Hacklin wouldn’t take the chair I offered. After he shut the door, he planted his shoulders against it. “That Walch lad gimme a somewhat different story than you handed me about the Eberlein girl.”
“How different?”
“Says she’s a legitimate agent for chorines and models. He arranged for her to supply entertainers for Mister Lanerd’s party after the dinner tonight. Claims Mister Lanerd and his wife recommended her. Walch says he was waiting down in the bar with her to collect his commission in advance. You come in, put the pinch on the Eberlein girl, take her into the credit office. That’s the last he saw of her. He went up to the banquet room to find out where the party was supposed to take place, so he could tell the girls where to go. He don’t know anything about the key; maybe Tildy Millett did give it to her.”
“Little inaccurate in spots,” I objected. “But close enough.”
“You manage to fuggle things up, all along the line. You had this girl, you lose her. You have this waiter, he comes right up to you there in the banquet room; you know I want to put him through the hopper, still you send him away. I had Schneider down in the locker room; he found out the waiter’s name is Auguste Fessler.”
“Why don’t you run me downtown,” I laid it on with a trowel, “so I can tell your boss who’s doing the real fuggling?”
“Tell me.” Hacklin came to the desk, planted both hands on it, leaned over unpleasantly close.
“Sure. He sends a couple of his Punch and Booty boys up here to keep a tight watch on an important witness. Because they wouldn’t work with our security office, a dozen people wander in and out of the supposedly guarded suite every day. Not all Plaza Royale people, either. We lease out the valet concession, f’rinst, and the valet’s messenger boys have been up there.”
“Wasn’t a question of keeping people out — what we were after was to see those who came in.”
“Happen to see a joe wearing a loud, light-colored suit? Cream-colored, maybe? Might have had chocolate checks? He was in 21MM about the time Roffis must have been knifed.”