The name’s Serop. I’m a detective. I operate in San Francisco, mainly. My office is on Nob Hill. My first case outside of the Bay Area first fell in my lap a couple of weeks ago. I had a call from a woman by the name of Zuplez. She said her husband had gone missing. I told her to drop by the office to go over the details with me. In hindsight, I wish I’d paid a call at her address. It might have saved me a whole lot of aggravation and you’ll learn why soon enough. Mrs. Zuplez knocked on my door about five minutes after I hung up the phone with her. I knew she’d called me from a pay phone and knew she’d done so around the corner because I could hear the distinctive chimes of the church bell that I hear every afternoon, in stereo. So it was no surprise to hear that same voice outside my door so quickly, knocking at the opaque inset glass and announcing her arrival like it was some miraculous event. I could make out a perfect bell shape shadow through the glass and I admired it for half a second before I told her to come in. What I saw when the door opened had my jaw opened. Mrs. Zuplez bore a striking resemblance to a high school teacher that I had an adolescent crush on twenty years ago. She looked almost exactly like Ms. Red Lids, my English teacher from 12th Grade. Her specialty was creative writing, tight sweaters and long legs. Red Lids was a nickname. All the kids called her that because she dolled her eyelids up with crimson makeup. It made her look pretty crazy. And while I’m sure the rest of the teaching staff at my old alma mater didn’t care for it, all the boys didn’t mind because Red Lid’s was a fox. It was the same thing with Mrs. Zuplez who could have been her double or her younger daughter, only without the crazy makeup. I told her to take a seat and we got right down to business.
“On the phone you mentioned that your husband disappeared.”
“Yes, that’s right,” she sobbed. She took out a handkerchief and started balling.
“When was the last time you’d seen him, Mrs. Zuplez?”
“It’s been three weeks now.” She blew her nose and snorted.
“Had you heard from him in that time?” I was asking routine questions while I fumbled through the papers on my desk searching for a pad and a pen. I found the pen but continued looking for the pad.
“No, I haven’t heard from him.”
“You brought the photograph that I asked for, right?”
“Yes, here it is. I’m sorry it’s a little sticky for some reason.”
“That’s O.K. I need this for your husband’s file.” I put the photograph into a manila folder that I’d prepared in advance. I wrote the name Zuplez on the label and that reminded me of something. “You know, I don’t think you ever told me your husband’s first name, Mrs. Zuplez.”
“It’s Edward.”
“Edward.” I made a note of that too on the file label. “Has he ever done anything like this before, your husband? Gone away and not called you?” I started looking for the pad again as she spoke.
“Absolutely not. It’s entirely out of character for him to do something like this, to go somewhere and not give me a call. He’s always been so responsible that way.” She was choked up. “Why, he’d never let me worry needlessly.” Zuplez blew her nose into the handkerchief in her hand and dried her eyes with it. I noticed blood on the handkerchief and saw that some of it had been inadvertently spread to her eyelids. The sight of this sickened me and for the moment I forgot all about finding the pad. I reached for a box of tissues that I kept on my desk and was about to hand it over to her when I realized it was empty. I tossed it aside into a pile of case histories in the corner of my office. “More garbage. Go on, Mrs. Zuplez . . . Didn’t you tell me over the phone that he flew to New York?”
“Yes. He went there on business. He never checked into his hotel.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I called the hotel!”
I finally found the pad and made a quick note to myself, ‘Husband flew to New York. Zuplez hasn’t heard from him in weeks. Never checked into hotel.’
“Did he have any enemies?” I asked, asking more routine questions as a matter of routine.
“No. He didn’t have any enemies. He didn’t even have any friends.”
“So there would be no reason for him to go into hiding?”
“He was an unemployed writer. He’d been in hiding for years but not from anyone or anything . . . unless you count the whole world.”
She continued to dry her eyes, spreading the snot and blood all over her face as she did so. It repulsed me but I couldn’t find a tactful way to let her know what it was she was doing. “Do you want to use the toilet to freshen up a bit, Mrs. Zuplez?”
“No, that’s alright. I feel better now.” She gained composure for a half a second but lost it in a maelstrom of sudden tears, which made the snot and blood run with her mascara all down her clownish countenance.
“Um, where was I?” Such rhetorical questions always brought me back to reality. “You said your husband went to New York on business. What was that all about?”
“He went there to meet with a publisher.”
“So, he was invited out there?”
“Yes, that is correct. I miss my husband so very much.” The pain of her circumstances painted a wounded expression on her face. “I think of him night and day . . . just like the Cole Porter song. Oh, I do hope you can help me find my husband . . . Mr. Syrup.”
I smiled sweetly. “It’s Syrop, actually.”
“Mr. Syrop, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I called you Mr. Syrup.” She folded the mucus moistened, blood stained handkerchief neatly in her lap and kept it there, as she stared across the desk at me.
I cleared my throat. “It’s alright. You said he never checked into his hotel, is that right?”
“Right.” She reached for a suck candy from the little tray I kept at the corner of my desk.
“Go ahead,” I said, “help yourself. Now what was the name of this hotel?”
“Thank you . . . It had a French name. Le Hotelier Baroque.”
“An unusual name,” I replied, slightly incredulous. “Are you sure such a hotel exists?”
She unwrapped the candy and examined it in her hands. “Oh yes, it exists. I saw it listed in a travel guide and everything. My husband showed it to me.”
I watched her turning the candy around in her hands, as if examining it. “Did your husband make reservations at this hotel?”
“Oh, yes. He called.” She put the candy back into the wrapper and rolled it up again. I waited to see if she was going to put it back in the little tray from which she had originally retrieved it and that was exactly what she did.
“And what made your husband pick that particular hotel, Mrs. Zuplez?”
“The publisher recommended it.”
“The publisher recommended it.” I reiterated.
“Yes,” she confirmed again.
“You said your husband never checked into this Hotel Baroque. Is it possible that he checked into another hotel for some reason?”
“I don’t think so. If he had, he’d have called me.”
“Well, what do you know about this publisher?” I asked.
“Only the name. Do you want to know it? It’s a very strange name.”
“Yes, of course. What is it?”
She said the name with great trepidation, “The Big Game, Inc.”
“That’s the name of the publishing company?”
“Yes, the publishing company.”
I made a note. “O.K that’s helpful but do you know the name of the man that corresponded with your husband, the man that your husband was supposed to meet in New York?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think my husband ever told me his name and I didn’t think to ask. He just gave me his flight schedule on TWA and the name of the hotel.”
“O.K. let me ask you this, how did your husband ever get in touch with this publishing company in the first place? What was it called?” I looked down at my pad, “The Big Game, Inc.”
“My husband got the name out of a writer’s market guide and sent some samples. He used to do it all the time, send samples of his writing out to publishers, sometimes to literary agents.” Zuplez peeled an adhesive bandage from a wound on her right hand and then lifted it up to touch the raw skin underneath.
“And so this particular publisher wrote him back?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Presumably, the publisher had encouraging words and expressed an interest in meeting him.”
“Yes, right again. He invited my husband to give him a call, to set something up.”
I could see the wound beneath the adhesive bandage on her hand was dried with crusted blood.
