“Where?”
“They went up to the twenty-first. I went with ’em. After I keyed myself into an empty, they trotted down the stairs to twenty. I listened around. They’re in 2010-12.”
“Who’s the gay dog?”
“Gentleman from Philadelphia. Roy T. Yaker.”
“Well, well. He’s the poll expert. Probably feeling their pulses, Fran. I’ll take care of it.”
Chapter fifteen:
Ear to the wall
Now and again I meet some youngster who learns I’m a chief security officer. Usually he’s cram-full of notions about the fine points of sleuthing as reported by the ingenious gents who write up crime stories in the lurid mags with Real and Official and Inside in their titles. The kid’s usually very disappointed in me.
I can’t do any of the incredible things those clever cusses find so simple. According to their modest self-revelations, at any rate. One of ’em finds it easy to read a murderer’s lips fifty feet across a gloomy, smoke-shrouded barroom, thus “overhearing” details of some gory mayhem. Another has no difficulty searching a criminal’s eyes until he discovers the crook’s innermost secrets, turns him over to the stern hand of judge and jury. One expert claims to have broken a tough case by “mentalizing” a suspect’s mind. Whatever that is.
Many’s the time I’ve been disappointed in myself at not being able to put on such a performance. But it wouldn’t do to read guests’ minds. Not around the Plaza Royale.