A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

Finally, to ease the strain on his neck muscles, he turned around and glanced the other way, down the line of people extending along the bar. Man and girl, girl and man, two men, man and girl. Just then, at the opposite end of the barline, a man stood up to leave. This brought his head and shoulders up two or three feet higher than those of everyone else. If it hadn’t been for that, the man would probably never have attracted Killare’s attention or been given a second look, among all those people and in that subdued light.

But standing head and shoulders above everyone else like that, he caught Killare’s eye. Killare focused it on him, Killare gave him a double-take, Killare recognized him.

And it was he, Dade, the man it had become his daydream and nightmare to kill.

If he had any doubts about it, the barman clinched it for him. “Good night, Mr. Dade,” he said in a voice clearly audible above the confidential conversations going on all around. “Stop by and see us again sometime.”

Dade nodded, said a word or two to the man in the next seat, then turned and went out. Not through the street door by which Killare had come in, but through a door at the opposite side of the bar — a door which led inside to the hotel lobby.

So he had a room right here in the hotel, Killare thought, noticing that Dade didn’t have a hat or coat with him. And now that an extraordinary coincidence had dropped Dade right in his lap, he wasn’t going to brush him off like an ash or a stray crumb; he was going to take advantage of it.

Killare put a dollar down on the bar top, got up, and went in the same direction Dade had gone. He didn’t hurry or try to overtake him; he went at the same casual pace Dade had moved.

He turned right outside the door as he had seen him do.

He found himself in an intimate little side corridor, groomed with crystal prisms and white-leather banquettes. It opened onto the main lobby, and he stopped there and hung back a moment. The desk was a little offside, not in a direct line, and Dade was standing in front of it.

He heard him say, “Can I have the key to Room 212, please.”

The clerk said, “Good night, Mr. Dade,” as he handed it to him.

Killare turned and doubled back out of sight. Not all the way, for he might not have been able to make it in time without Dade getting a glimpse of him. But everything seemed to be working out just right for him, to unroll as smoothly as in a dream. A dream about murder.

There was a pay telephone booth to one side of him, and all he had to do was edge into that and sit down on the little slab-seat. It obviously had a light to go with it — a light that usually went on automatically; but even this was on his side. The electric bulb was burned out.

There were a few moments’ wait. Then Killare heard the elevator panel slur open, click closed, and Dade had gone up.

Killare came out of his cranny and went over to the desk.

“I just missed the last bus,” he mourned as the clerk looked up.

This was literally true, but the clerk misconstrued it, just as Killare had wanted him to, and thought he meant an out-of-town or commutation bus. “Would you like a room?” he offered. “We’d be glad to have you with us.”

“You’ve saved my life,” Killare smiled. (“And cost somebody else his,” he refrained from adding.) “I like a low floor, as low as I can get. How about the second?”

“I’m sure we can fix you up with something.”

“Do you have a line of Number 13 rooms in this hotel?” Killare asked craftily.

“No, we’re superstitious. We skipped over them,” the clerk smiled.

“All right, how about 214 then?”

The clerk checked his file. “Sorry, Room 214 is occupied.”

“Well, 211 then?”

“I can give you that,” the clerk nodded, after checking a second time.

Killare thought: I haven’t given him a chance to realize yet how I’ve been fishing for one particular location; in a minute or two, after I’ve gone up, it’ll start to sink in, what I did just now. So I’d better take the sting out of it by beating him to it, and explaining it myself. Better my own harmless explanation, freely given before it happens, than his own dangerous inference, put on it after it has happened.

“I met an old acquaintance I haven’t seen for years, in the bar just now. Mr. Dade. We’ve planned getting together over breakfast in the morning — that’s why I asked for a room near him, on the same floor.”

“How long will you be with us, just the one night?” the clerk asked as Killare signed in.

“How long is Dade staying?”

“Until the day after tomorrow.”

“Then I may as well stay over a second night myself, now that I’m here,” Killare told him. “I’ve got some important business to attend to.”