“Is your hand alright, Mrs. Zuplez?”
“Huh? Oh yes.” She left the wound on her hand alone and began refolding the snotty, bloody handkerchief in her lap, which made me regret ever saying anything about the hand in the first place.
“Tell me, was it really necessary that they meet, your husband and this publisher?”
“What do you mean?”
I put the pad and pen down for a moment and re-adjusted myself in my seat. “What I mean is, I don’t really see why they had to meet at all. If this fellow wanted to publish your husband, he could very well have done so without their getting together as pre-requisite. If they were each in the same city that would be one thing, but to have to fly across the country to discuss a book deal when it could have been done over the telephone . . . This is how it seems to me, anyway. Do you mind if I smoke, Mrs. Zuplez?” I shook a cigarette out of the pack on my desk and placed it in my mouth, expecting her O.K.
“No I don’t mind.”
She thought about what I said while I lit up.
“I suppose you’re right. I never really gave it much thought. May I have one of your cigarettes?”
“Huh? Oh yea. Of course.”
I passed her one over the desk and offered a light.
“Thank you, Mr. Syrop. The thing is, all of this was not only new to me. It was also new to my husband. He’d been writing for years, contacting agents and publishers all the time. This was the first time that one of them got back to him with something other than a rejection. My husband was very excited by that and I suppose, not knowing the ropes, he never gave it any thought the publisher wanted to meet with him. I didn’t either.”
I took a long hard pull on the cig while she talked, admiring the heaving chest that spout all these words out in a sexy soughing way that left me breathless. Her pouting lips pursed at several points that left me daydreaming about what else they could do besides talking. When she paused, I asked her: “Exactly what kind of a writer was your husband, Mrs. Zuplez?”
She didn’t understand the question. “What kind of writer?”
“Yea. What did he like to write about? Was he a fiction writer?”
“Yes.” She took a drag of the cigarette and exhaled, spewing the smoke in my face.
I coughed slightly and probably grimaced.
“I’m sorry,” she said, realizing her faux pas.
“It’s alright,” I told her.
“Tell me, Mr. Syrop, do you really think the publisher is to blame for my husband’s disappearance?”
I took a drag and held it for second thinking about that one. “Well, we don’t know anything yet. I’ll have to fly out to New York to find out for sure.”
Her face lit up with excitement, “So you’ll take the case, Mr. Syrop?”
She looked ridiculous with her red lids fluttering and the mascara and mucus streaks running from her eyes down to the corners of her mouth. I caught a fit of laughter rising up from my abdomen, but was able to effectively stifle it in the back of my throat before it ever reached my lips. My whole face was rigid with artificially imposed composure. “Sure. I’ll take the case, Mrs. Zuplez.” I wanted to reassure her and at least affect a professional demeanor. After all, this was no laughing matter. “I’ll fly out there and see what I can dig up. ” Realizing my poor choice of words, I cut myself off. But Mrs. Zuplez didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy thanking me. I reminded her that my incentive to help out was not entirely altruistic. “Of course, in order to take the case I’m going to need that flat fee we discussed on the phone and I’m going to need it up front, for expenses.”
“Of course, of course,” she exclaimed. She opened her purse and pulled out a business envelope with a dollar sign drawn on the face.
‘That’s not too obvious,’ I thought, accepting the envelope. It was unsealed and I peeked inside to have a look at the bills. I didn’t count it but it seemed to be all there, so I folded it up and put it in the inside pocket of my sports coat. “This will be fine for now, Mrs. Zuplez.” I told her. “But like I said on the phone, this is just the flat fee. Once you leave here, I’ll also be charging you that hourly fee we discussed.”
She sniffled and wiped a tear from her eye, expressing her gratitude again in a manner that I would describe as excessive. “Oh! Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Serop! Thank you so much!”
“No problem.” I finished the cigarette and put it out in the ashtray just before she did the same.
“I’ll book the airlines, the hotel and all that today. I’ll probably fly out there tomorrow. You can reimburse me for those things, the airlines and the hotel, later. There’s no need to go into that now.”
“Great,” she replied. “Just let me know what I owe you and we’ll settle it when you say.”
I decided that I liked this lady, particularly her attitude about money. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a deadbeat. They leave me disinclined to do a good job, to get the whole story. I started thinking about Mr. Zuplez and his story, how it might relate to the stories he’d written. I have heard it said that the truth sometimes reflects fiction, or vice versa. I followed up that angle with a few questions that I thought pertinent. “Tell me, Mrs. Zuplez, what was you husband’s latest book about? Do you recall the premise at all? You never know, it could be relevant to the case.”
“Yes, I remember. It was a collection of short stories. He read me bits and ‘pieces,’ as he used to say. Most of the stories involved detectives like yourself and missing persons, etc.”
“So, he was like a mystery/suspense writer?”
She considered the thought. “Yes, I guess you could say that.”
I was about to ask her something else when she added, “But really he wrote all sorts of things, most were what he called, ‘experimental.’ But his latest writings, the stories that the publisher expressed an interest in . . . They were short stories about detectives, sleuths, murders and other crimes. Were you going to say something?”
“Umm . . . “ I’d lost my train of thought and asked her a filler question, “How did you hear about my services, Mrs. Zuplez. I’m just curious.”
“Oh you were in the book.”
“Thanks, I like to keep track of such things.” I made a note and just as soon recovered my thread of thought. “Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you . . . Before you said that your husband had telephoned the publisher.”
“Yes, that’s right. After he got the letter back lauding his fiction. My husband was very flattered and I was so very happy for him.”
“Uh-huh. I’m sure you were. Do you happen to have the publisher’s number with you or perhaps you have it somewhere at home?”
“No, I’m afraid not. You see Mr. Syrop, my husband took all of that information with him when he left. I didn’t even think to ask him for it. What would I need it for?”
I nodded. “That’s O.K. We have the name of the publishing company. I can always get the number from an operator. It’s no bid deal. Don’t worry about it.”
Zuplez looked at her watch. “Goodness. Will you look at the time?” she exclaimed. I watched as she folded up her soiled handkerchief and for the love of God finally put it away in her handbag. “I almost forgot about another appointment that I have today,” she added. “I’m going for a facial.”
Good luck, I thought.
“Will you be needing anything else from me, Mr. Syrop?” She stood up from the chair and smoothed her skirt.
“No, I don’t think so,” I answered. She handed me her card and I took it, somewhat surprised by her sudden impulse to leave. “O.K. I’ll be in touch.” I put the card in my sports coat inner pocket and came around the desk to shake her hand and show her to the door. Before I did I hesitated, remembering to give her one of my cards. I kept them in a little keepsake on my desk and handed her one. “I almost forgot, Mrs. Zuplez. Here’s one of mine.”
“Thank you, Mr. Serop. You’ve been so kind to me.”
She offered me her hand and I held it for a moment. “Don’t worry. I’m going to do everything I can to find your husband.” I was surprised at myself for making such a promise and regretted it instantly.
“I have complete confidence in you, Mr. Serop,” she said pulling her hand away suddenly.
