Marty could have thrown a knife into his broad back as he walked away. George, however, looked as pleased as if he had done the singing himself. “Li’l ole fixer,” he mumbled.
Dotty leaned against Marty and whispered, “I thought I was being kidded — about the hotel, I mean. Honest to God, is it true? Have you really bought that hotel?”
“Oh, shut up, for God’s sake!”
Marty was again thinking in terms of a .38 slug and didn’t like it.
When they went out for a taxi and the night air hit George he began coming unhinged. He staggered and had to be helped into the cab.
Leila whispered in Marty’s ear, “You’ll have to help me get him home.”
“Sure. What the hell. Everything goes wrong.”
She blinked at him, owl-eyed. “Why, I don’t understand you at all. It’s just been a perfectly glorious party.”
Marty shrugged and helped her into the taxi, where she dropped contentedly by George’s side. He helped Dotty into the cab, but before getting in himself he turned to look over his shoulder. A drunk was standing in the darkened entrance of Chez Rouge, grinning vacantly into space, at peace within the limited horizons of his alcoholic world. Marty stiffened and walked toward him, his arms cocked at his sides. “What are you laughing at, you stupid son-of-a-bitch?” He swung a vicious left into the pit of the drunk’s stomach and, as the man doubled over, caught him full in the face with all the power of his hard right fist. The bone-crushing blow sent a satisfied shock up Marty’s arm. The drunk was unconscious even before he fell and stretched his length on the sidewalk. Marty looked down at him for a moment, rubbed his knuckles, and spun about to get in the cab. He turned to smile at Dotty. She was looking at him with a new and suddenly terrifying knowledge.
Chapter Six
GEORGE wanted to go to some after-hours spots he knew, but Marty directed the cab to the Stannard home on Pacific Street. George dismissed the taxi, insisting that everyone needed a nightcap. He had difficulty getting the key from his pocket, and after minutes of fumbling managed to unlock the heavy front door of his home. Leila and Marty helped him up the stairs and down the long halls of the left wing. Marty noticed that Leila knew her way around and flipped on the proper light switch without hesitation.
The moment they entered the sitting room of George’s suite George forgot all about the nightcap and concentrated on Leila. She led him patiently across the room and through the door to the bedroom. Marty threw his topcoat over a chair and investigated the bottles and glasses on the large central table. He opened a metal thermos jug and found ice cubes. He glanced inquiringly at Dotty, who was walking slowly about the room, drinking in its every detail. She nodded, so Marty poured four highballs. He knew that Leila would be back.
Marty had settled down in a deep leather chair before coals still glowing in the fireplace when Leila returned. She had left her coat in the bedroom and had also replaced her high-heeled shoes with slippers from the well-stocked closet. Without the high heels she was less than five feet tall, but, Marty conceded, well put together.
She lifted two glasses from the table and stood there a moment looking from Marty to Dotty. She was so nearsighted that she could not see their expressions, which placed her at a disadvantage. She was not worried about Dotty, but Marty was an unknown quantity. She could not tell whether he approved or disapproved of the way the evening was obviously going to end.
George was calling petulantly from the other room, “Hey, Leila. Hey, baby. What the hell doin’?”
“Well,” Leila mumbled, barely restraining a giggle, “if you don’t mind, I’d better take care of him — put him to bed. If you’ll just — Well, make yourselves at home.”
She walked quickly toward the bedroom door, but paused and turned to face Marty, her changed expression indicating that she had decided to drop pretense. “Look,” she said. “If you’d rather be a little more private, there’s a suite like this just across the hall. Good night, Mr. Lee. Night, Dotty.”
She went through the door of the bedroom and kicked it shut with her heel.
Marty twisted his head about to look toward Dotty. She was on the other side of the room, sipping her drink and watching him over the rim of the glass. Marty jerked his head toward the bedroom door. “Where did you meet her?”
Dotty crossed the room toward him and leaned back against the fireplace mantel. “When I moved. She had the room next to mine before she got that apartment in the Mission district.”
