The Long Fall

The man behind the desk was acutely aware of the older ladies; he probably knew them by name.

“Are you sure?” the young brunette was saying to the skeptical night manager. “Did you look under Mr. Charles, um, Smith?”

The man shook his head, forcing a smile from somewhere deep down where there had never been levity or light.

“No, Frankie,” the blonde of the two said. “Smythe. Chandler Smythe. He’s in the Coolidge Suite.”

The blonde didn’t look at the man. Her relationship was bonded to the brunette with the bad memory.

“That’s right, Tru.”

“Thismbp„ is unbelievable,” the woman with the dead canine wrapped around her throat said.

The night man was already on the phone, already talking to rich Mr. Smythe. With the receiver still to his ear he managed a constipated grimace, then said, “You can go right up,” to the girls. “It’s on the eleventh floor.”

At that moment a muted chime sounded and the elevator doors opened. I moved inside the chamber, followed by a slightly distracted Ambrose Thurman. The door was already closing when one of the children—I think it was Tru—cried, “Hold that door!”

I heard the call but it didn’t move me. I was conducting business. When I was on the job I resisted any diversions. But Ambrose’s arm shot out and a new kind of smile, a grin actually, restructured his pear-shaped face.

“Ladies,” he said as Tru and Frankie joined us.

“Eleventh floor, please,” Tru replied in a surprisingly business-like tone.

The elevator car was stylish with lobster-pink velvet walls and an actual crystal chandelier hanging above. The metal fittings were gold-plated and brilliant, but the mechanism was clearly from the same era. The car climbed slowly as the not-so-subtle scent of the girls’ perfumes filled the space.

“You’re a boxer, huh?” brown-haired Frankie said to me somewhere around floor three.

“Say what?”

“I can tell by your hands. It’s those big knuckles and scars.” There was a severe cast to her topaz-brown eyes.

“I coulda got that from bar fights,” I speculated.

“Uh-uh,” Frankie said, dismissing my words as only a woman thinking she’s beautiful could. “You’ve got strong hands and a boxer’s shoulders. I could tell just by the way you stand there, so easy.”

With just those few words the child had gotten past half of my natural defenses. She had named me for what I was with a lazy kind of intensity.

“I had an old man was a boxer,” she said. “He had a middleweight belt for four months—twelve, thirteen years ago.”

“What’s your name?” Ambrose asked Tru.

She didn’t answer him. She was too busy watching her friend dissect me.

“He was the nicest boyfriend I ever had,” Frankie was saying. “He was real strong, but gentle as a girl.”

The machinery of the elevator hummed softly. I took the wallet out of my back pocket and handed the girl my card, my real card with a cell phone number that I actually answered sometimes.

“Here you go, Fran Ce ytimkie,” I said, saying her name just to show her that I paid attention too.

She took the stiff piece of paper and opened her tiny purse, which was made from an actual jumbo clamshell. She put my card in and took out a pink one.

“Oh my God,” Tru whispered.

I took the card and read the name printed in red letters on the pink paper—Frankee Tayer. There was a handwritten number across the bottom. The personal touch.

The elevator doors opened on the eighth floor and we left Tru and Frankee on their trek to the Coolidge Suite. My heart rate had increased and I was a little confused moving into the hall behind Ambrose.

“Are you going to call her?” he asked me as we got to room 808.

“No need,” I said, watching him fit the magnetic keycard into the slot of the lock.

“Why not?”

“The high point of our entire relationship was just now.”

The Albany detective smiled and pushed the door open. He gestured for me to enter, and I passed from one reality to another.

IT WAS WHAT they call a junior suite—a largish room with a small couch and a cushioned chair across from a queen-sized bed. Ambrose took the sofa and I sat in the chair. He didn’t offer me a drink or any more small talk. He was ready for business.

The scent of the girls’ perfume was still in my nose. I snorted once in order to get my head back into business. Ambrose was looking at me like a counterpuncher in the early rounds of a hard fight—waiting for me to make the first move.

I didn’t oblige him. Tru and Frankee had thrown me off balance. I needed more time for my head to clear.

“What about the twenty-five-hundred advance?” the prig feinted.

“What about it?” I jabbed.

“Shouldn’t that cover your expenses?”

“I told you that you had to give me the advance just for me to look into the case, that it was in no way against my fee or to cover expenses.”