I opened the door for her. “Please give me a call, Mrs. Zuplez, if you can think of anything else related to your husband’s disappearance, anything you might have forgotten to tell me. Even if you don’t think it’s that important. You never know what might be helpful to the case.”
“O.K. I will.” She smiled. “Thank you so much for your kindness.”
“There is just one other thing,” I added.
“Yes?” She moved closer to me, closer than I would have ever expected her to. “Did you forget to ask me something?” Her breath was hushed and it smelled sweet. I would have probably grabbed her in my arms at that moment had it not been for the big booger that I saw hanging off the corner of her right nostril.
“I forgot to ask you, do you happen to have an extra copy of your husband’s manuscript, the one that the publisher was interested in?”
Zuplez paused for a moment and reflected on the matter. “An extra copy of the manuscript? You mean like a carbon copy?”
“Yes, a carbon copy.”
“H’m, let me think about that,” she replied.
Her leg brushed against mine, as I waited for her to finish thinking. The only sound in the room was the sound of our breathing and she was so close I had to do everything I could to keep my eyes above her heaving bosom. I told her impatiently, “If you can’t find a carbon copy, a rough draft will do just as nicely.”
She pulled away suddenly. “I don’t think I’ve seen any carbon copies around the apartment, but I’ll check again.”
“Please do. I’ll give you a call before I leave for New York.”
When I said, ‘New York,’ she smiled one last time before she turned and walked away, down the hall, toward the elevators where someone else was already waiting. He was probably someone from one of the law offices that I share the floor with. I didn’t recognize his face. By the time Zuplez got to the elevator, the doors opened and she stepped inside. The gentleman followed. I watched them leave and then closed my office door to pack and call the airlines. Since Zuplez had mentioned her husband traveling with TWA, I decided to be consistent and booked a reservation with them. I’d leave San Francisco the next morning, giving me enough time to tie up a few loose ends around here before I departed. Borrowing again from the itinerary of Mr. Zuplez, I made a reservation at Le Hotelier Baroque. At first, I felt silly even asking for the number. The long distance operator, herself, wasn’t nonplussed which immediately restored my confidence in the veracity of my client who had stated quiet plainly that there was such a place. When I was connected with the hotel’s front desk, I was even more pleased. I am what some would call conspiracy-minded. It is the line of business I’m in that creates such tendencies for paranoia. I guess you could call me mistrustful. As a detective, I prefer to say that I’m cautious. I’ve learned the hard way not to assume all my clients are good eggs. Assuming too much can be hazardous to your health. I’ve been set up too many times for taking the word of someone I don’t know at face value. But my suspicions, at least in this one case, proved to be unfounded. Indeed, Le Hotelier Baroque did exist. According to the fellow who took my reservation, it was located on East 27th Street. While I had him on the phone, I asked if there was a record of reservation for Mr. Edward Zuplez. I told him the reservation would have been made for a few weeks ago. He put me on hold for a couple of minutes to check the record book. When he got back to me, he said that a reservation had never been made under that name. That was of course in conflict with what Mrs. Zuplez had told me. I asked the clerk if the hotel would still have a record if the reservation had later been neglected or cancelled. He said it would. I was at a loss for an explanation. Why would Mrs. Zuplez lie to me about her husband making a reservation at this hotel? Perhaps she had assumed he had made a reservation when in fact he had done otherwise. I reminded myself that this discrepany could easily be explained as a record keeping error on the part of the hotel, but decided to try Mrs. Zuplez at home tonight to make certain. I’d give her a call right after I finished packing.
After I hung up the phone with the hotel, I had planned to contact the mysterious publisher Mrs. Zuplez had mentioned, the Big Game, Inc. I even dialed the long distance operator back with the intent of asking her for the number in New York. But at the very last second I didn’t do it for two reasons: one, was the afterthought that it might tip off the publisher that someone was snooping into their business. I realized it would be safer and wiser to drop in on them unannounced once I got into town. The other reason I didn’t call was because of a distraction that I heard, or thought that I heard, in the building that houses my office. A family doctor might call it an auditory hallucination. It sounded just like a school bell ringing and it was so real to me, that I actually got up and opened my office door to check down the hallway. I stood there for a moment, looking down the empty hallway, listening carefully, but heard nothing else. For moment there I thought I was going crazy. It was right then that I realized I was doing myself a big favor getting away for a little while. I had spent too much time in that stuffy old office and it was going to my head. The trip would do me good. I grabbed my trench coat and hat and locked up the place. ‘Good riddens,’ I thought. I took the elevator down to the street. Once outside, I was lucky enough to find time was on my side. A trolley I take home everyday was just coming down the block. I hopped on it just as it was passing. The trolley’s familiar bell rang out as we soared up and down the city’s familiar hills, like a roller coaster ride on tour beneath the pagoda rooftops of Chinatown, through to the beatnik North Beach where I lived. It was a short ride for me. I got off in front of this grocery store I went to sometimes that sold bottled, canned and packaged goods on their shelves. I had my jaw broken recently and I was reliant on baby food for dinner, since I still found it difficult to chew. I picked up an eclectic assortment of the baby food, making sure that I accounted for all of the major food groups. Maybe I wasn’t eating well but I was eating healthy. I thought to buy a couple of beers to go along with the food, but remembered that I had all the ingredients for a martini at home and that was all that I needed to have, anyway. From there, it was a short walk to the apartment that I called home. I opened the door and drudged up the stairs with my groceries, passing the wiseacre landlady who said to me something like, ‘Play it again, Serop.” As usual, I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. She was very strange and often made a habit of inane remarks around me. Once inside the apartment, packing went smoothly. I planned to be in New York City for no more than a week, at the most. Since I had been there before in the Spring, I knew what to expect from the weather. It was pretty much the same as here. I mixed up some martinis and ate my baby food out of the jars, watching a little television. I had to bang on the silly box a couple of times and then play with the antenna just to keep the picture going. It was a variety show I was watching with girls dancing around this guy in a top hat and tails. The girls were singing a goofy song off the Hit Parade that I’m still trying to forget. They probably would’ve been singing and dancing all night were it not for the custard pies thrown at them from offstage. It couldn’t have been the audience throwing the custard pies, they were laughing and applauding like idiots starved for entertainment. I failed to see the entertainment in any of it, frankly, so I shut the TV off. I was about ready to hit the hay when I remembered to call Zuplez. I dialed her number but no one answered the phone. I would have tried again later but I fell asleep.
