The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [43]
Suddenly Osborn remembered being amazed that the detective never wrote anything down. Maybe there weren’t any files. Maybe these days that had to be the private investigator’s game. Keep information out of everyone’s hands but your own. Kanarack’s name and address had been given to him only at the last moment, handwritten and on a cocktail napkin. A napkin that was still in the pocket of the jacket Osborn was wearing. Maybe that was it, the file in its entirety.
The elevator stopped on the fifth floor and the Japanese got out. The doors closed again and the elevator started up. Osborn glanced at the man in the gray suit. He looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place him. A moment later they reached the seventh floor. The door opened and Osborn got out. So did the man in the gray suit. Osborn went one way, the man the other.
Walking down the hallway toward his room, Osborn breathed a little easier now. The initial shock of Jean Packard’s death had worn off. What he needed was time to think about what to do next. Suppose Packard had told Kanarack about him. Given him his name and where he was staying? He’d murdered the detective, why wouldn’t he try to murder him?
Suddenly Osborn-was aware of someone walking behind him down the hallway. Glancing back, he saw it was the man in the gray suit. At the same time he remembered the man had pushed the button for the ninth floor, not the seventh. In front of him a man opened a door and set out a room service tray of dirty dishes. Looking up, he saw Osborn, then closed the door again and Osborn heard the chain lock slide closed.
Now he and the man were the only ones in the hallway. A danger alarm went off. Abruptly he stopped and turned.
“What do you want?” he said.
“A few minutes of your time.” McVey’s reply was quiet and unthreatening. “My name is McVey. I’m from Los Angeles, the same as you.”
Osborn looked at him carefully. He was somewhere in his mid-sixties, about five feet ten and maybe a hundred and ninety pounds. His green eyes were surprisingly gentle and his brown hair was graying and beginning to thin on top. His suit was everyday, probably from The Broadway or Silverwoods. His pale blue shirt was a shiny polyester and the tie didn’t match any of it. He looked more like someone’s grandfather or what his own father might have looked like, had he lived. Osborn relaxed a little. “Do I know you?” he said.
“I’m a policeman,” McVey said and showed him his LAPD shield.
Osborn’s heart shot up in his throat. For the second time in a very few minutes he thought he might faint. Finally he heard himself say, “I don’t understand. Is anything wrong?”
A middle-aged couple dressed for the evening came down the hallway. McVey stepped aside. The man smiled and nodded. McVey waited until they passed, then looked back at Osborn.
“Why don’t we talk inside.” McVey nodded toward the door to Osborn’s room. “Or, if you’d rather, downstairs in the bar.” McVey kept his manner low-key and easy. The bar was as good as the room if it made Osborn more comfortable. The doctor wouldn’t bolt, not now anyway. Furthermore, McVey had already seen all there was to see in Osborn’s room.
Osborn was anxious and he had to work not to show it. After all, he’d done nothing, not yet anyway. Even using Vera to get him the succinylcholine hadn’t really been illegal. Bending the law a little, but not criminal. Besides, this McVey was from the LAPD—what jurisdiction could he have here? Just be cool, he thought. Be polite, see what he wants. Maybe it’s about nothing.
“This is fine,” Osborn said. Unlocking his door, Osborn ushered McVey in.
“Please sit down.” Osborn closed the door behind them, putting his keys and the newspaper on a side table. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wash the city off my