Inspector O 04 - The Man with the Baltic Stare

by James Church

  “He wasn’t preregistered?”

  “No, he did not have a reservation. May I continue?”

  “Claro, sim.”

  “You speak Portuguese like a Russian, Inspector.” Luís thumbed through a small notebook. “There is such an address. In fact, there is also a Raoul Penza in Santo Domingo. He is a baker at a place called De la Casa Pain, and he has never applied for a passport. So right away, we know we have a little problem, wouldn’t you agree?”

  There it was again—the “little problem.” I wasn’t about to agree to anything. “Not to get off track, but I like to fill in the details as things move along. It saves time later. Who checked him in?”

  “The desk clerk was an intelligent young woman, named Lilley Li.” He turned the page of the notebook. “She is observant, good memory, single, witty, and lithe.”

  “One of us should propose.”

  “One of us should.”

  “And what does lithe Lilley remember?”

  “Our man wanted a room overlooking the blessed ruins of St. Paul’s. He was not looking for anything ostentatious—a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom with plenty of hot water, and a balcony. Lilley told him she could satisfy some of his needs.”

  “Lilley, darling,” I said, “you should be more careful.”

  “She was, actually. She wisely pushed the signal for the Assistant Manager to appear.”

  “And he did?”

  “When summoned, the self-important Winston Woo brushes off his striped pants, pulls straight his cutaway jacket, slicks back his oily hair, and sallies forth. He greets Senhor Penza with a cold smile.” Again Luís turned the page—not hiding the fact that there were a few observations he did not wish to share as yet. “Young Penza nods to Lilley and says he is sure the hotel will do its best to accommodate his requirements.”

  “Not his wishes. His requirements. As if he is used to being obeyed.”

  “That is the word Lilley says he used, and Lilley would not lie.”

  “I’m not saying the girl lied, Luís. Perhaps she misremembered a detail here, a detail there. Witnesses do that.”

  The friendly air around Luís dissipated for a moment. “Not Lilley,” he said in a tone that gave no quarter. “The girl is a bulldog with details.” He flipped through the notebook, skipping over additional characteristics of the bulldog Lilley that I was not to know. “Ah, here! Our fellow signs up for five nights. He is very tired and hopes to rest. He is handsome and composed, does not appear nervous or ill at ease. He is unhurried, smiles at Lilley frequently. He melts her heart.”

  “Lilley said that?”

  “She didn’t have to, Inspector. I know her heart.” Luís stands and looks out the window for a moment. “Our man asks for a safe-deposit box—a detail you inquired about, I seem to recall. Only then does Senhor Penza turn to Winston, whose smile, Lilley recalls, is fixed on his face like a week-old slice of mango.” Pages turn in the notebook. “Yes, here is what I was looking for. The bell captain, an experienced source that pays attention whenever the Assistant Manager appears, notices that Penza has one suitcase, a Louis Vuitton. I told you it was expensive. More precisely, it was a Pegase 60.”

  “Not very big. A 70 would be better for body parts, but it only has two wheels. You told me the body was in a four-wheeler.”

  Luís whistled. “You know suitcases?”

  “I’ve been around the block,” I said modestly, and shifted back to business. “Our man gets settled. Then what? Goes out for dinner? Gambles? Comes back drunk and collapses on this uncomfortable couch?”

  It is clear that Luís is annoyed that I have interrupted his fable. “None of the above. For three nights and three days, he does not leave his room. No movies. No room service. Nothing from the minibar. The DO NOT DISTURB sign is lit the whole time, so no maid service. No visitors.”

  “You know that? I mean, no visitors?”

  “In this hotel, on this floor, they make it a point to know such things. His door never opened.”

  “He must have eaten something. Maybe he brought his own food. You could pack quite a meal in a Pegase 60.”

  “He had tea. In fact, he used all of the hotel tea bags along with two bottles of water.”

  “You said nothing from the minibar, I thought.”

