember him.” Then he said, “Hey! That evangelist fellow?”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t be coming to the bar, would he? That type are down on the stuff, way I get it.”
“He might have come in for lunch or dinner,” Tony said. “Hard to find a place to eat around here where you can’t buy a drink.”
“Sure as hell is,” the barman said.
“He might have been wearing clericals,” Tony said. “Dressed like a priest.”
“We get priests, all right,” the barman said. “There’s Father O’Malley. Comes in for dinner two-three times a week. Drinks Soave. Italian wine, that is. We keep it chilled for him. But he’s got red hair, what there is of it. Not like this guy.”
Witnesses wander. A detective grows used to it.
“Any of the waiters around?” Cook asked. He was told, hell, no. Not in the middle of the afternoon. Anybody who might remember whether the Reverend Mr. Prentis had been in the café, or for that matter the big restaurant beyond it, for meals between, say, the twentieth of February and the second of March? And, of course, whether he had had anybody with him? Which was the point of it, if there was any point to it.
The boss, maybe. He was out there.
Out there was through a doorway and down two steps into the main dining room. The boss was sitting at a table against a pillar. He had oblongs of paper in front of him and he was looking at them and now and then putting his initials on one of them and laying that one aside. He had a glass of wine ready to his left hand, out of the way of the pencil in his right. He was Henri, with, apparently, no last name. Yes, he was the maître d’.
He looked at the picture of Jonathan Prentis and shook his head. He didn’t remember having seen a man who looked like that in the café or in the restaura
nt. But he saw, and seated, a lot of people. Late last month to early this? That was a long time. A Reverend Mr. Prentis who had been killed the night before in a place called the Village Brawl? That was too bad. He understood that Granzo had quite a thing going at the Brawl. Building it up, they said Granzo was.
Room-service waiters?
Room service was handled out of the dining room. There wasn’t a great deal of it. A few breakfasts. “A good many of the rooms have kitchen facilities,” Henri said. “That way when we took over. Permanents pretty much get their own breakfasts. Have to bring in their own utensils—coffeepots, that sort of thing—but there’s no way to stop them doing it. We do send up some breakfasts.”
The waiters who took up breakfasts?
Couple of men did most of that unless there was a rush, which mostly there wasn’t. On account of these damn kitchen facilities. Max Hansen. Ricardo Florez. Florez was married and lived over in Queens. Hansen had a room at the hotel. One of the rooms over the kitchen. Yes, he might be in it. He didn’t go on until six. In the morning? In the morning, he went on at seven. Sure he was off during the lunch hour.
“Sorry I can’t help you more,” Henri said, and went back to checking out the lunch business and sipping his wine.
The bellhop with the smile was still on the bench across from the desk. Or, of course, was back on it. Sure he knew where Maxie’s room was. Sure, he’d show Mr. Cook.
Max Hansen’s room was at the end of a long corridor on the second floor, and twenty-five cents away from Tony Cook’s pocket—twenty-five cents which he wouldn’t get back, except as a beaming smile and a “Thank you, sir,” as if it had been a dollar.
Max Hansen’s room was small, and it was certainly over the kitchen. Tony could hear the kitchen under it and smell the kitchen in it, because the single window on an air shaft was partly open. Max Hansen was small and almost completely bald, and he wore dark trousers and a white shirt open at the neck and very clean. He was reading a paperback book, and the title was in a language which looked a little like German, but not quite like it. Swedish, Tony guessed. Tony was sorry to barge in, but—
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