by Parnell Hall
And not only that, I wanted her to go out because I’d taken this rotten job and, distasteful as it might be, damn it, I wanted to do it.
She was out at five to six. With a suitcase. Hot damn! A suitcase.
I was so excited I was falling all over myself. Jesus Christ, what did I do now? Should I follow her on foot or in the car? A suitcase means a trip. She’s going someplace. She could be taking a plane or a train. A bus, even. If so, she’d take a taxi to get there. Should I hail one too? If she’s heading for Port Authority, Grand Central or Penn Station, I should—there’s no place to leave my car there. But if she’s heading for the airport I should drive. Oh shit. What would a real detective do?
Monica Dorlander could have solved my problem for me by walking east, because 83rd Street’s a one-way street west, and I’d have had to follow her on foot. But she went the other way. Decisions and revisions that a moment could reverse.
Fuck it. I killed the motor, banged the code alarm, and hopped out of the car. I crossed the street and tagged along behind her at what I assumed was a discreet distance.
She never looked back. She went a block and a half and turned into a parking garage.
Shit. Wrong again. I need my car. Should I get it, or should I hail a cab? What if I miss her? Nonsense, moron, they gotta get her car out. That’ll take time won’t it? Yeah, but how much? How the hell should I know? Decisions, revisions. Holy shit.
I turned and sprinted down the street, flashed across the avenue dodging traffic, and raced back to my car.
There was a parking ticket on the windshield. Are you kidding me? I was here at five to six. I grabbed it off, unlocked the door, flung the ticket on the passenger seat, and punched in the computer numbers on the code alarm. The red light went off. I started the car, gunned the motor, and pulled out from the spot.
I hadn’t noticed, but the guys around me had wedged me in. There was no time to be subtle. I cut the wheel and pulled forward till the bumpers crunched, cut the other way and backed up.
The guy behind me had a code alarm too, one of the kind that goes off if you bang his bumper. I banged it and it did. The alarm was the kind that is a loud, steady whine that never shuts off. I hate them. Car alarms like that are always going off in my neighborhood, and nobody ever shuts them off, and they whine for hours and drive you nuts. My alarm shuts off after one minute and rearms itself, on the sound theory that by then the thief has either been frightened away or your car has been stolen. It only goes off if you try to get into the car too, not if you bang the bumper. I tend to think of people who have alarms such as mine as responsible citizens. I tend to think of people who have alarms such as the guy in back of me as assholes.
I banged his bumper four more times getting out. My head was coming off from the whine. My thoughts were getting jumbled. For a second I wasn’t sure whether I was a car thief or an incompetent detective.
“Incompetent detective.” I said it out loud, as I have a habit of doing sometimes, particularly when I’m hassled and anxious. And as so often happens when I find myself talking out loud to myself, it started a chain reaction in my head. I was on “Family Feud,” and I had just blurted out the answer “Incompetent detective,” and my family members were all clapping and shouting, “Good answer! Good answer!” and there was a loud ding, “Survey says!” and the number one panel flipped over reading, INCOMPETENT DETECTIVE—87 and the audience was clapping and the family was cheering, and Richard Dawson was saying, “The Number One Answer!” That’s right, Richard Dawson, the original show, not the remake with what’s-his-face—
A car horn brought me back to reality. I’d just lurched clear of the space right in front of a speeding taxi. The driver swerved around me, still leaning on the horn, and I could see him mouth the word, “Asshole!” I wondered if it was the Number One Answer. “We polled a recent studio audience and got their best response to this: What do you call a man who pulls out without looking?” “Jerk.” Ding. “The Number Two Answer. One answer will beat it ...”
I hurtled down the block, following the cab. It occurred to me it would be a good idea not to rear-end him. Still, I wanted to make the light. It was yellow as the cab whizzed through. I was glad the cabbie decided to go for it. I’d already decided to go for it, and if he’d hit the brakes we’d have been in trouble.