  “These were not the fake Evians from the refrigerator. These were the tap water in the bottles kept on the shelf above the bar. The maid says that when she was finally allowed in on the fourth morning—Thursday—he had gone through all of the towels, even the little ones, but had not even rumpled the bedsheets. No one was ever in the bed as far as she could tell, and she can tell plenty. This maid has been around the block, as you put it.”

  “In sum, for three nights, he was a monk. No phone calls?”

  “None.”

  “Maybe he used a cell phone.”

  “Maybe he tied a string to a soup can. Yes, or maybe he stood at the window and used semaphore flags to talk to a long-lost relative. Anything is possible, Inspector, in your world as in mine. But he did not use a cell phone, inegavelmente!” I figured that meant I wasn’t supposed to ask how he knew, so I didn’t. “Moreover, Senhor Penza left instructions with the front desk that he was not to be disturbed. I neglected to tell you that?”

  “One of the details you skipped over. You merely mentioned that he said he was tired.”

  Luís gave me a charming smile. “There was a message left for him the first night, but they held it at the concierge’s desk until he came back to earth. They wait for the DO NOT DISTURB light to go off before they deliver messages. They don’t even slip them under the door. Some people are sensitive to the sound of paper on marble.”

  “Did he ever get the message?”

  “Yes, he did. On the day he left.”

  “Is that why he got nervous, changed plans, wanted to rent a car?”

  “One can speculate. Before you ask, the reason he didn’t get it on the fourth day was that the concierge forgot to give it to him. Sad but true, a gap in the Great Wall of service. I’m told it has been plugged.”

  “Very convenient. Do we know who the concierge worked for?”

  “You mean, other than the hotel? No, but we’re looking into it.”

  “You know, of course, what the message said.”

  He scratched his head and looked in his notebook. “ ‘Hurry up, hurry up cows.’ That was in English, incidentally.”

  “Any idea what it meant?”

  “Furious research is underway.”

  “To review. So far, we have a Dominican monk drinking tea, sleeping on the floor or in the bath.”

  “With a forged passport.”

  “I said a monk, not an angel. On the next day, day four? No, wait a minute. Back to the message, how was it delivered to the hotel? Phone?”

  “By messenger service. They said it was dropped off in the office around nine P.M. by a middle-aged woman, Asian, nothing special that they could recall. She wore a scarf of some sort. We’re looking, but I don’t think it will be a fruitful search. There are many such women.”

  “Well, they can’t all be Lilley or Lulu, Luís.”

  “Alas.”

  “So, what we can assume is that someone knew the phony baker was in this hotel within a few hours of his registering.”

  “An assumption, but not a bad one.” From his expression, it was clear he hadn’t considered this before.

  “Let’s return to day four.”

  “He goes out early, smiles at everyone, gives a tip to the doorman. He doesn’t come back until ten thirty at night.”

  “Where was he all day?”

  “We’re checking.”

  “It’s been more than two weeks. Macau is a small place. You’re still checking?”

  “In the glory days, we followed people as regularly as you breathe, Inspector. In olden times, we had staff. Now, we only do it if there’s a reason.”

  “And a forged passport isn’t a reason?”

  “It is, unl
ess it isn’t.”

  No sense in going through that door. “You would know if he went to a casino anytime on day four?”

  “We would.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Again, none of the big ones. As I’ve suggested to you, those are well covered—staff, cameras, whatever. However, there are a few other places, more private. He might have been to one of those.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “I have an open mind.”

  “Maybe he went to church and prayed all day? Maybe he left the island?”

  “There is a single report of someone of his description arriving on the ferry from Hong Kong Airport, the last one of the evening.”

  “Very vague. No follow-up?”

  “The ferry was unusually crowded. That Thursday night, a lot of people came in. Plus, the schedule had been disrupted; an earlier boat had engine problems, so they were pressed to overload the final one.”

