Manhattan Is My Beat

have patients. They have clients.”
    “One of my clients,” she corrected herself.
    “You got a license?”
    “A license? A driver’s license? Look, I’m older than I—”
    “No, a social work license.”
    A license?
    “Oh, that. See, I was mugged last week when I was on assignment. In Bedford Stuyvesant. Visiting a client. They took my purse—my other purse, my good purse— and that had my license in it. I’ve applied for a new one but you know how long it takes to get a replacement?”
    “Tell me.”
    “Worse than a passport. I’m talking
weeks
.”
    The man was grinning. “Where’d you go to social work school?”
    “Harvard.”
    “No shit.” The smile didn’t leave his face. “If there’s nothing else, I’m pretty busy.” He picked up a
National Geographic
and flipped it open.
    “Look, I have my job to do. I have to find out about this man. Robert Kelly.”
    The clerk glanced up from his magazine. He didn’t say anything. But Rune, even through the scuffed plastic, could see caution in his eyes.
    She continued. “I know he stayed here for a while. I think somebody named Raoul Elliott recommended that he come here.”
    “Raoul? Nobody’s named Raoul.”
    Summoning patience, Rune asked, “Do you remember Mr. Kelly?”
    He shrugged.
    She continued. “Did he check anything here? A suitcase? Maybe a package in the safe?”
    “Safe? We look like the kinda hotel’s gotta safe?”
    “It’s important.”
    Again, the man didn’t respond. Suddenly Rune understood. She’d seen enough movies. She lifted her purse slowly and opened it, reached in and took out five dollars. She slid it seductively toward him. Just like an actor in a movie she’d seen a month or so ago. Harrison Ford, she thought. Or Michael Douglas.
    That actor’d gotten results; she got a laugh.
    Rune gave the clerk another ten.
    “Look, kid. The going rate’s fifty for information. That’s the way it is all over the city. It’s like a union.”
    Fifty? Shit.
    She handed him a twenty. “That’s all I got.”
    He took the money. “I don’t know nothing—”
    “You bastard! I want my money back.”
    “—except one thing. About your
client
Kelly. This priest or minister, Father so-and-so, called, I don’t know, a couple days ago. He said Kelly’d dropped off a suitcase for safekeeping. He couldn’t get him at his apartment and had this as his only other number. This priest figured I might know where Kelly was. He didn’t know what to do with the suitcase.”
    Yes! Rune thought. Remembering the scene in
Manhattan Is My Beat
where Roy buried the money in a cemetery next to a church!
    “Excellent, that’s great! You know where the church was? You have any idea?”
    “I didn’t write nothing down. But I think he said he was in Brooklyn.”
    “Brooklyn!” Rune’s hands were up against the grimy Plexiglas. She leaned forward, bouncing on her toes. “This’s awesome!”
    The man slipped her money into his pocket. “Well, happy day.” He opened the magazine again and began reading an article about penguins.
    Outside, she found a pay phone and called Amanda LeClerc.
    “Amanda, it’s Rune. How are you?”
    “Been better. Missing him, you know? Robert … Only knew him for a little while but I miss him more than some people I knew for years and years. I was thinking about it. And you know what I thought?”
    “What’s that?”
    “That maybe because we weren’t so young no more we got to be more closer faster. Sort of like there wasn’t a lot of time ahead of us.”
    “I miss him too, Amanda,” Rune said.
    “Haven’t heard nothing about Mr. Symington.”
    “He hasn’t been back?”
    “No. Nobody’s seen him. I was asking around.”
    “Well, I’ve got good news.” She told her about the church and the suitcase.
    The woman didn’t answer for a moment. “Rune, you really thinking there maybe’s some money? They keep coming after me for the rent. I’m trying to find a job. But it’s tough. Nobody hires old ladies like me.”
    “I think we’re on the right track.”
    “Well, what do you want me to do?”
    “Start calling churches in Brooklyn. See if Mr. Kelly left a suitcase there. You can go to the library and get a Brooklyn phone book. We’ve got one at the video store. I’ll take A through L. You take M through Z.”
    “Z? Do any churches start with a Z?”
    “I don’t know. St. Zabar’s?”
    “Okay. I’ma start calling first thing in the morning.”
    Rune hung up. She