VIII

I'd put in for an eight o'clock call, but my sleep had been so sound and

perfect that I was all slept out by seven-thirty. I was anxious to get

going so I dressed and shaved in a hurry and cancelled the eight o'clock

call. Then I asked the operator to connect me with 913.

A gruff, angry male voice snarled out of the earpiece at me. I began to

apologize profusely but the other guy slammed the phone down on the hook

hard enough to make my ear ring.

I jiggled my hook angrily and when the operator answered I told her that

she'd miscued. She listened to my complaint and then replied in a

pettish tone, "But I did ring 913, sir. I'll try again."

I wanted to tell her to just try, that there was no 'again' about it,

but I didn't. I tried to dig through the murk to her switchboard but I

couldn't dig a foot through this area. I waited impatiently until she

re-made the connections at her switchboard and I heard the burring of

the phone as the other end rang. Then the same mad-bull-rage voice

delivered a number of pointed comments about people who ring up honest

citizens in the middle of the night; and he hung up again in the middle

of my apology. I got irked again and demanded that the operator connect

me with the registration clerk. To him I told my troubles.

"One moment, sir," he said. A half minute later he returned with,

"Sorry, sir. There is no Farrow registered. Could I have mis-heard you?"

"No, goddammit," I snarled. "It's Farrow. F as in Frank; A as in Arthur;

Double R as in Robert Robert; O as in Oliver; and W as in Washington. I

saw her register, I went with her and the bellhop to her room, Number

913, and saw her installed. Then the same 'hop took me up to my room in

1224 on the Twelfth."

There was another moment of silence. Then he said, "You're Mr. Cornell.

Registered in Room 1224 last night approximately four minutes after

midnight."

"I know all about me. I was there and did it myself. And if I registered

at four after midnight, Miss Farrow must have registered about two after

midnight because the ink was still wet on her card when I wrote my name.

We came in together, we were travelling together. Now, what gives?"

"I wouldn't know, sir. We have no guest named Farrow."

"See here," I snapped, "did you ever have a guest named Farrow?"

"Not in the records I have available at this desk. Perhaps in the past

there may have been--"

"Forget the past. What about the character in 913?"

The registration clerk returned and informed me coldly, "Room 913 has

been occupied by a Mr. Horace Westfield for over three months, Mr.

Cornell. There is no mistake." His voice sounded professionally

sympathetic, and I knew that he would forget my troubles as soon as his

telephone was put back on its hook.

"Forget it," I snapped and hung up angrily. Then I went towards the

elevators, walking in a sort of dream-like daze. There was a cold lump

of something concrete hard beginning to form in the pit of my stomach.

Wetness ran down my spine and a drop of sweat dropped from my armpit and

hit my body a few inches above my belt like a pellet of icy hail. My

face felt cold but when I wiped it with the palm of a shaking hand I

found it beaded with an oily sweat. Everything seemed unreally

horrifying.

"Nine," I told the elevator operator in a voice that sounded far away

and hoarse.

I wondered whether this might not be a very vivid dream, and maybe if I

went all the way back to my room, took a short nap, and got up to start

all over again, I would awaken to honest reality.

The elevator stopped at Nine and I walked the corridor that was familiar

from last night. I rapped on the door of Room 913.

The door opened and a big stubble-faced gorilla gazed out and snarled at

me: "Are you the persistent character?"

"Look," I said patiently, "last night a woman friend of mine registered

at this hotel and I accompanied her to this door. Number 913. Now--"

A long apelike arm came out and caught me by the coat lapels. He hauled

and I went in fast. His breath was sour and his eyes were bloodshot and

he was angry all the way through. His other hand caught me by the seat

of the pants and he danced me into the room like a jumping jack.

"Friend," he ground out, "Take a look. There ain't no woman in this

room, see?"

He whirled, carrying me off my feet. He took a lunging step forward and

hurled me onto the bed, where I carried the springs deep down, to bounce

up and off and forward to come up flat against the far wall. I landed

sort of spread-eagle flat and seemed to hang there before I slid down

the wall to the floor with a meaty-sounding Whump! Then before I could

collect my wits or myself, he came over the bed in one long leap and had

me hauled upright by the coat lapels again. The other hand was cocked

back level with his shoulder it looked the size of a twenty-five pound

sack of flour and was probably as hard as set cement.

_Steve_, I told myself, _this time you're in for it!_

"All right," I said as apologetically as I knew how, "so I've made a bad

mistake. I apologize. I'll also admit that you could wipe up the hotel

with me. But do you have to prove it?"

Mr. Horace Westfield's mental processes were not slow, cumbersome, and

crude. He was as fast and hard on his mental feet as he was on his

physical feet. He made some remarks about my intelligence, my

upbringing, my parentage and its legal status, and my unwillingness to

face a superior enemy. During this catalog of my virtueless existence,

he gandy-walked me to the door and opened it. He concluded his lecture

by suggesting that in the future I accept anything that any registration

clerk said as God-Stated Truth, and if I then held any doubts I should

take them to the police. Then he hurled me out of the room by just sort

of shoving me away. I sailed across the hall on my toes, backward, and

slapped my frame flat again, and once more I hung against the wall until

the kinetic energy had spent itself. Then I landed on wobbly ankles as

the door to Room 913 came closed with a violent slam.

I cursed the habit of building hotels in dead areas, although I admitted

that I'd steer clear of any hotel in a clear area myself. But I didn't

need a clear area nor a sense of perception to inform me that Room 913

was absolutely and totally devoid of any remote sign of female

habitation. In fact, I gathered the impression that for all of his brute

strength and virile masculinity, Mr. Horace Westfield hadn't entertained

a woman in that room since he'd been there.

There was one other certainty: It was impossible for any agency short of

sheer fairyland magic to have produced overnight a room that displayed

its long-term occupancy by a not-too-immaculate character. That

distinctive sour smell takes a long time to permeate the furnishings of

any decent hotel; I wondered why a joint as well kept as this one would

put up with a bird as careless of his person as Mr. Horace Westfield.

So I came to the reluctant conclusion that Room 913 was not occupied by

Nurse Farrow, but I was not yet convinced that she was totally missing

from the premises.

Instead of taking the elevator, I took to the stairs and tried the

eighth. My perception was not too good for much in this murk, but I was

mentally sensitive to Nurse Farrow and if I could get close enough to

her, I might be able to perceive some trace of her even through the

deadness. I put my forehead against the door of Room 813 and drew a

blank. I could dig no farther than the inside of the door. If Farrow

were in 813, I couldn't dig a trace of her. So I went to 713 and tried

there.

I was determined to try every -13th room on every floor, but as I was

standing with my forehead against the door to Room 413, someone came up

behind me quietly and asked in a rough voice: "Just what do you think

you're doing, Mister?"

His dress indicated housedick, but of course I couldn't dig the license

in his wallet any more than he could read my mental, #None of your

business, flatfoot!# I said, "I'm looking for a friend."

"You'd better come with me," he said flatly. "There's been complaints."

"Yeah?" I growled. "Maybe I made one of them myself."

"Want to start something?" he snapped.

I shrugged and he smiled. It was a stony smile, humorless as a crevasse

in a rock-face. He kept that professional-type smile on his face until

we reached the manager's office. The manager was out, but one of the

assistant managers was in his desk. The little sign on the desk said

"Henry Walton. Assistant Manager."