She gave the big-league bitcher and her consort another room, apologizing for any inconvenience the original room assignment might have caused. Mickey thought the big-league bitcher was a little disappointed, like a bantamweight who sent his opponent to the canvas for the count with a lucky punch in the first round. All keyed up, and nobody around to fight with.
“Good evening, sir,” the desk clerk said. “How may I help you?”
Her voice was low and soft, her smile dazzling; and her hazel eyes were fascinating.
“What room is Bull Bolinski in?” Mickey asked.
“Mr. Bolinski isn’t here, sir,” she replied immediately.
“He isn
’t?”
“Are you Mr. O’Hara, sir? Mr. Michael J. O’Hara?”
“Guilty.”
She smiled. Warmly, Mickey thought. Genuinely amused.
“I thought I recognized you from your pictures,” she said. “I’m one of your…what…avid readers…Mr. O’Hara.”
“Oh, yeah?”
She nodded confirmation. “Mr. Bolinski called, Mr. O’Hara,” she said. “Just a few moments ago. He’s been delayed.”
“Oh?”
“He said you would be here, and he asked me to tell you that he will be getting into Philadelphia very late, and that he hopes you’ll be free to have breakfast with him, somewhere around ten o’clock.”
“Oh.”
“Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. O’Hara?”
“No. No, thanks.”
She smiled at him again, with her mouth and her eyes.
By the time he got to the revolving door, Mickey realized that opportunity had knocked, and he had as usual, blown it again.
Well, what the hell was I supposed to say, “Hey, honey, what time do you get off? Let’s you and me go hoist a couple?”
Mickey got back in the Chevy and drove home, nobly resisting the temptation to stop in at six different taverns en route for just one John Jamison’s. He went into the kitchen, finished the quart bottle of Ortleib’s, and then two more bottles as he considered what he would do if he couldn’t be a police reporter anymore. And, now that the opportunity was gone, thinking of all the clever, charming and witty things he should have said to the desk clerk with the soft and intimate voice and intelligent, hazel eyes.
George Amay, the Northwest Detectives Division detective, who, using the designator D-Dan 209, had gone in on the naked woman call, stayed at the crime scene just long enough to get a rough idea of what was going down. Then he got back in his car and drove to an outside pay phone in a tavern parking lot on Northwestern Avenue and called it in to the Northwest Detectives desk man, one Mortimer Shapiro.
Detective Shapiro’s place of duty was a desk just inside the Northwest Detectives squad room, on the second floor of the Thirty-fifth Police District Building at North Broad and Champlost Streets.
“Northwest Detectives, Shapiro,” Mort said, answering the telephone.
“George Amay, Mort,” Amay said. “I went in on a Thirty-fifth District call for a naked lady on Forbidden Drive. It’s at least Criminal Attempt Rape, Kidnapping, et cetera et cetera.”
“Where are you?”
“In a phone booth on Northwestern. The victim’s been taken to Chestnut Hill Hospital. The Thirty-fifth Lieutenant and Sergeant are at the scene. And Highway. And a lot of other people.”
“Go back to the scene, and see if you can keep Highway from destroying all the evidence,” Shapiro said. “I’ll send somebody over.”
Detective Shapiro then consulted the wheel, which was actually a sheet of paper on which he had written the last names of all the detectives present for duty that night in the Northwest Detectives Division.