I flashed across the avenue, hit the brakes, and pulled to a stop alongside the parked cars. Up ahead I could see the driveway to the parking garage. I couldn’t see Monica Dorlander, though. She was standing inside the entrance. Either that or she’d already left. Christ, was it possible? Could the car in front of the taxi stopped at the stoplight up ahead be hers? How the hell should I know? It was dark. All I could see were the damn taillights. Should I pull up ahead maybe, and get a better look? Of what, the garage or the car? Well, if she’s not in the garage, you go after the car. What if she is in the garage, what if she’s standing there, what do you do then? Slam on the brakes and back up? That’s a great idea. Why don’t you just paint a sign on your car, “Private Detective Surveillance Unit.” Yeah, but I could get a little closer, maybe get a little better angle, spot her in the door.
A car nosed its way out of the garage entrance, straddled the sidewalk. The door opened and a man got out. He walked around toward the back of the car, out of sight. A few moments later he reappeared walking with Monica Dorlander. She fumbled in her purse, handed him what I assumed was a dollar bill, and got into the car. He closed the door for her. I heard the sound of the engine starting again, and the car pulled out of the driveway. I pulled out and tagged along.
She went across town to Madison Avenue, up Madison to 97th, through Central Park to Broadway, down a block to 96th, and over to the West Side Highway. She got on the Highway heading north.
Traffic was still heavy on the Highway, so there was no chance of her spotting me. There was a chance of my losing her, however. I stuck right on her tail. There was no reason that should make her suspicious—in traffic like that, someone had to be behind her.
We were heading for the George Washington Bridge, so I figured we were going to Jersey. You guessed it. Wrong again. Just before the ramp she cut into the left-hand lane, went under the bridge, and on up the Henry Hudson.
We stopped at the tollbooth and paid a dollar to leave Manhattan, which always strikes me as a variation on the old joke: How do you make any money on Manhattan? Put a tent over it and charge everyone a buck to get out.
We continued on up the Henry Hudson, which turned into the Saw Mill River Parkway. I’m not sure exactly where that happens, and I doubt if anybody else is either. You’re on one and then suddenly you’re on the other and it’s all the same road anyway and who cares?
By the time we hit the Hawthorne Circle and took the Taconic State Parkway north, I was damn glad I hadn’t opted for that cab.
By that time I had also come to the cheery realization that since I was now driving around all over creation, I wouldn’t be standing on the sidewalk in front of Monica Dorlander’s apartment house when Marvin Nickleson showed up to give me the money.
Somehow that figured.
We’d been on the Taconic long enough so that I was beginning to wonder if we were going to Canada, when Monica Dorlander’s brake lights went on, followed by her right-turn signal, and she took an exit marked, “ROUTE 55—POUGHKEEPSIE.” I’d never been to Poughkeepsie before, but by then I was damn glad to be anywhere.
We didn’t go to Poughkeepsie, however. We took Route 55 right through it, went onto a toll bridge over what I assumed was the Hudson River, and kept on going.
A few miles later, Monica Dorlander hung a left onto an unmarked road, and began winding her way up into the mountains. She made two or three more turns, always onto unmarked roads, and seeing as how we seemed to be the only cars on the road, I had to stay a good distance behind to keep her from spotting me. Which made it tricky, of course. If I lost her, I’d never find her again. In fact, it occurred to me I’d be lucky if I cou
ld even find my way back to Poughkeepsie.
Just when I’d begun to feel that Monica Dorlander wasn’t going anywhere, that it was all a bad joke, that I was a man trapped in a shaggy dog story, I rounded a curve in the road just in time to see her slow down and hang a left into the Pine Hills Motel
11.
THIS WAS IT. This was the real thing. This was what I’d been reading in detective stories all my life, and seeing in the movies too. The private detective tails the wayward wife to a motel.
I tried to remain calm. After all, I figured, real detectives don’t start dancing up and down just because the quarry goes to a motel. I’m sure in divorce work such things are just routine. Moreover, Monica Dorlander hadn’t gone to a motel with anyone. She’d just gone on an overnight trip and quite naturally checked into a motel alone. Still, after two days of absolute zero, two days in fact of barely seeing the woman at all, this had to be a major victory. And it was, after all, my first case.