The next morning, I awoke in my easy chair with a backache and cramps in my legs. I got up and stretched, made a pot of coffee and had a couple of cups with a couple of cigarettes for breakfast, before I shaved and showered. I was ready to leave about an hour later and called the cab to take me to the airport. I thought to give Zuplez a try on the phone again, but just as I dialed her number the cab arrived. I heard the driver beeping the horn for me outside, something I positively can’t stand. I threw on my trench coat and hat, grabbed the luggage and locked up the apartment. One of the neighbors has a little girl who sometimes plays with her toys on the landing. She’s in the habit of calling me Bogey Man for some unapparent reason. When I saw her this morning she asked me if I was going to hunt for the Maltese Falcon. I thought that so cute and clever that I just had to reward the little girl for her comment. I had nothing else, so I offered her a cigarette. She accepted it, probably out of curiosity. I told her that she was not allowed to smoke it, only to look at it. The idea seemed to boggle her tiny mind. The little brat stared at me, saying nothing as I dragged my luggage down the stairs toward the door. She will learn to be afraid of me, I thought, and with any luck will avoid me in the future. When I got outside, I spotted the driver leaning on his cab, waiting for me. He asked if I needed help with the luggage, offering to open the trunk. I told him that it wasn’t necessary, that I’d just keep it in the back seat with me. The driver was polite and quiet, only speaking to me when invited. He reminded me of a janitor who worked in my old high school twenty years ago. Was it the janitor or my old guidance counselor? Anyway, he was a good driver. Before I knew it we were on Bayshore headed for the International Airport. On the radio I heard some kiddy rock and roll playing, a song called ‘Dog Gone Detective.’ Actually, I just made that up. I don’t know what it was called.
When I first caught sight of some airplanes, I told the driver to pull into the TWA terminal.
What happened at the airport was pretty much what you would expect. I checked the baggage, got my boarding pass, found my departure gate and when told to do so by announcement, lined up to board the aircraft with the rest of my fellow passengers. I had my ticket checked by this sexy stewardess who smiled at me and told me I looked like someone famous. Later on in the flight, when she served me lunch, I asked her who she thought I reminded her of. She said, “You know, that guy that always plays the detective in all the movies. You look like him.” I couldn’t believe it. Did she mean, Humphrey Bogart? I thought. That was when the whole scene got totally ridiculous, because the stewardess stopped another stewardess who was serving lunch to the passengers on the other side of the isle and asked her, pointing to me, “Hey, who does this guy remind you of?” Sure enough, the dame said, “Humphrey Bogart.” At that point, every passenger who could look over and stare at me did so. Some were straining to do so. One character even handed me a glossy photograph of Humphrey Bogart and asked me to autograph the damn thing. I flatly told him that I wasn’t Humphrey Bogart and that if he didn’t get it out of my face, I was going to shove it up his snot nose. Some people might be flattered by a comparison to Bogart, but I wasn’t particularly. More than anything it bothered me because as the stewardess so aptly noted, Bogart often played a detective on the silver screen. Since I was a detective for real, it couldn’t help my situation if someone thought of me as guy who plays a detective. It’s too close to the truth. I go through this thing all the time, because my face looks a little like Bogart’s and I sound like him. I guess it doesn’t help that as a detective I tend to dress like him. The thing is, if I don’t wear a trench coat and a fedora I don’t feel like a detective and I have to feel like a detective if I want to be a good detective. I just wish Bogart would wear something else, in those movies. He shouldn’t have to look like a detective just to play a detective. But as a detective for real, it helps me if I look like a detective and it helps my clients. They want me to look like a detective, after all. They take one look at me and they know their money is well spent. My look inspires their confidence. I’ve tried to go under cover. It just doesn’t work. I don’t feel like me, I feel like an actor, like I’m trying to be something else other than a detective, which is what I am.
Anyway, five or so hours later we landed at Idlewild Airport. I couldn’t wait to get off that plane. The guy behind me kept whistling the theme to Casablanca the whole flight. I wanted to punch him in the face. The funny thing is, he sort of reminded me of James Cagney. I strained not to look at him, because I was too afraid of him bringing up the whole Bogart thing. But I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye a few times during the flight and from what I could tell he was a dead ringer for the actor. Maybe it was Cagney. I couldn’t be sure but told myself I didn’t care. When I went to claim my luggage with the rest of the passengers from the flight I surreptitiously (and Syroptitiously) glanced around the group of us then huddled near the baggage claim area. But I never saw a sign of him again. I did see my little suitcase on the conveyor belt. When it came close enough I grabbed it and made a beeline for the cab line outside. I only waited ten or fifteen minutes before I had a cab and that wasn’t too bad, especially for a Saturday. The cabbie offered to put my luggage in the trunk but like with the cabbie back home, I told him I’d just keep it in the back seat with me. I then gave him the address of the hotel on East 27th Street. We made good timing. He dropped me off at Le Hotelier Baroque about an hour later.
The lobby looked like a bohemian love pad of some kind, with beatnik kids lounging around in plush seats. Some of them were talking but most were either quietly writing or necking. Bebop music was playing from a radio at the front desk. I took a look around while I waited for the kid at the desk to get off the phone. The whole place was painted flashy colors and there were modern art pieces, giant hands and lips and other less identifiable objects, strategically placed all around the joint. Straight off I said to myself, “Syrop, you’re in the wrong damned place.” I can’t say exactly what I expected but I can tell you it wasn’t this. Truthfully, I should have expected something like this from a hotel with such a ridiculous name. The Weird Hotel, said it all. When the kid at the front desk was finally off the telephone I asked him about the reservation book he was writing in. I asked how far it went back. He answered me by asking me a totally different question, did I have a reservation. I told him the name and he flipped through the pages looking it up. When he finally found it, he clarified that I was only staying a week. I told him, “If the book says I’m staying a week, I must be staying a week.” He simpered and told me how much the total was for the week and flatly stated that I would need to pay him in advance. I gave him the cash and he gave me the key to a room on the ninth floor. He then asked if I’d need help with my luggage. I told him no and brought up the reservation book again. He rolled his eyes and asked me what I needed to know. I told him, “I’m trying to find out if a particular person was booked at this hotel three weeks ago. He may or may not have checked into the hotel. Would you have a record of that in this book?”
The desk clerk shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, Pops. Maybe.”
There was another kid fussing around beneath the desk, ostensibly looking for something. When the desk clerk called me Pops this other kid started laughing. The desk clerk smiled at that, appreciating his audience.
I told him, “Look. I’m not going to play games. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Maybe, Pops. First tell me why I should, like are you a cop?”
“No, I’m not a cop and don’t call me Pops.”
“Well then you must be like some kind of private eye, seeing that you’re dressed up like one. What are you, on a big time case? Is the Maltese Falcon stolen again?”
The other kid beneath the desk started laughing.
“No, I’m not a detective either,” I lied. “I’m here looking for a friend of mine that disappeared a few weeks ago. If you don’t want to help me I’ll ask the manager of the place to help me or maybe I will bring the police into this. I’m trying to find my friend.”
I could tell that everyone in the lobby had heard me because they had stopped whatever they were doing and were all looking my way.
“Oh if you’re trying to find your friend, that’s a different story,” the desk clerk relented. He turned the reservation book around to face me. “Here, be my guest . . . friend.”
“Thanks,” I told him, bringing the book closer to me. I knew that the punk would show me some respect sooner or later.