  “Lucky it didn’t capsize.”

  “Lucky.”

  “No record of him coming through Immigration? Shouldn’t be hard to find a Dominican passport.”

  “He could have used more than one. People do, I hear.” Again, the charming smile. “At eleven fifteen that night, he had a visitor.”

  “At last.”

  “A Russian.”

  “Tall.” I didn’t want it to be the girl I’d met coming down the stairs.

  “Seemingly. Well dressed, wearing a coat and a hat and very, very good high heels. It was a chilly evening and had started to rain soon after he returned.”

  “You know this was a Russian because . . .”

  “She spoke Russian.”

  “Someone heard her?”

  “She was overheard, yes.” Luís’s eyes searched the room.

  “You have her picture?”

  “No. Well, yes, a passport picture was recovered. It had been in the water for several days.”

  “In the water. Something else you skipped over.” Kim had mentioned it to me; Luís had not.

  “You can imagine it was not in the best shape. We can restore it partially, mostly around the edges. We think someone may have scratched out the nose.”

  “How was this visit arranged? He called her?”

  “No calls. Maybe he met her somewhere during the day and issued an invitation. Maybe they were old friends.”

  “I see. An old high-heeled friend waltzed through the lobby at eleven fifteen at night, took the elevator to the executive floor, and no one stopped her? Some security.”

  “There are other entrances, other ways. Not everyone wants it known they have such visitors. It could be a problem for some people, I suppose. Besides, eleven fifteen at night is like noon around here.”

  “And the next time she is seen, it is in a Pegase 60, or some suitcase, in pieces?”

  “Almost.” Luís rubbed his hands together until I thought his long fingers would burst into flames.

  “There’s more.”

  “Some.”

  Luís was not, I could tell from the look on his face, prepared to be much more forthcoming than that. Neither of us said anything, which defeated the purpose of all the soundproofing. Finally, I decided to jump in.

  “I heard the woman showed up in pieces a week ago. That she was carried in a matched set of luggage through the hotel lobby at seven A.M., dumped in the harbor in a four-wheeler, a red Lancel which floated for a few days before being picked up by the police, who were tipped off by a Japanese camera crew waiting there to film the whole thing and ask a lot of embarrassing questions. True?”

  All right, I added the detail about the Lancel. Major Kim had said the bigger suitcase was red, and I’d seen a red Lancel once at a train station in Paris being pulled along by a tall woman with long legs. You don’t forget a suitcase like that. I figured it couldn’t hurt to wave something specific in front of Luís. Maybe he would tell me I was wrong and let slip a few details. One thing I already knew—the bigger suitcase wasn’t a Louis Vuitton, because Louis didn’t want anything to do with four-wheelers. That wouldn’t have stuck out, except Kim had told me that the murderer had carried out the body in a matched set of luggage. Luís hadn’t mentioned anything like that. Something was beginning not to add up.

  Luís seemed to be wondering about the addition, too. He looked puzzled. “I don’t know where you got that, Inspector, but it’s not even close.”

  “Which part do I have wrong?”

  “This is an open investigation.”

  “I thought you said it was an open-and-shut case.”

  “We’re still on the open part.”

  “One thing we haven’t discussed—Penza. What’s your interest in him?”

  “He is a murderer, Inspector. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Yes, murder is usually more than enough. Apart from that, I mean. This case has odd crosscurrents. From what you say, there are a lot of questions still unanswered, and yet you already have a confession waiting to be signed. I have to wonder what’s behind this. That a person has bad taste in hotel rooms isn’t a crime, is it?” I stood up. “My best to Lulu.”

  Luís put the notebook back in his pocket. “If you get to De la Casa Pain, please give Senhor Penza my regards.” We shook hands. “The elevator is to your left as you exit. Why don’t you relax for a couple of days, take in a show? Go out to the Venetian. Everything there is first class. I know the manager.” Luís looked up at the ceiling. “He is an old friend, from before the regulations.”