“Oh. I didn’t think that hotel looked familiar.”
“No. I cashed in the credits you left and moved from the other one that day I opened at the Little Club.”
“Why?”
Her eyes were looking levelly into his. “I thought it would be safer, after reading about Red Martin in the papers. You spent a lot of time with me in that other hotel. You were always careful about going in and out, but I was afraid you might have been seen and someone would put two and two together and question me. So I moved.”
“Smart girl.” He looked her up and down, and though there was murder on his mind, he liked the lines of her body and was remembering how she had been. “Let’s go across the hall.”
She blinked anxiously and shook her head. “I don’t know — ”
“We’re in the way here.”
“I don’t know, Marty.”
“Come on. We have things to talk about.”
He got to his feet, picked up his topcoat and left the room, never doubting that she would follow. He crossed the hallway, opened the opposite door, switched on the lights, and found a suite of rooms similar to George’s, except for the furnishings and decorations. The rooms were very formal; they lacked photographs or any other personal touch and were apparently used exclusively for guests. He turned off the lights except for one lamp near a couch and hung his tuxedo jacket over the back of a chair. He yawned and stretched his length out on the couch. Dotty came reluctantly into the room, slipped out of her coat, and sat on the edge of the couch, facing him.
There was a touch of fear in the depths of Dotty’s eyes, but with it was another quality, a gamin shrewdness acquired in tenement districts and dressing rooms, in bars and night clubs, and even, on occasion, in the police lineup. She had the ability to perceive and balance amoral factors. From her viewpoint, the scales were not really tipped against her at all.
She looked down into Marty’s eyes, partly shaded by his lids, but staring straight into her own with a mingling of two passions. Dotty felt like shuddering, but managed a light smile. “It’s been an odd night, darling.”
“Yeah.”
“Kind of unbelievable. Are you really a hotel man, like George was saying?”
“That’s right. Born in the business. That was no gag about buying the Stannard Hotel. Let me tell you something.” He propped himself up on an elbow, his face closer to Dotty’s. “I’ve gambled my life and my liberty a hundred times to get exactly where I am tonight. I needed a stake, a big one, and I got it. Now I’m on my way and Red Martin is dead. You get the picture?”
She nodded. “I’ve been thinking of it since we left Chez Rouge. You and I are very much alike, after all.”
He gave her a mocking smile. “No kidding.”
“I mean it. You’ll do anything to get where you have to go. So will I. The difference between us is that you’ve made it and I haven’t — yet. But I will.” She leaned backward across his hips, her bare shoulders against the couch, looking away from him. “I think you’ll be the one to put me there.”
Marty choked off a short laugh. “You do.”
“Yes. You see, I know you better now. When you were George Brown I didn’t know you at all, except you were a good lover, you were in the rackets, and you had a few kind impulses. Red Martin added to that, but not much. He was a myth. But Marty Lee completes it. You don’t have to tell me your history. I know all about you. You’re a complete person, a certain kind of complete person. You know the kind of person you are?”
>
Marty smiled as he put an arm about her waist and pressed the yielding flesh. “No. Tell me.”
“You’re the person almost every criminal dreams of being. I’ll bet you don’t even have a record.”
“Not as Marty Lee.”
“I thought so. You’re the one who stole Solomon’s jewels and the Queen of Sheba and got away with it. You’re the one who broke into Fort Knox and bought out the Bank of America and married a movie star.”
Murder slipped from Marty’s brain and he laughed. “Hey, wait a minute!”
“That’s you. You’re the person every two-bit crook thinks he is or can be and isn’t and never could be. But you did it. You got away with it. You did it big and you ended it big. Now you’re through with it, because you’re thinking even bigger. You’re the person who’s going to answer the question people always ask about famous criminals — ’Why couldn’t a man like that use his brains legitimately?’ You’ll come up with the answer. That’s the sort of person you are. But you’re also Brown and Martin and Lee and every other alias you’ve ever used.” She tilted her head to her shoulder to look down at him. “And all of those people are lying here on this couch wondering what to do about me.”
