“Wait a sec.” I could see him going through the file as if he had mittens on. “Yeah. Khalil Tadross — no phone listed.”
“What’s his address?”
“Sixteen ’n a half Washington Street. I don’ know where that is—”
“I do. Look, Tim. There’ll be a couple of pressers still down in the valet room. Ask ’em if they remember seeing a cream-colored jacket with chocolate checks, last couple of days, huh?”
“Sounds like something Milton Berle’d wear. Say, I checked on Auguste’s scrap with the roast chef. Chef weighs fifty pounds more’n Auguste but he got backed into a hot oven just the same. Auguste is nobody to pick a muss with. When’ll you be back?”
“Little while. See if you can get Max to give you more details on Al Gowriss; if he remembers too much you’ll know it’s the balonus.”
The hullabaloo on the juke was something about a wild goose. I needed no reminder I might be chasing something I couldn’t catch.
Gowriss might have had an accomplice check in the hotel. Later on he could have gone up to the accomplice’s room, from there sneaked up to 21MM. But then how had Tildy Millett escaped assassination? And how had he managed to get in the suite? Had he been in her bedroom all the time they’d been eating in the living-room? Or had he gotten in after dinner, while the skater and Nikky were in the bedroom? Only way to find out was from Tildy. Or the Syrian maid.
Our kitchen staff is a sort of miniature United Nations. French sauce chefs, Austrian bakers, Danish fish cooks, Italian vegetable chefs, Filipino silver boys. And one Syrian, a pastry chef. There weren’t so many Syrians in New York; probably they kept to themselves fairly closely. A Tadross might know where to find a Narian.
A mile or so beyond Dave’s I stopped churning all that around, began to wonder about the taxi in my rear-view.