I shoved back the silkies on the dress hangers, looked in the corners of the closet for the steak knife. It wasn’t there.
Reidy asked what a hotel man naturally would, “He a guest, Gil?”
“Doubt it.” Without moving him too much, I felt in the dead man’s pockets for a wallet or keys or letters. The wallet was there; there was silver in his pockets; I didn’t remove either. There was a holster under his left armpit. It was loaded. He’d never had a chance to pull it.
Lanerd cleared his throat. “Name was Roffis. He was a — a guard — here to protect our star performer—”
“She wasn’t the only one who needed protection.” Reidy’s face was oyster-gray.
I knew what Duman was thinking, but it didn’t seem possible. If Lanerd had done the butcher job, his clothes would have shown it. It wasn’t reasonable to suppose he’d have waited around the suite after the murder. There were other points, but I didn’t want to go into them then. I went to the phone.
“Hold it! Hold it, godsake!” Lanerd made his stop-sign gesture again. “You don’t want to call the cops!”
“I don’t?” I picked up the handset. “Let me have Mona, honeychile. This’s Mister V.” Mona’s our switchboard super, a very crisp cookie in the headwork department.
Lanerd held out both palms, pleading, “There’s a hell of a lot of things you don’t know about this business. If you’ll wait about ten minutes, Miss Millett will be back and—”
“Millett?”