He slid his elbow out and dropped to his back. “You are a problem, you know.”
“I know. I just realized what sort of problem I am when you slugged that drunk. You had no reason to hit him. He was harming no one, and he was so drunk he couldn’t even see us. But you had to hit someone. I mean, Red Martin did. You were boiling mad. I guess I’m the one person who knows who you are. Am I?”
Marty growled, “Goddamn it, yes. Why the devil didn’t you go on to New York?”
“I’m here and I’m glad I stayed. And by the way,” she said, “I’m not staying in a pine box.”
Marty slapped his fingers about her arm and closed them in a viselike grip. “You listen to me!”
“No, thank you. Let’s get a few things straight. I know my way around, too. There isn’t anything you — I mean Red Martin — can do tonight or even very soon. Marty Lee would be brought into it and Leila and George. I feel very safe. Which gives me all the time I need to write out a little document and put it in a nice, secure place where you can’t get at it. To be opened, of course, in the event anything happened to me. Do we understand each other?”
“Got it all planned, haven’t you?” He slid his fingers up her arm until they were resting on her neck. “But maybe you don’t know all the answers.”
“I know a few. I’m not kidding about being safe. I was doing a little thinking back in the Fairmont, too. So I went out to the lobby and wrote a little note.”
He remembered and lifted her hand to look at the ink stains on her fingers. “Yeah. I was wondering about that. A little note to whom?”
“Just a girl friend.” She smiled. “Someone in Los Angeles. Just one of those ‘Having a good time’ things and ‘Wish you were here.’ But I also happened to mention I’d changed boy friends and if she wanted to get in touch with me she could write to me in care of Marty Lee, Stannard Hotel.”
Marty’s fingers tightened slightly about her neck. “Why, you little — ”
“Nothing to worry about, darling. Really. She won’t give the note a second thought. But just in case anything happened to me, you understand — ”
Marty dropped his hand from her throat and looked down to the floor where he had placed his drink. He lifted the glass, again propped himself on an elbow, and finished the drink. He sent the empty glass spinning across the floor and dropped to his back chuckling. He pulled Dotty down to his chest and said hoarsely, “I wasn’t sold on the idea, anyway. I like you.”
She squirmed in his arms and whispered in his ear, “I’m glad. Some ways, you terrify me, but I think we can get along.”
“Yeah. Could be.”
He felt a sudden, aching need for her animal passions and closed his arms tightly about her. She relaxed against his chest with a sigh and rubbed a cheek against his. Her eyes were partly closed and she was smiling. She knew his need and played up to it. When she led the way to the other room she walked with assurance. She was well aware of the killing instincts of the man following her, but she felt that she was out of danger.
Marty left her asleep in the bedroom and tiptoed out at dawn. No one in the household was awake. He called a taxi and slipped silently out the front door when it arrived. He went to his rooms in the hotel and slept for a few hours. After a shower and a change of clothes he felt completely rested. He was able to think clearly of Dotty. She was not a large problem, after all. She had no intentions of giving him away, or of blackmailing him. She would probably try to use him to further her own ambitions, but there was little harm in that. It might even be pleasant. He thought of the voluptuous manner of her love-making and smiled. She could be nice to have around. Someone to talk to, to use as a sounding board, to relax with. She could even be useful. Smart gal. Hard as nails under that soft femininity, and nobody’s fool. He arranged the handkerchief in his breast pocket precisely and left the rooms humming a melody that Dotty had been singing the night before.
When he went down to the hotel lobby he noticed immediately a change of atmosphere. The bellboys were going about their business more briskly than usual, and even the elderly desk clerks seemed to be on their toes. Marty grinned and walked to the hotel newsstand. Frank Stannard had evidently called the press to inform the city of the change of ownership. All of the morning papers carried the news about the hotel. For a San Francisco landmark to change hands rated the front page. There were pictures of the hotel, before and after the fire and earthquake, and pictures of the Stannards, including Eli, the builder. There was no picture of the new owner. Marty looked through all the papers and was well satisfied with the news accounts.
