Aaron nodded. "Everyone knows where you've been and what you've been doing down there."
"They don't really know."
"Not officially. But there're rumors around." Janek recalled Sarah's "a little bird told me."
"If there're rumors, they probably track back to Baldwin," he said.
"sure. Baldwin and Dakin were big buddies back then."
"Still are."
"So, if you're working on Mendoza, and everyone knows it-why bother with a cover?"
"Ask Kit."
"Yeah… but, see, that's what bothers me. Kit's supposed to be smart.
But she's acting like she thinks putting you on this hotel homicide is going to make people think you're occupied full-time."
"Don't underestimate her."
Aaron laughed. "Impossible!" He paused. "Anyway, you're close to her.
Maybe you can clue her in."
He cut onto Queens Boulevard, followed it to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, then crossed the Williamsburg to lower Manhattan. From the bridge the city looked truly majestic: clusters of buildings lit from within, stark forms of varying heights that seemed to float against the night sky. Moved by the sight, Janek felt seized by the naked power of New York, a place he alternately adored and loathed.
"You have to be strong to live here," he said.
Aaron nodded. "The slightest show of weakness and you're doomed."
Sue Burke met them in the hotel lobby. She was a short, intense young woman, a skilled martial artist, with dark, short hair cut hutch. An up front lesbian, she was impatient, brash, smart and fiercely loyal.
Janek had always held to the view that it takes ten years to make a good detective. Sue was the exception-she'd only been in for three, but, he felt, she was nearly there.
"Victim's name is Philip Dietz," she told them as she guided them to the elevators. "Registered two days ago. Gave an address in San Jose.
This morning there was a DO NOT DISTURB sign on his door. Around noon, with the sign still there, the maid knocked softly, then looked in. This is standard hotel procedure. People go out and forget to remove the sign."
Janek nodded.
"So the maid looks in and sees Dietz lying on his bed. The drapes are drawn. She shuts the door and goes about her business. Meantime, some calls come in. Operator rings the room but Dietz doesn't pick up.
Operator asks the callers if they want to leave messages. Dietz's wife leaves three.
They stepped into the elevator. Sue pushed the button for the sixteenth floor. Janek could tell she liked recounting the story.
"Around nine o'clock tonight, Dietz's wife phones the desk. Says she's worried, says her husband should have called her back. She asks the assistant manager to go upstairs and check. He goes up, enters the room, sees Dietz lying on the bed, a pillow on top of his head. Meantime he notices the room's a mess, like someone's turned it over. The assistant approaches Dietz and tries to wake him up. Dietz is dead.
Looks like he's been shot in the head through the pillow to muffle the sound. Hotel management calls us. They don't call back Mrs. Dietz."
On the sixteenth floor a uniformed cop was standing by the elevators.
Aaron clipped his shield to his lapel. Janek hadn't taken his shield to Cuba, but the cop recognized him and waved him through.
"Have we called her yet?"
Sue shook her head. "Waiting for you, Frank."
"Right… "
" Anyway, like I said, the room's been ransacked. Some stuff gone.
Watch, cash, probably his wedding band-I noticed a ring mark on his finger. But not his credit cards or ID. Still, there're no papers, datebook, address book or other businessman's stuff. And his clothes have been sliced up, like someone's been looking inside the linings. The lining of his suitcase's been slit open, too."
"Doesn't go with taking a guy's watch and money," Aaron said.
Sue nodded. "There's more. Last night Dietz was observed picking up a young, well-dressed redhead in the hotel lounge. They talked a while, had a couple drinks. The waiter remembers them leaving together a little before midnight. That's the last time anyone saw him alive."
A small group was milling outside the door to room 1664. Sue introduced Janek to the hotel night manager. His name was Blinken, he spoke with a soft German accent and he was trying hard to act stoical, perhaps the way they'd taught him at hotel-management school in Lucerne.
The minute Janek walked in he felt a rush. Homicide investigations were his specialty. An assistant med examiner, Lois Rappaport, famous for her crooked mouth and wry attitude, was examining the body on the bed. A four-man Crime Scene team plus Sue Burke's partner, Ray Galindez, were conducting an evidence search in various parts of the room.
He greeted everybody then stood back, trying to focus on the scene. He felt at once that there was something wrong with it. He asked himself what it was. Then Lois Rappaport broke his concentration.
"Take a look," she said, pointing to Dietz's chest, Janek walked over to the bed and peered down. There were red ink markings on the flesh.
"What is this?" Aaron asked.
Rappaport shrugged.
Sue craned forward. "Think maybe one of those voodoo jobs, Frank?"
Ray Galindez joined them. He was in his late twenties, a tall, very lean good-looking man of Puerto Rican descent, with a serious demeanor, dusty skin and an elegant pencil line mustache.
"Maybe Arabic?" Ray suggested.
Janek shook his head. "Shoot me a Polaroid, will you, Ray?"
Ray nodded. He and his wife, Grecia, were about to have their first child. Ever since Grecia had become pregnant, Ray had seemed to wear a special glow.
Janek turned back to the room. "I better phone the wife."
Aaron, perhaps out of sympathy for his exhaustion, offered to take on that unpleasant task. Janek thanked him. One of the Crime Scene detectives showed Janek a pair of empty miniature vodka bottles and a pair of fruit-juice cans in the waste basket. Janek shrugged. Mr.
Blinken approached. He wanted to know whether Janek wanted him to close off the floor and move the guests to other rooms. Janek told him closing the whole floor wasn't necessary, but it would be a good idea to evacuate the nearest rooms. Ray handed him a Polaroid of the markings on Dietz's chest. Then Janek asked Sue to join him downstairs-he wanted to interview the lounge waiter.