  “Old friends are like doors, isn’t that what they say?” I nearly tripped on the hallway carpet on my way out.

  Chapter Two

  I was eating a plate of roast pork—overdone in the worst way—in a small restaurant on the first floor of the Lisboa when the Russian girl with green eyes walked in. She headed straight to my table.

  “May I sit?”

  “I’m all out of engraved invitations.”

  “You really shouldn’t stay in the Nam Lo. It isn’t proper for a man like you.”

  “A man like me.”

  “My boss doesn’t want you there. He says it scares clients away.”

  “I know your boss?”

  “You will meet him soon enough.” Her phone rang; she answered reluctantly. “Da, da.” She nodded at me. “Da.”

  “That was your boss.”

  “Yes, he told me to tell you he would see that you were out of the Nam Lo one way or another. I’m sorry.” She shook her head sadly. “You don’t know this man.”

  “Would you like some dinner? Anything but the pork.”

  She looked at the pictures on the menu and pointed at a bowl of noodles. “This is what I have mostly.” She shrugged, the way a young person does, not much weighing on their shoulders. “One more time won’t hurt.”

  “You come here often?”

  “Every night before I . . . go to work.”

  “How about on your night off?”

  She laughed so convincingly that it was almost impossible to find the pain. “What night off? I work seven days a week. It’s part of the contract.”

  “You have a contract?”

  “Oh course. That’s why I’m here. At the end of six months, I get paid and go home. Only five months to go. I’m never coming back.”

  “There must be lots of Russian girls here.”

  She shrugged, this time without the innocence. “I’m not pretty enough for you?”

  “You? You’re the prettiest Russian girl I’ve ever seen. You’re also very young. Why don’t you go home?”

  “Can’t. Told you. I have a contract.”

  “You don’t have to abide by it. It’s not really legal.”

  “You’re going to get me a passport, and a plane ticket, I suppose?”

  “Forgive me for asking—how much do you have to make a night?”

  “Ten thousand.”

  “How much an hour?”

  “A thousand.”

  I did the math. “That’s awful. What
kind of place is this?”

  She pointed to a line of young, well-dressed Chinese women walking up and down the hallway next to the restaurant. “Ask them.”

  “What is it, a fashion show?”

  She laughed. “They are here to make love.”

  “The whole group? We’re in a fancy hotel. Shouldn’t they at least be outside, on the street?”

  “We walk the streets. The Chinese girls don’t have to. A guest picks out the one he likes. Some of the guests are old, so that way they don’t have to use energy walking so far back to the room. It’s a service, I guess. Respect for the elderly.”

  I looked at the girls. “What if I don’t like any of them?”

  “Then you eat noodles with me.” She patted my hand. “Just get out of the Nam Lo, will you?”

  2

  At my hotel, there was a message waiting for me. The clerk handed it over without saying anything. He waited until I started up the stairs to my room.

  “Russian guy nosing around. Wanted to know if you were still here.”

  “And you said?”

  “I yelled at him in Hakka.”

  “You don’t speak Russian?”

  “I don’t like Russians. Except the young ones.” He licked his lips.

  I walked back to the desk. “You touch her, I’ll kill you. You understand that?”

  He shrank back. “You can’t scare me. I’ve got friends.”

  “I’ll bet you have scabies, too.”

  When I got to my room, the door was slightly ajar. I walked calmly downstairs, took the clerk by the collar, and dragged him back upstairs. “See that?” I shoved his head into the door. “Do that again and I’ll burn this place down.”

  “Hey!” He unleashed all twelve tones at me. “What was that about?”

  “It’s called negative reinforcement, and there’s more where that came from.”

  “I’ll call the cops, you touch me again.”

  “Go ahead; call the cops. Call MSS for all I care.”

  He rubbed the top of his head. “That’s the last time I rent to a Korean,” he said. “You people are crazy-mad, not to mention being murderers.”