Swan Dive

Or one of the girls.”
    ”One of you?”
    ”No, no. I mean one of her girl clients. Some of the lezzies, they really go for somebody as beautiful as the Angel. And even the straight ones, they like to try some new things, if you get me.”
    ”So the Producer was going to arrange some kind of screen test for Teri.”
    ”Right.”
    ”When?”
    Maylene frowned again, straining to remember. ”I don’t think she said, but I think it was supposed to be real soon.”
    ”Soon?”
    ”After we were talking. She said she’d seen the Producer like the night before.”
    ”And when was that?”
    ”At the brunch, like I said.”
    ”Yes, but when was the brunch?”
    ”When?” She looked at Salomé, then back to me. ”On Sunday. When else do you have brunch?”
    ”You mean this past Sunday?”
    ”Yeah, yeah.”
    The day before she was killed.

    * * *

    After I was finished with Maylene and Salomé, the fat man bowed to me graciously and said he hoped I’d enjoyed my meal. On my way to the door, Niño told me he’d meet me outside Teri Angel’s apartment house at 8:00. He gave me the address, a building down by the waterfront.
    I climbed into the Fiat, drove across the MassPike interchange and into Back Bay . Heading downtown, I wended my way through the construction on Boylston Street and then quartered over past the New England School of Law and Tufts Medical and Dental complexes. The Barry Hotel stood a bit farther toward the Fort Point Channel and near South Station, railroads being the principal mode of transportation back when the Barry was Queen of the Hub.

    ”Hope there’re no hard feelings about yesterday?” The little guy in the bellboy outfit had a sincere look in his remaining eye, the patch on the other one tied on jauntily with black, woven cords. The man with the pop-bottle glasses was dozing behind the registration desk across the lobby.
    ”No hard feelings,” I said, resting my elbow on the top of the wooden captain’s stand. ”Thanks for not identifying me as the bad guy.”
    ”Hah,” he said, unnecessarily shuffling some blank forms on the writing area in front of him. ”You ain’t exactly the sort we cater to nowadays.”
    He moved his head around, sweeping quickly over the tattered carpet, worn upholstery, and sallow wallpaper. He made a clucking sound with his tongue against his teeth. ”You also ain’t old enough to remember her in her glory, but this dowdy bitch was a hell of a hotel once.”
    I stuck out my hand. ”John Cuddy.”
    ”Name on my discharge papers is Norbert, Olin C. But everybody calls me Patch. Bet ya can’t guess why.”
    I laughed politely and let him go on.
    ”Lost the eye right near the end of things, when the Japs were trying to kill us and themselves with the kamikazes. Hit the ship, but we managed to save her. Didn’t have no medical attention for six hours, but the doc said six minutes wouldn’t have made any difference. Fire flash seared the lens part right off. But I got no complaints, the VA takes care of me, and the disability pension plus this place pay me as much as I’ll ever need.”
    ”How’d you come to be here?”
    ”The hotel, you mean?”
    ”Yeah.”
    ”We was here on liberty once. Boston , I mean. First time I ever seen a real city, being from Indiana bottomland originally. Also, right here’s where I first got laid. Room seventeen-oh-four. Never will forget it. I thought about this place afterwards, while I was in the hospital. After I got out and all, I come here and they signed me on.”
    ”Since the cops had you in for the show-up, I’m guessing you were on when Teri Angel was killed.”
    ”Shit, son, I’m on pretty near every day.”
    ”You remember her that night?”
    ”Nope. I knew which one she was, though. You ever see her?”
    ”Just a photo.”
    ”Well, she was a beauty, that one. Not just the body, she had the face, too. Didn’t look the same as the others somehow, like she didn’t have the same hardness to her or something.”
    A black woman in a blond wig and purple hot pants plowed past us, towing a fiftyish guy scratching his forehead to keep us from seeing his face clearly. They didn’t bother stopping at the registration desk.
    Patch gave me a look that said, ”See what I mean.”
    ”The police told me that somebody here recognized Roy Marsh as one of Teri’s regular customers.”
    ”That was me.”
    ”You know her other regulars, too?”
    ”To be square with you, no, I can’t say for sure.