Apparently the other kid beneath the desk found whatever it was he was looking for, because he muttered something like, “Got it,” before he walked away. As he was leaving the desk and walking around me I could feel him giving me a dirty look. The desk clerk confirmed this suspicion of mine, when I heard him say to the other, “Yea I like his hat too. The Bogart Special.” I couldn’t believe that one, as if no one but Humphrey Bogart ever wore a fedora. I tried to ignore the puerile remark, reminding myself that only the reservation book and the dates therein were worthy of my concentration at that moment. I was pleased to see that there were dates at the top of each entry page. Since I knew that Mr. Zuplez had allegedly been registered for the week beginning the ninth and ending the fifteenth, I paid careful attention to those pages. I scrutinized each hand written entry, working my way up and down the columns of names from one page to the next, for the most part ignoring the corresponding telephone numbers. If there was an address next to a given name I took note of the town. That’s how I finally came across the entry of Edward Zuplez. The name was very hard to read because it had been scribbled over and crossed out, but his was the only entry in the book for those dates with a home address given as San Francisco. That was how I found him in the book. If I hadn’t seen San Francisco, I might have glossed right over the entry, ignoring the blotch of black ink as nothing more than an error that had been expunged. This was the reason the desk clerk had told me over the phone the day before that he had no record for Edward Zuplez. He never saw the entry, but in fact it had been there all the time. So that answered that question. Now I wanted to know why it was crossed out. Was the reservation cancelled, and if so by whom? I asked the desk clerk about it.
He looked at the entry and shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know why it’s crossed out, man,” he replied. He was popping some bubble gum. “You’d have to ask the clerk who was here on that day about it.”
“Well, who was the desk clerk on that day,” I asked him, “on the second of March?” I took out a cigarette and lit it.
The clerk picked up an ashtray from the other end of the desk and put it down in front of me, on the book. “Don’t get ashes on the floor, Mister,” he warned me. “I’ll have to clean it up later when you’re upstairs reading through your Eye Spy magazines.”
I moved the ashtray off the book and then grabbed the clerk by the collar. “I asked you a question, wise guy. I want to know who took the reservations for the second of March.” I pointed at the reservation book entry with my free hand while I held him with the other. “Either you took this entry or it was someone else. If it was someone else, let me know who it was. Are you reading me loud and clear, buddy boy?” He heard me alright, as did the rest of the beatniks in that joint. They all cleared out of the lobby like rats off a burning ship, some ran outside but the majority went up to their rooms. I could hear them scuttling up the stairs behind me in a panic. I guess they could smell trouble. In a heartbeat the whole lobby was empty with two exceptions, the desk clerk and his little helper (the wiseacre kid who’d been fidgeting behind the desk earlier). The latter saddled up next to me and asked for a cigarette. I let the clerk go and turned to him. “Do you know anything about this book?” I asked. He asked me for the cigarette again, so I gave him one, even offered him a light.
The kid inhaled deeply and then exhaled. “Thanks,” he said.
I waited for him to say something about the book but since he didn’t I asked him again.
“Oh the book,” he suddenly remembered. “Yea. Smitey and me, we take turns at the desk, taking the reservations and such.”
By Smitey, I knew he was referring to the clerk I’d had by the collar. He had looked over at him when he’d mentioned the name. “What’s your name?” I asked him.
“It’s Smitty,” said the kid.
He leaned over the desk to look at the book, when he did his waist bone brushed against my crotch. I wasn’t sure if he did it on purpose, but I got out of his way. I started thinking the two of these characters were homosexuals.
“Oh yea,” Smitty said, studying the book. “That’s my handwriting, alright. You want to know about this reservation that’s scribbled out, is that it?”
I nodded, taking a drag off of my cigarette.
“Let me get a puff,” the desk clerk asked Smitty, gesturing for the kid’s cigarette.
Smitty gave it to him, keeping his eyes on the book. Finally he turned to me, “You know I’m trying to remember the reservation in question but it was just so many weeks ago now. I mean, here at the desk we take god knows how may reservations in a given night and all those reservations get kinda blurred night after night, day after day. I really don’t remember too much about this particular one. I really wish I had something to jar my memory, then I’d tell you everything you need to know.”
I handed him a twenty-dollar bill. Smitty took it and stuffed it in his tight jeans, then he started babbling, “Yea, that was a weird one. The man’s old lady called to make the reservation for him. I recall the incident because when I was talking to her on the phone, taking down the information: name, address, phone number, reservation dates, etc. I overheard a male voice laughing in the background. I mean this joker was really cracking up, man. For a moment there, I thought the whole thing was a prank phone call, because the lady on the phone was laughing herself right into the receiver; I guess in response to some of the things the jerk in the background was saying to her. I don’t know. My only other thought was that the two of them were kinda sauced, you know—drunk.”
I took a last drag off of my cigarette and put it out in the ashtray. “The guy in the background, you think that was the husband? The man she was making the reservation for?”
Smitty shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, man.” He shifted his wait onto his other foot and waited for me to ask him something else.
I asked him what he thought they were laughing about.
Smitty shook his head like he didn’t know and at that point the clerk next to him remembered something. He reached across the desk and took Smitty by the shoulder. “Hey, didn’t you tell me that the guy in the background said something about a book. ‘I’ll have to put that in the book,’ or something.
“That’s right,” Smitty acknowledged. “Thanks, Smitey. I forgot all about that.”
Smitey nodded and smiled at me. “Do I get a twenty?” he asked me.
Smitty punched his co-worker in the arm and grabbed the remains of the cigarette from him.
Smitey grunted and gave Smitty a dirty look. “That hurt, you bitch!”
Smitty took a last drag of the cigarette and put it out in the ashtray. “Go sweep the floors or something,” he ordered.
On that note, Smitey left us alone.
Smitty picked up where he’d left off, his story-telling abilities rejuvenated again, “Like my friend said, the guy that was laughing on the other end of the phone kept mentioning a book to the woman giving me all the information. I got the impression that this book was the source of their mutual hysteria, because whenever the guy brought up the book the two of them would immediately start laughing again.”
“What did the man say about the book?” I questioned.
Smitty tried to recollect, “Um, I don’t remember exactly. It was something like, ‘If I put it in the book, that means it will come true.’ I don’t know something weird like that. ‘I’m going to make it all come true and then the book will be an oracle.’ I remember he used some weird word like that, ‘oracle.’ And the woman said back to him—she was carrying on two conversations, one with him and one with me—it was very rude—she said, ‘the truth will come out in the end.’ It was something like that. The both of them were so weird.”
I asked Smitty if the reservation was cancelled and if so, who cancelled it.
“Well, the thing is no one cancelled it. The guy just never showed up. A week later the woman called again and asked if her husband had arrived. I told her he didn’t.”
“Did she seem upset?” I asked.
Smitty shook his head. “Not at all. She was laughing with that same guy again in the background. I really thought the whole thing was a total joke and that was why I crossed the reservation out, scribbled it out. I never gave it a second thought again until just now when you showed up asking about it.” There was a pause. The kid shrugged his shoulders and gave me a blank stare, as if to tell me there was nothing else to say on the subject.