I didn’t want to blow it. I wasn’t sure what standard procedure was in a situation like this, but I figured hanging a left into the motel after her probably wasn’t it.
I pulled onto the side of the road a hundred yards short of the motel and killed the lights and motor. I got out of the car and, keeping in the shadows, walked down the side of the road to where I could size up the situation.
The Pine Hills Motel was a one-story, L-shaped affair with maybe a dozen units, the majority of these running back perpendicular to the road, the last few in the back jutting out parallel forming the L. The office, of course, was in the front by the road. Monica Dorlander’s car was stopped next to it.
I went a little further down the road where I could get a better view of the door to the office, which was on the same side as the doors to the side units. I’d just gotten settled when the door opened and Monica Dorlander came out. I’d expected to see the manager too, but apparently he was content to let her find her own unit. She got in the car, started the motor, pulled up and turned into a parking space in front of one of the side units. It was hard to tell from that distance, but the best I could judge was that if the units were numbered consecutively starting at the office, hers would have been six or seven.
All right, what do I do now? Do I cross the road on foot and try to get a closer look at the unit number, or drive in the driveway, stop by the office, and try to verify it from there? The angle from the office would be bad, worse even than the angle I had now. But I’d be closer. Would I be close enough? Should I cross the road? The door to the office was on the side, but it had windows on the front. If the guy happened to be looking out them he’d see me. And if he saw me, that would be it. But why the hell would the guy be looking out the window? It’s dark. There’s a light on in the office. You know what that’s like. The windows become mirrors. The guy’d have to put his face up to the window to look out. But what if he did? Schmuck. Just do it.
Why did the private detective cross the road? That was the first joke my son ever learned. Probably the first joke most kids learn. Of course in the joke it’s chicken. Which in my case applies.
I crossed the road about fifty yards beyond the motel. There was no street light there, no headlights coming from cars. There was a half-moon, but you can’t have everything.
Having crossed the road at this point, I now couldn’t see the motel. It was hidden by pines and a hill. Truth in advertising. I could see the glow of the neon sign however. I walked back toward it.
I stopped in the shadow of the last pine before the clearing. From there I could see everything. Even the numbers on the doors. There were fourteen units, not twelve, ten back and four across. The numbers, as I’d assumed, started from the office and ran back and around. Monica Dorlander’s car was in front of unit seven.
If cars were any indication, the motel was about half full. There was a car in front of unit eight.
There was no car in front of unit six.
I walked back down, crossed the road again, then walked in the shadows back past the motel to my car. I got in the car, gunned the motor, turned the lights on, turned into the motel and stopped in the driveway, just as Monica Dorlander had done. I got out of the car and pushed open the door to the motel office.
I was surprised. The motel, though small and simple, had seemed modern enough, an ugly blot of concrete and steel cut into the mountainside. The office was decidedly rustic. The walls were of cheap wood paneling. A gun rack with half a dozen rifles hung on one wall. In the corner was an old potbellied stove. Small logs were crackling in it, and I couldn’t help wondering what the heating in the rest of the place was like. The manager’s desk was not your modern hotel counter either, just a small beat-up wooden desk.
The manager sat behind it, watching a small, fuzzy, black and white TV. He was a man about my age, only stockier and, I supposed, more muscular, though it was hard to tell since he was wearing his coat, causing me more apprehensions about the heating in the place. The coat was the red-and-black-check affair that hunters use. A matching hat with ear flaps lay on the desk. He was a bull-necked man with a reddish face with what looked like two day’s worth of dark stubble. Somehow the guy struck me as a parody of himself—the Woodsman. He was either the genuine article, or had gone to great pains to cultivate the image. I figured the only reason there wasn’t a deer head on the wall over the desk was the guy was a lousy shot.
