“Early tomorrow.”
Jack said, “Her family might not even realize she’s missing yet. Maybe she came in from some small town to stay with friends and isn’t expected back for a while.”
Oscar jerked a shoulder, as if he didn’t especially like this reading but wouldn’t argue. Just now.
“So then what were you thinking?”
“I thought maybe we could stop by a couple of the high-class hotels, see if they’re missing anybody.”
Jack thought about this as he threaded his way through traffic around Madison Square and then west into the Tenderloin. Every city had a neighborhood like this, but Jack had visited some of those places and nothing compared. Every night of the week the whole thing—some thirty blocks—was as loud and raucous as a carnival. Music from every door and window, the bellowing of the crowds watching prizefights or cockfights or dancers or musicales, street and alley brawls where broken bottles were the weapon of choice, the constant flow of men in and out of gambling dens and saloons and disorderly houses, and the women who walked the street or leaned out of windows half-naked, calling out to likely customers. This Monday morning looked like every other: as if a battle had been fought and lost.
The streets were full of trash, the sewers clogged with debris. Adults and children alike sifted through the muck and mire for anything they could sell: a cuff link, scraps of paper, empty bottles, rags. Cigar butts were especially prized because they could be sold back to the cigar factories, a nickel for two dozen.
They had an errand to run at the precinct station, where the whole complement of cops and roundsmen would be busy sorting through the aftermath. Dozens of regulars slept in the drunk tank; cells were crowded with gamblers and shysters not sober or quick enough to get out of the way, with thieves and pickpockets and prostitutes.
A filthy man staggered out of a doorway, bent over double, and vomited into the gutter.
“Oh, the glory,” Oscar said, and tucked a fresh cigar, whole and unblemished, into the corner of his mouth.
? ? ?
IN THE EARLY afternoon they went first to the Avalon, the most luxurious and expensive hotel on Fifth Avenue. Jack thought they might be overshooting—the dead woman had not been dripping with jewels, after all—but Oscar loved the Avalon almost as much as he disliked the Avalon’s general manager, and he took any opportunity to visit the former and irritate the latter.
The closest Jack could get to an understanding was the fact that Oscar had grown up in the same Lower East Side tenement with Thomas Roth, who had clearly worked his way up and out. Oscar’s lodgings were evidence that he didn’t put much value on material possessions, but at the same time he resented Thomas Roth for having them. Now he pulled the concierge aside, flashed his badge, and insisted on an immediate meeting with Mr. Roth. They would be waiting in the lobby.
The carpets underfoot were Persian, the deep chairs and sofas of the softest leather, the mahogany tables inlaid with rosewood and pearl, spittoons of hammered copper with carved marble feet, porcelain vases three feet high, chiseled mirrors in carved and gilded frames. As a Christmas present Jack had brought his sisters here for tea on a particularly miserable December afternoon. He had never seen them more enchanted with anything than they were with the Avalon dining room: silver coffee urns, hand-painted china, pristine linen, perfect sandwiches and petit fours, and waiters as straight and exacting as soldiers.
Oscar deposited himself in a deep club chair and sighed, content.
The fuss made Jack antsy. He said, “I’m going to check in.” If not for the perfect ring of smoke floating toward the ceiling, Jack might have thought Oscar had fallen asleep. Jack went back out onto the street and the call box on the corner. He was back not ten minutes later, just in time to see the general manager approaching. Thomas Roth was stalking toward them like a man on a suicide mission.
Jack picked up his pace to intercept and called out: “Oscar. Word from the Gilsey House at headquarters, they’ve got a missing guest who may be our Jane Doe. Jimmy Breslin is waiting for us.”
Oscar waved an arm in the air as he sauntered away. “Never mind, Roth. I’ll be back to deal with you another day.”
? ? ?
THE GILSEY HOUSE general manager was an old friend, the brother of Jack’s first partner when he walked a beat.
“Jimmy,” Jack said with real pleasure. “The last time I saw you was on the handball court, what, six months ago. You beat me soundly, if I remember correctly.”
“Sure I did,” Breslin said. “Right after you beat me twice in a row. I’ll be back there someday soon to try my luck again.”
“We hear you’ve misplaced one of your guests,” Oscar said.