I had nothing else to say either, as I was completely baffled by his story. Why would Mrs. Zuplez call the hotel to make sure her husband arrived then show no concern upon learning that he had not arrived? Wouldn’t that sufficiently arouse her alarm at that moment as it did the day before in my office? Wouldn’t she have panicked and insisted that there was a mistake or at least asked if there was a forwarding address for her husband? According to Smitty, that was not the case. To the contrary, Mrs. Zuplez exhibited a good deal of mirth and merriment, laughing it up with whoever the other mysterious person was with her on the other end of the phone. What was this person’s identity? According to Smitty, the jocular fellow was in the background for the first and the second call. If that was the case, he could not have been Mr. Zuplez. Why would Mrs. Zuplez call the hotel to confirm the arrival of her husband if in fact, Mr. Zuplez was right there with her? I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, so like Smitty I just shrugged my shoulders. “O.K. You told me everything I need to know.” Reaching for the suitcase at my feet, I added, “ I’m going up to my room now. I’m a little tired. Thanks for your help.”
“Sure thing. Hey, you need help with that luggage?”
“No, I got it. I hauled it all the way from San Francisco, I think I can make it up the stairs.”
“That’s nine flights for you, Mister. You could make it easy on yourself and take the elevator over there—”
I turned around to see him pointing at the other end of the lobby.
“Oh,” I heard myself exclaim. “I didn’t see it. I saw all the kids take to the stairs before, so I just assumed you didn’t have a lift.”
Smitty laughed. “Most of those kids are on the first three floors.”
I walked over to the elevator and pressed the button. “Do I have a phone in my room?” I asked.
Just then Smitey walked by with a mop and answered the question vicariously. “Yea, there’s a phone. You can dial out. But messages come through the front desk. You get your messages down here.”
The elevator doors opened and I stepped in. I turned around and pressed the button numbered nine. The last thing I saw before the doors closed was Smitey making a stupid face at me, he had his lips pushed out and his eyes rolled back into his head. ‘What a jerk,’ I thought.
When the elevator doors opened again, I saw a dark, dingy corridor. It was quite a contrast to the bright, colorful lobby downstairs. A melancholy wave swept over me, but it was quickly removed with the help of a happy sound bellowing out from one of the many doors that now faced me on both sides. It was an acoustic guitar strummed by someone with a knack for creating positive moods. I took the room key out of my pocket and saw number ninety-six written on it. That was the number of my room. I found the room soon enough, after all there were only ten rooms on the floor. I unlocked the door, hoping the room would be a little more inviting than the corridor and to my relief it was. I dropped the suitcase on the floor, locked the door and took a look around. It was simple, but accommodating. There was no sign of a television or even a radio, but there was a telephone on a little night table, a private bathroom and some curtains on the window. Most importantly, there was a bed. I took my hat and coat off, loosened my tie and flopped down on the mattress to test it out. To my surprise, it was very comfortable. I thought, ‘I’m going to sleep well in this place. The mattress is more comfortable than my own back home.’ Soon after that I drifted into sweet slumbers. I don’t know how long I slept, because I hadn’t looked at my watch since arriving at the hotel. It is entirely possible I hadn’t looked at it since arriving in New York. I didn’t remember looking at it, at any rate. When I awoke, I heard my stomach growling and knew it was time to feed that animal. Though before I went in search of food I wanted to get in touch with the publisher that allegedly made Mr. Zuplez an offer to come to New York City. I needed their address. I looked over my notes and found their name again, The Big Game, Inc. That’s when I picked up the phone and heard Smitey answer downstairs.
“Yellow.”
“Smitey?”
“Yeah. Is this Mr. Bogart?”
“Serop, Smitey. The name’s Syrop.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Syrup?”
“I need an outside line, wise guy.”
“Oh sure. Hold on for that.”
A second later I heard a dial tone. I dialed the operator and asked her for the number of the Big Game, Inc. I was hoping there was such a business entity. The truth was, whether the publishing company existed or not, I’d still have to find out what happened to Mr. Zuplez. Of course, if the publisher did exist it would make my job that much easier. At least, I would have a place to start the investigation. To my relief, The Big Game was listed in the New York directory. The operator gave me the number and was even kind enough to connect me. The truth is, if she hadn’t connected me I probably would have waited until Monday to call. I did not expect a publishing company to be open for business on a late Saturday afternoon. But to my surprise, someone did answer. I composed myself and spoke:
“Hello? I’m trying to reach The Big Game, Inc.”
“This is The Big Game,” I heard someone say.
“Oh, it is? I didn’t expect you to be open for business today,” I explained. “Is this an answering service?”
“No, this is The Big Game,” the party clarified. “How can we help you?”
“Well, I have some business to discuss with you.”
“Is this about a book?”
“Yes, it is. I want to know your address.”
“We’re on West 57th Street, on the corner of Broadway.”
“What floor?” I asked.
The person on the other end of the line laughed at me, which I thought a peculiar reaction to my perfectly legitimate question. I was about to admonish the voice when it informed me that the business was located at street level. That I thought equally peculiar. Why would a publishing company be located on the street? Street level was usually for restaurants, shops and stores in New York. All of the major businesses demanded large real estate space, the kind of space that just wasn’t available on the street. My thought was, ‘The Big Game must be a mighty small operation.’
“Will there be anything else?” the voice asked me, waxing impatient.
I didn’t know quite how to respond. Of course, I had a million questions more, but if I was going to ask about Mr. Zuplez I knew it would serve me better to do it with someone face to face. The phone was no place to discuss business, after all. Keeping it simple, I asked him how late they were open tonight and what their hours were during the week. I expected to hear that they would be closed by this evening, but to my surprise the voice told me that they were open until eight p.m. Weeknights they were open until seven p.m. ‘How convenient,’ I thought. ‘I’ll pay them a visit this evening, after I have a little dinner.’ I thanked the voice but received little courtesy myself. The party simply hung up the phone without a goodbye. I had the impression that the voice was rather anxious to get rid of me, leading me to believe that they were very busy down at the Big Game, Inc. But busy doing what? I opened my suitcase and checked my thirty-eight pistol. She was loaded and I strapped her on.
My stomach was growling louder than ever so I put my hat and coat on with intent of finding some food to feed that beast. Once outside in the corridor, I heard the same acoustic guitar playing as I locked up the room and waited for the elevator. When the elevator door opened this time it was crowded with freaky kids headed for the lobby and crazy Saturday night madness in the big city. We all unloaded in the lobby and the beatniks spread out. A bunch of them were hanging around in the plush chairs that filled the lobby. They were listening to jazz and carrying on in suspicious ways. I tried my best to ignore them but had little success. How can you ignore punks that constantly clap their hands and snap their fingers? How can you ignore punks that shout obscenities and then drop kick into bad poetry? How can you ignore punks that feel up under age girls in public places? These are the same punks that will wave a knife under your nose to make a point on some dark and starless night, when you least expect it. How can you ignore them? The thing is you can’t ignore them. That’s why I moved to North Beach, because when you can’t beat them, you join them.
I walked out the front door and turned right, heading toward Madison. Smitey was hanging out by the entrance smoking a cigarette. He called to me as I walked passed him, “Hey schweetheart, where you going? Give my regards to Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Becall . . . Oh and say Hi to Katherine Hepburn for me.” I was going to turn around and let him have it, but I told myself that it wasn’t worth bothering about. Stupid kids like that are a dime a dozen. I concentrated on what really mattered, finding some cheap food and a bottle of something for the room. I kept walking west until I got to Sixth Avenue, then I turned right and started walking uptown. Somewhere in the thirties near Herald Square I found a grocery store that sold baby food. I bought my usual combination of vegetables and meat for a well balanced diet. I made sure to get a spoon from the vendor, as well. I decided to take Broadway back downtown, spotting a liquor store on the way. There, I bought a bottle of scotch. I couldn’t remember if the room had a drinking glass, but if it hadn’t I could always use one of the emptied baby food jars. I’d just have to wash it out first.