It was probably a combination of the two, but I think it was the man that surprised me more than the room. I guess subconsciously I’d been expecting Norman Bates.
He very reluctantly turned his eyes away from the TV and surveyed me with a look that told me he hadn’t taken Motel Management 101.
“Yeah?” he grunted.
“I’d like a room,” I said. I felt like a fool when I said it. Suddenly I had a flash I was in a Saturday Night Live sketch. I mean, what did the guy think I wanted? It was a motel. All they did was rent rooms.
I had a sudden flash of panic. Come on, snap out of it. Never mind the decor or the guy or how warm or cold it is. This is where you gotta shine. You gotta check Monica Dorlander’s motel reservation, and you gotta get the right room.
The manager grunted again. “MasterCard, American Express or Visa?”
None of the above, since I didn’t want a record of my stay.
“Cash” I said.
He snorted. “Two in a row. Don’t see much cash these days.”
Hot damn. Things were coming my way. Monica Dorlander had paid cash. That smacked of something furtive. I ought to know, ’cause I was doing it myself. Now for the clincher. Did she use her right name?
I wasn’t going to use mine. I’d already made that decision. I’d sign the name Alan Parker in the register. Right under whatever alias she’d used. I couldn’t photostat the register like Marvin Nickleson wanted me to, not without giving the show away, but I’d make a note of it and I could photostat it later, even if I had to get a court order to do it.
I’ve really got to stop reading murder mysteries. Either that or stop being a detective. Because detective fiction keeps raising these expectations that real life dashes away.
There was no motel register. The manager reached in the desk and pulled out a four-by-six registration card and slid it across the desk.
“Single room, sixty-two fifty plus tax, fill this out.”
And he turned his attention back to “The Cosby Show.”
I filled out Alan Parker’s registration form. I decided Mr. Parker lived in Scarsdale. Where it said license plate number I made one up. I figured the manager wouldn’t come outside to check it. He hadn’t stuck his head out the door to check Monica Dorlander’s.
I finished the form and slid it back to him. Now came the tricky part—getting the right room. After the bit with the motel register, my expectations weren’t that high, and justifiably so.
He glanced at the card, took my money, and produced a key. “Unit twelve.”
I frowned. “Look,” I said. “I’m a gambler a
nd I’m superstitious. Could you let me have unit seven?”
“Rented,” he said.
I knew that, since Monica Dorlander had just rented it.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, close to that. Six or eight.”
This time he gave me a look. “Rented,” he said.
He had a hard stare, and with him looking at me I felt like a poker player whose bluff has been called. I didn’t know what to say next. I felt like any moment I’d start squirming and say, “Aw, gee, you got me, you’re right, I’m not Alan Parker, I’m a private detective, and I’m tailing this woman, and I was trying to con you into giving me the room next door.”
Fortunately he snorted, jerked open the desk drawer again, and looked inside. “I got units three, ten, twelve and thirteen. If you’re superstitious, you don’t want thirteen. Whaddya say?”
“Twelve will be fine.”
He slid the key across the desk. “Checkout time’s noon. The phones in the rooms are for local calls only. You want to call long distance, the pay phone’s out front.”
He snorted again and went back to his TV show.
I went outside and got in the car. As soon as I did, it occurred to me I should have taken unit three. Then I’d have been between her and the road, and if she wanted to go out, she’d have to drive past me. I considered going back in and asking for unit three. I rejected the notion. I’d probably aroused the Woodsman’s suspicions enough already, and if he wasn’t a total dunce he’d be bound to get wise.
I started the car and drove up to unit twelve. I didn’t have a suitcase to lug in, since I hadn’t planned on spending the night. I had my briefcase, so I took that. I didn’t want to look funny checking in with no luggage. Not that anyone was looking.
I unlocked the door and found a light switch. About what I’d expected—bed, dresser, table, chair, TV—your standard motel furnishings. The only windows were in the front, except for a small frosted one in the bathroom in the back. So much for clandestine surveillance. Or for Peeping Toms, if you will.