Halfway down the corridor on the 5th floor of the Hotel Fritz, the shared bathroom offered bilious green tiles, a slightly off-kilter washbasin, a cracked mirror, a toilet with a loose wooden seat and a shower/bath combo that had been ready for a scrub since VE Day. Four years later, it was still waiting.
There were three of us crowded together in the room. Technically, four of us but one – the victim – didn’t have a choice. Hard by my side stood Lieutenant Jeff Keen, a detective from NYPD’s 1st Precinct: “New York’s Less Than Finest” as it was known to those living south of Houston Street. Flicking open a matchbook, he tore off a match, lit the end of a cigar stub and flicked the brunt stick into the toilet.
Bending closer to the body, I used a pencil to lift up the curtain. On the victim’s left buttock, lipsticked lips had left the mark of a perfectly shaped, bright red kiss. The man’s left ear was encrusted with blood and the handle of a machete-like knife protruded from between his shoulder blades.
Keen peered down. “From experience, I’d say it’s murder. Who’s the vic?”
“Harry McVie. ‘Happy Harry’ to his friends and enemies.”
From behind us came a snort. Leaning against the bathroom’s open door, the hotel receptionist Annie Lane was holding a tiny white Pomeranian under one arm while blowing a perfectly formed smoke ring towards Keen and myself. “That’s what he had – zero friends.” Annie took another pull on her cigarette. The dog gave a yap, struggling to be free.
Keen looked me. “You’re the House Dick. Who do you like for it, Kent?”
I gave what I hoped was an insouciant shrug. “Part-time hotel detective, Lieutenant.” For a discounted room rate, the owners of The Fritz, so named because it was hoped unwary punters would mistake it for The Ritz, asked that I kept the criminality within their Spring Street fleabag down to an acceptable level. In return, I sat in my room most days, attempting to write a hard boiled crime novel based on my PI experiences, and twice-a-day at midday and midnight I walked the hotel’s floors trying to avoid trouble. “Let’s look at the evidence.”
Lifting his left hand and squinting at his wristwatch, Keen sighed. “Sounds time consuming.”
“Murder is so inconvenient,” I said. “We’ll start with Harry’s business – drugs. Marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines, mainly.”
Keen’s eyes came back into focus. “And you didn’t tip us off?”
“I never saw him dealing,” I lied. The week before I’d bought a little something to take the edge off. “He wore a gold earing in his left ear to give him a piratical look. Now his ear lobe and earring are gone. But we do have an addition – the bowl brush jammed in his posterior. It’s brand new …”
“Unlike anything else in this dump,” said Annie. A fresh cigarette dangled from the corner of her lips while limp strands of her once blonde hair swung a little too close to the glowing tip.
Tapping the side of the brush handle with my pencil, I explained to Keen that we had a Fuller Brush salesman named O'Riordan staying on the same floor. Two rooms down was Major John Butler, a longtime guest who retired from the British Army to live in New York. He kept wartime memorabilia. At the far end of the corridor was a small room which was usually rented by the hour by Vanessa the Vamp who enjoyed men’s companionship on a short-term basis. She wore scarlet lipstick and was the kissing type.
Keen lobbed his now smokeless cigar butt into the toilet’s off-grey water. “Vanessa the Vamp? Is that her real handle?”
Annie and I exchanged a wide-eyed glance. “We take people at their word,” I said.
“I get the Fuller Brush guy’s connection, but the Major?” asked Keen.
“He served in India and Nepal, and that looks like a Gurkha’s kukri knife.”
Keen slapped his pockets as if searching for another cigar. I knocked a Chesterfield out of a soft packet and he lit up. He didn’t thank me, instead he crouched down and reached behind the washbasin stand. A balled-up piece of typing paper was wedged there.
Triumphant, Keen straightened up and read from the page: “’From the window that opened onto the roof-top sun deck a roscoe sneezed: Ka-Chow! Chowpf! and a red-hot hornet creased its stinger across my dome; bashed me to dreamland.’"
It was my turn to straighten.
Keen was smirking. “Well, well, is that the work Mr Chandler, Mr Hammett or …” he paused “… Mr Kent?”
“Why don’t we have some refreshments in the office?” I suggested.
Keen was squeezing past me and heading for the door before I finished the sentence.
To reach the office, we edged our way behind the reception desk. On it, a full ashtray sat next to a thumbed copy of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. In the dusty office, I took a bottle of bourbon and an almost clean glass from the desk drawer and handed both to Keen. “Enjoy.” He did.
Putting her dog down gently, Annie drew on another smoke. “I could do with a stiff one.”
Neither Keen nor I bit. I found a glass for her.
Both of them were now seated, looking up at me, awaiting a performance. For a moment, I tried to remember if any of us had closed the bathroom door. It could wait. Happy Harry certainly wasn’t in a hurry.
“So, I’m now in the frame just like Vanessa, the Major and O'Riordan. Convenient.”
“Very,” agreed Keen, pouring an extra finger of bourbon atop the first.
“From experience …” I began, echoing the Lieutenant, “… I smell a rat.”
Tilting her head back, Annie swallowed her drink. “You’re in the right place for that.”
“I mentioned ‘frame’ and that’s what I’ve been – as have the other three.”
Keen shook his head. “Unless you four bumped off Harry to heist his dope.”
“I’d have hoped a New York cop would’ve been more trusting.”
The glass halted near his lips. “Such a kidder. The only thing that’s going to get you off a very big hook is a sign from God.”
“It’s obvious. The scarlet lipstick mark, the military knife, the bowl brush and my manuscript – an early draft, by the way – were planted by someone who has access to every room.”
“You,” cut in Annie.
“Actually, I was thinking of …”
Her dog gave a snuffle, strolled past us and squatted in a litter box almost hidden by the office door. A look of serious concentration scrunched up the Pomeranian’s already pinched face. A neat pile appeared on the litter. The dog’s rear paws kicked litter over the pile. Not enough. Sitting atop the steaming heap shone a gold earring.
Keen finished his bourbon in a gulp.
Reaching across, Annie took the bottle off the desk and poured a last drink. “I can explain …” She did. It didn’t help her case.
Watching from the hotel office window, I saw Keen put his hand on Annie's head and guide her into the back seat of a patrol car. Another officer, with the dog on a lead, heaved the animal in beside her.
In a life of mistakes, Happy Harry’s literally fatal one was to accidentally kick the dog as he strolled past Reception to head upstairs for a shower after a hard day spreading good cheer and cut drugs around SoHo. The Pomeranian had leapt at Harry’s ankle, Harry had leapt forward shouting “Next time, I’ll kill that mutt!” and Annie had leapt to her dog’s defence. It took her 30 minutes to check who was in their room and, if unoccupied, to take one potentially damning piece of evidence. Just as in Agatha Christie’s novel, the answer to “whodunnit?” would be “everyone”.
Annie had waited outside the bathroom until she heard the shower curtain rings clacking when Harry pulled back the plastic sheeting. Her master key turned in the lock, the Major’s kukri knife swung down, the Fuller brush was pushed home, a butt kiss followed and, finally, she took my piece of fine writing and jammed it behind the waterbasin stand. In revenge for the kick, her dog had leapt into the bathtub and chewed Harry’s ear – and earring – off.
I could forgive Annie for icing a dealer and trying to frame me but screwing up my masterpiece? Never.
# # #
Copyright 2021 GREG FLYNN