When I got back to the Hotel Baroque with the groceries and my scotch, I passed Smitey again by the entrance. He was still there, like he’d never left. As I reached for the door, he asked me if I’d been up to Times Square. I told him not yet. “That’s too bad,” he said, “You could find your African Queen there on a lucky night.” That gives you an idea of this character’s caliber. It was pretty low. I knew what I was dealing with here. The last thing I wanted was to give this kid encouragement to pass out future comments from his cornucopia of cornball. If I let him know he’d got my goat he’d try again, for sure, and I’d be playing right into his hands. The kid was so obviously starved for a reaction and for that reason I didn’t give him one, not even a grunt or a grimace. I wore my poker face and pretended he was a figment of my imagination.
I passed through the lobby on my way to the elevator when Smitty stopped me and told me I had a message. “From who?” I asked. He ran over to fetch it from the front desk and bring it over to me but I met him half way. It was from Mrs. Zuplez. The message was cryptic and I read it and re-read it, trying to read into it. It read, ‘The Big Game is that you are a character in someone’s detective story.’ I suddenly realized that the beatnik kids were dancing around me. They were swaying languidly to bebop music blasting from the radio at the front desk. They brought me back to the circumstances of my reality. I asked Smitty, “Don’t you think that music is a little loud?” Smitty ran over to the front desk again, while I walked to the elevator, still trying to make heads or tails of the message. By the time I pushed the elevator button to go up, I heard the music lowered. A second later I looked over my shoulder to see Smitty running back over to me. On his way, he fielded complaints from the beatniks who were upset that the radio volume was now being played at a reasonable level.
Smitty got to me just as the elevator doors opened. He said, referring to the message in my hands, “Do you see what I mean about her being weird?”
I stepped inside the elevator and pressed nine, but held the doors so that they wouldn’t close. “Was she laughing again?” I asked Smitty, timorously. I was afraid of the answer that I’d get.
“Oh she was laughing alright,” he confirmed. “And guess what else? I heard the same guy in the background with her. They were cackling like a couple of jokesters.”
“Alright, thanks.” I let the elevator doors close around me. As I came up to the ninth floor, I held onto my groceries and scotch like they were my only friends in the world. I felt lonely all of a sudden and stupid, as I was possessed by the paranoid idea that I had been the butt of someone else’s joke. Could it be true that Mrs. Zuplez was playing a game? Did she really leave that message for me? Was Smitty truthful about his conversations with her over the phone? I did not entirely exclude the possibility he invented the message from Zuplez and the phone conversations that he recollected having with her. Could it have been an invention of his sick sense of humor? It seemed to me that either he was playing a game with me or Mrs. Zuplez was playing a game with me. It was either one or the other. That indigestible thought depressed me and made me feel like a complete loser. After the doors opened, I stepped out of the elevator onto the ninth floor and heard once again the familiar acoustic guitar being strummed. The difference this time was that the music sounded less cheerful and more melancholic in feeling. I also had the distinct impression that this sad music was being played only for me. I tried to snap out of my depression, searching for my room keys. In the difficult process of fumbling through my pockets while holding the groceries, I accidentally dropped the bag and everything broke right in front of my door. I couldn’t believe my stupidity. I was hoping at the very least that the bottle of scotch had not broken, but it was just as busted up as the baby food jars. There was nothing to salvage. The trip to the grocery store and the liquor store had been a complete waste, not to mention the money spent. I did manage to find the room keys, however. I opened the door and went inside and called downstairs to tell them about the mess in front of my door. Smitty said it wasn’t a problem and that he’d send Smitey up with the mop. I hung up the phone, took off my hat and coat, praying that Smitey would leave me alone. The last thing I needed was to hear that moron knocking at my door. I didn’t want any disturbances, especially if I was going to give Mrs. Zuplez a call. I took her card out of my wallet and compared the phone number printed on it to the phone number written on Smitty’s message. They were the same. This could mean Mrs. Zuplez had called, but then again I had not told her that I would be staying at the Baroque Hotel. Of course, she might have assumed that I would be staying at the same hotel that she’d reserved for her husband. But what about the other possibility? What if my friend Smitty had invented the message that she’d called? He could have easily copied her phone number from the reservation book. That seemed to make more sense as I thought about it, given the nature of the message and the inclination I had not to trust him. Of course, the only way to know for sure was to make the call. As I picked up the receiver, I heard what I presumed to be Smitey out in the hall cleaning up the broken glass in front of my door and a second later I heard his pal Smitty’s voice sieving from the phone into my ear:
“Is this room ninety-six? Hello? Mr. Syrop?”
“Yea. Hi Smitty, it’s me.”
“You need an outside line, right?”
“Yea, that’s right.”
“You’re going to call that crazy lady out in Frisco?”
“Huh? Oh yea. Is that Smitey I hear out in the hall?”
“Yea. I sent him up with the mop. I told him not to bother you.”
“Good. Thanks.”
“Hold on for the outside line, Mr. Syrop.”
“Thanks a lot.”
I dialed the operator and told her I needed long distance. She transferred me after asking me to please hold. After a couple of rings, the long distance operator came on. I read her the phone number off the card Mrs. Zuplez gave to me and in no time at all that number was ringing. I was hoping Mrs. Zuplez would be home. To my relief, she was. I heard her pick up:
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Zuplez?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Syrop, Mrs. Zuplez.”
“Oh, I didn’t recognize your voice at first. I apologize.”
“No problem. Listen, I’m in New York.”
“Yes. I was hoping you would be.”
“I’m staying at the Hotel Baroque.”
“Yes. I figured as much. That’s why I called you there.”
“Oh, so you did call?” I asked her.
“Yes. Didn’t you get my message?”
“Yea. I got it. That’s why I’m calling. It’s rather a strange message, Mrs. Zuplez.”
“What do you mean? I only left my number with a request that you’d call.”
“You didn’t leave a message that read . . . ” I picked up the message that Smitty had given me and read her the cryptic line written at the bottom of the memo, “You didn’t leave me a message that read, and I quote, ‘The Big Game is that you are a character in someone’s detective story.’”
Mrs. Zuplez laughed. “Goodness me. No, I never left you a message of that sort. How strange would that be?”
“Exactly.”
Mrs. Zuplez started to laugh again. “I think someone must be playing a joke on you, Mr. Syrop.”
