Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

“You got your hair in a bun,” Mickey said.

“I’ve been here all night,” she said.

“How come?”

“My relief just never showed up,” she said.

“Jesus! She didn’t phone or anything?”

“Not a word,” she said.

“You didn’t get any sleep at all?”

She shook her head.

“You sure don’t look like it,” Mickey blurted.

Her face flushed, and she smiled shyly.

Then she picked up a telephone. She spoke the Bull’s room number so softly he couldn’t hear it.

The phone rang a long time before the Bull’s wife answered it.

“Good morning, Mrs. Bolinski,” she said. “This is Miss Travis at the front desk. I hope I haven’t disturbed you. Mr. O’Hara is here.”

Travis, huh? It figures she would have a nice name like that.

“May I send him up?” Miss Travis said, glancing at Mickey. Then she said, “Thank you, madam,” and hung up. “Mr. Bolinski is in the Theodore Roosevelt Suite, Mr. O’Hara. That’s on ten. Turn to your right when you exit the elevator.”

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

Mickey turned and started to walk to the bank of elevators. Then he turned again.

“You get yourself some sleep,” he commanded.

The remark startled her for long enough to give Mickey the opportunity to conclude that whenever it came to saying exactly the right thing to a woman he really liked, he ranked right along with Jackie Gleason playing the bus driver on TV. Or maybe the Marquis de Sade.

But she smiled. “Thank you. I’ll try,” she said. “I should be relieved any minute now.”

Mickey nodded at her, and walked to the elevator. When he got inside and turned around and looked at her, she was looking at him. She waved as the elevator door closed.

It doesn’t mean a fucking thing. She was smiling at the old blue-haired broad last night, too.

Mickey had no trouble finding the Theodore Roosevelt Suite, and when he did the door was open, and he could hear Antoinette’s voice. He rapped on the door, and pushed it open.

Antoinette was sitting on one of the two couches in front of a fireplace, in a fancy bathrobe, her legs tucked under her, talking on the telephone. She waved him inside, covered the mouthpiece with her hand, and said, “Come in, Michael. Casimir’s in the shower.”

Then she resumed her conversation. Mickey picked up that she was talking to her mother and at least one of the kids.

Casimir Bolinski entered the room. He was wearing a towel around his waist. It was an average-sized towel around an enormous waist, which did little to preserve Mr. Bolinski’s modesty.

“I can’t find my teeth, sweetie,” he mumbled.

Mrs. Bolinski covered the mouthpiece again.

“They’re in that blue jar I bought you in Vegas,” Mrs. Bolinski said.