He glanced about the lobby to indulge in pride of ownership, but hadn’t a chance. The manager and assistant manager came rushing out of the office to shake hands with him, only to receive two-weeks’ notice of dismissal, and a half-dozen reporters descended on him. Marty answered their questions cautiously, dwelling exclusively on his hotel experiences. Whenever anyone touched on the subject of his profitable “speculations,” Marty mentioned stocks and bonds, grain, cotton, and oil, and instantly swung the conversation back to the hotel business. No one noticed his evasions. The reporters liked his smooth yet rugged appearance and the obvious fact that he knew his way around and could talk their language. They all wished him luck. Marty enjoyed himself.
As soon as his check to the Stannards was cleared he wasted no time getting into operation. He got all legal matters out of the way within a few days and rolled up his sleeves to plunge into the problem of renovation.
He had heard that the smartest interior decorator in the city was Wayne Howard, a young man who had served an unusual apprenticeship in the Hollywood studios, but had elected San Francisco as his special plum to be picked. Marty got in touch with him and had him drop by the hotel. Wayne was not exactly what Marty had anticipated. There was nothing of the effete limp-wrist about him, nor had he the garrulity usual in his profession. He was well over six feet tall with light blond hair and pale eyebrows, but with piercing gray eyes that analyzed and catalogued everything mirrored in their depths. Marty was not sure he liked Wayne, mostly because of the indifferent way he wore his clothes, but soon realized that he knew his business thoroughly and was the ideal man for the job.
Marty told him, “I’m going to put my cards on the table face up. You can take it or leave it. I’m making a hell of a gamble on this hotel and my resources are limited. I have to chisel on everything. That means you, too, if you take the job.”
Wayne raised an eyebrow to regard Marty with shrewd interest. “In other words, I am not going to make a fortune on it.”
“In other words, you’re going to make damned little on it. You’ll have to work your head off and battle over prices all the way, and the best you can hope for is expenses and wages.”
&nb
sp; “Not very enticing.”
“Maybe not. You can figure that out after you hear what I want done. I understand you got it on the ball, but you haven’t done anything big. All right. This is big. Plenty big. You turn this job out right and you’ll be set for life. That’s all I’m offering you, the chance to make a name for yourself.”
Wayne smiled coolly. “You sound like a Hollywood producer: ‘Get in there and pitch, kid, and you’ll be a star.’ I’ve had to listen to that too many times. It’s stale. Frankly, I don’t think I’m interested. But I am curious. What is it you have in mind?”
Marty told him. He went first through his ideas concerning the night-club rooms and brought out some sketches he had made. The drawings were crude and stilted, but they did put the idea across. He saw interest and even enthusiasm creep into Wayne’s eyes. Then he told him about the regular hotel rooms.
“I don’t want too much disturbed. I can’t afford to renovate the hotel, but even if I could I wouldn’t do it. I want the atmosphere of the guest rooms preserved. Keep that feeling of spaciousness, of gracious living, comfort, no rush, no pressures. Doll it up, of course. Even get cute about it. Use some color. Brighten the rooms. Heighten and exaggerate the rococo effect. Same thing with the lobby. Instead of ripping out all that marble, leave it where it is, accent it, and spotlight it. Those circular leather couches around the pillars, for example. Anyone else would tear them out. Don’t. Leave them where they are, but cover them with red plush over the leather. The writing desks, though, pull them out and scatter them. Use a lot of gold trim, particularly along the darker edges of the paneling. Highlight the gloomy corners. What I’m after — when a guest walks in that lobby I want him to feel as if he’s stepping back through time and space. He won’t be when he gets the bill, but make him feel it.”
Deep is the Pit Page 10