What's The Worst That Could Happen?

Most of the hotel’s guests lived more than a hundred miles from New York City, whereas the Williamses, who had never been in Gary, Indiana, in their lives, actually lived a mile and a half from the hotel, downtown and then across to the east side. Most hotel guests used credit cards, as did Mr. Williams, but usually they were the guests’ own cards, which had not recently been stolen, ironed, altered, and adjusted. And most hotel guests used their own names.

“Mr. and Mrs. Williams, enjoy your stay at the N-Joy,” the desk clerk said, handing Dortmunder two of the magnetized cards they’d be using instead of room keys.

“We will,” Dortmunder said. “I’m sure of it.”

“New York!” breathed May, with a dazzled smile. She gazed around at this lobby in the sky, a four-story-tall Greek temple to the goddess of costume jewelry. “So this is New York!”

Dortmunder thought she was overdoing it, but the desk clerk seemed pleased.

19

Andy Kelp was disappointed. He’d come to the N-Joy early, hoping to pick up an item or two en passant, since John and May would have luggage with them anyway and you might as well put something in it, but there was just nothing here to attract his acquisitive eye.

Not that there weren’t shops, stores, boutiques. The lobby was ringed by them, like a necklace of paper clips, each with its own display windows to show the enticements within, each with the names of other cities in gold letters down at one corner of the display window, to suggest that this shop had branches in those cities. But why? Why have a store full of this stuff in Milan, in London, in Paris, in Beverly Hills? Well, okay, Beverly Hills. But in those other cities, what these citations must mean is that they’ve got a shop like this in a hotel like this in those cities. So the argument was, why travel?

With the shops closed and foot traffic in the lobby sparse, Kelp eased himself into boutique after boutique, hoping there might be something toward the rear of the place different from what was visible through the window, but it was always more of the same, and the key word was shiny. Shiny leather, shiny men’s watches, shiny furs, shiny pink glass vases, shiny covers of shiny magazines, shiny purses, shiny shoes, shiny earrings. It was like being in a duty-free shop for magpies.

Midnight, and no score. Kelp knew John and May didn’t like him to burst in unexpectedly, and he might maybe have been doing it a little too often lately, so he would definitely not go to their room before the 1:00 A . M . appointment, which meant, what now? Whereas the New York City outside this building was still jumping, just getting into its evening surge, the N-Joy was down and dark, all except for the cocktail lounge, tucked away in a far corner. So Kelp went there.

The cocktail lounge was a long low-ceilinged lunette curved around a massive bar. The principal color was purple, and the principal lighting was nonexistent. The candles that guttered on every table were encased in thick red glass. The main light source, in fact, was the shiny black Formica tops of the round tables, each of them surrounded by vast low overstuffed armchairs that to sit in would be like trying to sit in a jelly donut. Three of the tables were occupied, by murmuring, whispering, muttering couples, all dressed up with nowhere to go, drinking stingers or something worse. At the bar were two women, one of them a waitress in a black tutu, the other a customer with her elbows on the bar, her lumpy old shoulderbag on the stool next to her, and a tall glass in front of her that, judging by her bleak expression, was definitely half-empty and not half-full.

The bar stools were tall and wide, with soft purple vinyl tops. Kelp took one equidistant from both women, put one forearm on the bar, and watched the bartender, a dour workman with a mustache, finish building two stingers. The waitress took those drinks away, and the bartender turned his attention to Kelp. “Yes, sir,” he said, sliding a paper napkin onto the bar.

“Bourbon,” Kelp said.

The bartender nodded and waited, but Kelp was finished. Finally, the barman said, “And?”

“Oh, well, a glass, I guess. And an ice cube.”

“That’s it?” A faint smile appeared below the mustache. “We don’t get much call for that kind of thing here,” he said.

“You’ve got bourbon, though,” Kelp suggested.

“Oh, certainly. But most people want something with it. Some nice sweet vermouth? Maraschino cherry? A twist? Orange slice? Angostura bitters? Triple sec? Amaretto?”

“On the side,” Kelp said.

“You got it.”

The bartender went away, and the woman to Kelp’s left said, “Hello.”

He looked at her. She was probably in her midthirties, attractive in a way that suggested she didn’t know she was attractive and therefore didn’t try very hard. She was not in a holiday mood. The sound of her voice when she’d said hello had made it seem as though she hadn’t particularly wanted to speak but felt it was a requirement and so she’d gone ahead and done it. “And hello,” Kelp said.

The woman nodded; mission accomplished. “Where you from?” she asked.

“Cleveland, Ohio. And you?”

“Lancaster, Kansas. I’m supposed to go back there . . . sometime.”

“Well,” Kelp said, “if that’s where you live.”

“I believe my husband has left me,” she said.

This was unexpected. Kelp didn’t see a second glass on the bar. He said, “Maybe he’s in the men’s room.”

“I think he left me Monday,” she said.

Ah; today being Wednesday. Kelp thought about that while the bartender placed a glass and an ice cube and some bourbon on the paper napkin in front of him. “Thanks,” he said, and said to the woman, “Here in New York? Just disappeared?”

“Not disappeared, left me,” she said. “We came here Sunday, and on Monday he said, ‘A

“That’s rough,” Kelp said.

“Well,” she said, “it’s rough because it’s here. I mean, he’s right, it isn’t working out, that’s why I’ve been having an affair with Charlie Petersen for three years now, and is he go

“More convenient,” Kelp said, and nodded to show he sympathized.

“What it was,” she said, “this trip was our last try at making the marriage work. You know how people say they wa

“Back to Lancaster.”

“I don’t believe so,” she said. “He’s a traveling salesman for Pandorex Computers, you know, so he’s all over the Midwest anyway, so he’s probably with some girlfriend at the moment.”

“Any kids?”

“No, thank you,” she said. “This damn glass is empty again. What’s that you’re drinking?”

“Bourbon.”

“And?”

“And more bourbon.”

“Really? I wonder what that’s like.”

“Barman,” Kelp said, “I think we got a convert. Another of these for me, and one of these for the lady, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I hate to be called the lady.”

“Sorry,” Kelp said. “My mama told me pronouns were impolite.”

“The lady sucks.”

“That’s good news,” Kelp said. “From now on, I’ll refer to you as the broad. Deal?”

She gri

The barman brought the drinks, and the broad sipped hers and made a face. Then she sipped again, tasted, and said, “Interesting. It isn’t sweet.”

“That’s right.”

“Interesting.” She sipped again. “If you get tired of calling me the broad,” she said, “try A