Yesterday's News

muster out. His ears were large, his eyes sharp and not particularly friendly. He also had the most outlandish Fu Manchu mustache I’d seen this side of 1972. “Help you?”
    “Yes, I’d like a room for a couple of days.”
    “Be twenty-six dollars per night, plus tax.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “About what?”
    “The rate.”
    Fu scowled. “You’re government employee, it’s 10 percent off, except for current, active-duty military, then it’s 20 percent off. But you don’t look active to me, and Reserve or National Guard don’t cut it here.”
    “I didn’t mean it seemed too high. I meant it seemed awfully reasonable.”
    “Wait’ll you see the room.”
    He slapped a registration card in front of me, followed by a Bic pen. Writing, I said, “I didn’t see a sign out front for telephones.”
    “Why do you suppose that might be?”
    “I’m going to be some inconvenienced by not being able to make and receive calls.”
    “You’ll be more inconvenienced by having to drive twelve miles inland to get a phone in your room.”
    I picked up a dusty business card from the front of a plastic holder on the counter. The ones behind it were a little whiter.
    “This still the number here?”
    “Yeah, but I don’t take no messages. I’m not a goddam switchboard operator, you know.”
    “I’ll bet you’ve never been in Public Relations, either.”
    “I was a master sergeant. Know what that is?”
    “It’s been a while, but I remember.” I extended my hand. “John Cuddy.”
    He ignored my offer. “I’m Jones. You won’t be here long enough to need my first name.” He scanned the registration card. “That’ll be cash in advance.”
    I gave him three twenties. “If I’m going to be staying a third night, I’ll notify the concierge.”
    Jones fished a key off a rack somewhere under his side of the counter, making a jingling noise. “Unit 18. The Honeymoon Suite.”
    “Honeymoon Suite?”
    “Yeah. You look like the kinda pervert would get off being in a water bed by himself.”

    I closed the door of Unit 18 behind me. In addition to containing the promised liquid mattress and color TV, it wore a cake-icing shade of pink on every surface that would take paint. I hung up the sports jacket and khaki slacks on the open-air closet pole next to the bathroom and put my clean shirts, underwear, and jogging gear into the bureau. Brushing my teeth under a flickering light, I tried to decide whether the damage to the tiles in the tub behind me came from destructive children or industrious insects.
    I had Jane Rust’s address from the check she had given me. Stubborn pride kept me from running it down with Jones, but the gas jockey on the next corner sent me roughly in the right direction.
    The street number matched a modest, free-standing two-family on a postage stamp lot. The solitary tree and low bushes looked scraggly and parched.
    Leaving the Prelude at the curb, I walked up the cracked cement path to the steps of the front porch. Up close, the wood was warping, the walls peeling. I climbed the steps to the house door. There were two buttons, one with “Rust” and the other “O’Day.” Pressing Jane’s, I heard an irregular buzzing sound, like a giant bee with laryngitis. Getting no response, I leaned into “O’Day.”
    From an upstairs window, an elderly woman’s voice yelled, “Who is it? Come out so I can see you.”
    I moved from under the overhang of the porch roof and looked upward. A woman was framed by a light behind her.
    “Who are you?”
    “My name’s John Cuddy. I’d like to speak with you about Jane Rust.”
    “Jane’s dead.”
    “I know. I’m investigating her death.”
    “Wondered when you folks would get back around to me. Hold on. These days, takes me a while to get downstairs.”

    The second-story sitting room was fussy. Too many tables with little evident purpose, and crocheted doilies on every possible plane, flat or curved. Mrs. O’Day sat in a rocker, wattles under her chin and both hands around her cane, tapping its rubber tip on the old carpeting.
    “Private investigator, huh?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Wasn’t aware she had any family to hire someone like you.”
    “Jane herself hired me.”
    “Now that she’s dead, how come you’re still working for her?”
    “She paid me for three days’ worth. It seems to me she has that coming.”
    Mrs. O’Day watched me for a moment through Coke-bottle glasses. “Are you an honest man or just a