I said, heartily: “Good for you, brother. And at the same time find that gal.” I was also thinking. “And when you do, introduce me to her.” For she was quite a dish, that jane. And I’d seen more of her than most men, I suppose.
The big young officer threw back his head and laughed, and for some reason it wasn’t a reassuring sound, though there was plenty of humour in it. So I looked at him, suspiciously, and growled: “Who’s the big laugh for, brother?”
He was on his feet, pulling on his gloves. He looked at me, his brown eyes twinkling, and he said, so casually: “You’ll find them for us, unless I’m mistaken.”
I looked at him. And then I went for another Scotch. I said, sourly: “What do you mean?”
But I thought I knew what he meant, because I figured that he’d got the same sort of mind as I had. In other words, he was figuring that these boys might soon take a crack at me.
He confirmed my theory by saying: “They seem a desperate lot of people, whoever they are, Mr. Heggy. I mean, there must be something pretty big behind it all for men to do a thing as daring as that—even to posing as a police officer. So, my guess is that when they hear you were a witness to their activities, they might try to eliminate you.” He seemed to pick that word eliminate, carefully, as if he wished to be tactful on an unpleasant subject
I knocked back that Scotch and then I said: “Let ’em all come, brother. They’ll find Joe P. Heggy waiting.”
I reckon that alcohol had something to do with my bravado, because I’m telling you I’m a nervous, sensitive man.
The cop officer went out at that, and I was surprised to see that corridor empty, as if his monkeys had gone off to do some other work. He saw my questioning look, and said with a smile: “They’re checking on the clerk’s statement. They’ll be going to every room and questioning the people there.”
I thought of B.G., and his palpitations when a Turkish policeman began to question him. It did me good to think of the fat slob palpitating, and I felt pleased for the first time about this affair in consequence.
The cop went, and I realized that almost for the first time in his life, Joe P. Heggy was a friend of a policeman.
I went back and finished my dressing. Then B.G. came barging in. He doesn’t knock, ever; he figures a boss has a right to walk in on a man even though he’d gripe if anyone did that to him. So I figured I could tell him what I thought of his manners and I did. And then I thought I’d put a scare on him.
I said: “B.G., I’m a marked man. If you go with me, you run the risk of stopping a knife or some lead intended for Joe P. Heggy.”
I watched his big, fat, pancake face while I said this, and I enjoyed the quavering fear that came up from his chicken heart at my statement.
I said, hopefully: “Of course, you can always go out by yourself.”
I didn’t like playing Nurse Nelly to this egghead, and I’d been looking for a way of ditching him so that I could enjoy my own company without thinking all the time of his inhibitions.
But B.G. didn’t take the offer. He was dead scared of going out alone after dark in a foreign city. I reckon he was stuffed even fuller than I was with tales of thuggery in those primitive parts of the world outside law-abiding Detroit. He was torn between the devil and the deep blue sea, but the devil won, as he always does, in the end.
He said: “I think you’re exaggerating. It doesn’t matter, anyway—you’re coming with me.”
That was why I had been employed by the old man—to take care of little Benny Gissenheim on his travels abroad.
It made me sourer than usual, because I was in no mood to enjoy the boss’s company. I wanted to think, and if I couldn’t get a solution to my thoughts, I wanted to get drunk with the boys, and all that was denied me if I was with B.G.
But—he made out the paychecks. What he said had to be. So we went out together and down the stairs because there was a notice on the elevator: ‘Out of Order’. It was written in three languages to make sure. My guess is that notice went up every time the old man who ran the elevator had a date with one of the chambermaids.
Down in the foyer Benny got agitated so much that he began to work when he saw me. Anyway he went through the motions of doing a lot of writing in a big ledger. There was a guy sitting on a bench to one side—a hard bench reserved for visitors calling upon guests at the hotel—probably hard in the hope of making their visits infrequent. He was reading a newspaper, and I remembered thinking at the time that that newspaper must be mighty interesting to keep a man up hear midnight reading it on a hard bench.
I was going across to make Benny feel really uncomfortable when something timid touched my elbow.
Something timid said: “He didn’t have any. He says he’s run out.”
I looked down. There must be something reassuring about the Heggy physiognomy after all for timid dames twice in one evening to pour out their little troubles to me.
I looked meanly at Benny and said: “You don’t want to believe that guy. Lady, he’s holding out on you, I tell you.”
That would be just like Benny, I thought. Benny would take it out of a timid dame like this fluttery female just because he lost out in an encounter with Joe P. Heggy.
She looked wistfully at the pigeon-holes behind Benny’s bowed head where he worked at a table behind the desk. Benny, I knew well enough by this time, was trying hard to avoid the Heggy eye.
I heard her say: “I would have loved to have seen those mosques in the moonlight.”
Next second I heard B.G.’s big mouth yapping. He wanted to show off, I suppose, and this timid little dame must have made him feel big and good.
He said: “That’s no place for a lady after dark. You should keep away from such places because you never know what sort of characters are waiting around for the innocent tourist.”
That little dame turned on him, all fluttering and pink and her eyes hardly daring to lift to his face. It’s routine No. 1 with most dames, but I reckon that B.G. isn’t worldly wise. She kept saying: “Oh, thank you for warning me. It’s very good of you. I hadn’t realized that it might be dangerous.” And then a lot more eye fluttering and then she said: “That’s the disadvantage of being a frail woman instead of a big strong man.”
She did everything except say: “...Like you,” but that would have spoilt things—it would have overdone it, if you see what I mean. And I, standing there nodding my head cynically, saw the fish take the bait and the hook and the line and everything.
It made him feel big and strong and good, and I could see the air go into his chest and fill it out, and I knew he was holding that fat gut of his so that he looked muscular instead of beefy. He was looking at her tolerantly, in a strongman manner, through his impressive-looking American businessman’s glasses, and he was saying: “Perhaps I might find the time to escort you around the mosques, if you’re staying at this hotel.”
She started fluttering again and thanking him and putting in the odd sentence, which made him feel pleased with himself. I had to hand it to the old gal. She may have been doing it unconsciously, but she had the right line of patter to please B.G.
I even looked at her suspiciously, because she never struck a false note. And yet she was innocent. She was just a timid middle-aged dear saying the right things because she had been brought up to say them, and she couldn’t think differently.
I also thought that she looked better than when I’d first seen her. Her face was pinker, and it seemed to give her a little—shall we call it—bloom of youth? And when I looked down her trim, neatly-dressed little figure I thought that