“I think so too,” I agreed. I had a vision in my head of strangling Smitty downstairs, when a weird thing happened that made me forget all about it. I heard Mrs. Zuplez whispering. It sounded to me as if she was carrying on a furtive conversation with someone else. I questioned why she was whispering and when I did Mrs. Zuplez started laughing again. I asked her if there was anyone else with her but I don’t believe she heard me. I was talking over her laughter, which had risen to a crescendo. This laughter continued unabated for a couple of minutes or more. Ultimately, I heard it in stereo. That is to say, I am positive that I heard the laughter of two distinct people. One was in the foreground and the other was in the background. I was quite confident that Mrs. Zuplez was in the company of some other person at that moment though she would not acknowledge it. Eventually the laughter stopped altogether. Mrs. Zuplez cleared her throat and gave me the indication that she had regained her composure. Quietly, I waited for her to give me an explanation or at the very least an apology for her behavior. I still had no idea what it was all about.
After a couple of seconds, she demurely apologized.
Again, I asked her if there was someone else in the room with her. She denied that there was and then abruptly told me that she had to get off of the phone, that she had an appointment to keep.
“An appointment to keep?” I echoed her. “Mrs. Zuplez, I am calling you long distance about your husband. He’s missing remember? You haven’t even asked me if I’d discovered anything yet.”
She protested, “Well, I just assumed that if you had found out anything about him you would have told me by now. Certainly, you wouldn’t keep me guessing about my husband’s welfare. I am paying you handsomely to find out what happened to him, if you recall. I was also cutting you some slack, Mr. Syrop. After all, you only just arrived in New York. I would hardly expect that you discovered anything about my husband yet. I mean, am I wrong?”
Suddenly, I felt foolish. “No, you’re not wrong.”
She started sobbing. “I mean, I only just called there to make sure that you arrived safely. My dear husband never even made it that far.”
If there was one thing I couldn’t stand it was a woman crying and it choked me up. “Listen, don’t start balling. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Come on, I didn’t mean anything by it. Look, I’m sorry. Mrs. Zuplez, I’m sorry. Don’t cry, Mrs. Zuplez. Don’t cry.” At a certain point, I realized that she was not crying in the sense that most of us understand crying. Mrs. Zuplez was snickering into the phone at me, at my empathy for her easily manipulated emotions. She changed her emotional disposition as quickly and as effortlessly as a chameleon changing its colors. If she’d been crying at all, the tears were incidental as the culmination of her intense joy. She was laughing hard again in no time, no doubt for successfully putting one over on me. I tried to get her attention, to give her a piece of my mind when again I heard the second voice in the background telling her to hang up the phone. The last sound I heard before the line went dead was the uproarious laughter of two people. There was no mistake in my mind about what I had heard.
I hung up the phone and put my hat and coat on to head over to the Big Game, Inc. I had a lot of questions and the Big Game seemed to me the best place to start asking them. I opened the door and saw Smitey crouching to the floor. He was carefully picking up the busted shards of glass from the bottle and jars I’d dropped earlier. Smitey looked up at me contemptuously as I stepped out of the room and into the corridor with him. I ignored his nasty gaze and shut my door. I then started walking toward the elevator, half expecting him to say something to me. He did too, after my foot accidentally knocked over the mop that he had leaning against the wall so that it fell on the water bucket beside it and spilled the contents all over the corridor in both directions.
“Boy, for a big time movie star detective, you sure are one stupid, klutzy, mother f___ er.”
I pushed the elevator button and then walked back over to him and picked him up by the collar, tearing his shirt in the process. The kid stood up on his feet and tried in vain to get me to release my grip. He was remonstrating until I shook him and told him to shut up. I was so angry at that moment that I truly think I could have killed him. Instead I decided to give the kid a warning. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “If you ever talk to me like that again, sonny boy, I am going to hit you so hard that your nose is going to be pushed back into your brain. You’ll be so unrecognizably dead that the morgue will need your whole family to identify your ugly, contorted, distorted face. Do you understand me, jackass?” I must have seemed pretty angry, like I meant business, because for the first time my friend Smitey showed me a little respect. “Yes, sir,” he replied, nodding his head repeatedly. I let go of his collar when I heard the elevator doors open. As I left him and walked back toward the elevator, I passed the overturned bucket and I kicked it. “Remember what I said,” I warned. I took one last look at the little bastard as I stepped into the elevator. The kid was still shaking his head up and down like a private first class just given an order from a superior officer. I tried to compose myself, as there were four beatniks in the elevator with me acting up. I could just see myself slugging one of them on account of the way that they were behaving in this confined space with me. In short, they were squeezing at each other’s pectorals and then laughing about it. I think one of them said something about a, ‘purple nurple,’ but I can’t be sure. When I finally felt one of their elbows brush up against my arm I was about to let them all have it and I can honestly say that it was lucky for them that the elevator doors opened at that point. Otherwise, I might have pistol-whipped them all. If there’s one thing I can’t stand its tactile contact with a beatnik.
I passed the front desk heading for the door. I heard Smitty’s voice asking me, “Did you give it to her good, Mr. Syrop?”
I realized he was asking me about Mrs. Zuplez and I answered him, “Yea. I gave it to her good.” It was bologna. But what else was I going to say? That she gave it to me good? That she was playing me for a jerk? I don’t think so. I might have thought it, but I certainly wasn’t going to say it. I stepped out the front door and made a left, walking up to Park Avenue. On Park, I hailed a cab and told the driver I wanted to be dropped off at West 57th Street, on the corner of Broadway. The Big Game, Inc. was going to get a visitor. In the cab, I couldn’t help speculating why Mrs. Zuplez would leave me such a strange message, about me being a character in someone’s detective story. By this time, despite her bogus denial, I had no doubt in my mind it was she that had left the message just as Smitty had said. Not that he was beyond reproach, but that she was so amused by the content of the message as I related it to her. I started asking myself, why would a woman pay a private dick to fly to New York to find her missing husband and a day later leave him cryptic messages that implied he had been duped? The only explanation I could see, was that I had been duped but I kept coming back to the question, why? Why would a woman pay so much money merely for a practical joke? It didn’t add up, that is unless I was dealing with a crazy lady. And who was the man on the other end of the phone with her? Could that have been Mr. Zuplez? Were they both in on this? Did they both want to make fools of me? If so, why? I knew neither of them. I had never met Mrs. Zuplez nor heard of her or her husband until yesterday. What on earth was this all about? I told myself, there was a lot more to this than met the eye and that the only way to get to the bottom of it all was to simply continue the investigation just as if nothing had changed. In other words, I was going to act under the presumption everything I had been told by Mrs. Zuplez was true. I knew that if I followed my instincts on this I might eventually be in a better position to draw some logical conclusions, or at least I hoped so.
I was glad to see the traffic moving. We’d been stopped at a light and I had grown impatient. I was anxious to get to the publisher before he closed. I looked at my watch. It was 7:30. That meant I had a half an hour to get there and find something out. Otherwise, I would have to go back on Monday and forty-eight hours sounded like an eternity to me. I was trying to recall if the publisher had hours on Sunday. I did not remember the person on the phone saying they had hours on Sunday. I wouldn’t have expected a business like theirs to be open on Sunday but then again I wouldn’t have expected a business like theirs to have such late hours on a Saturday. I tried to be hopeful and told myself I’d get to the Big Game tonight and settle all of this tonight. I couldn’t stand another day, much less two, of not knowing what Mrs. Zuplez meant when she said I was a detective in someone’s story and that that was the big game. It was too mysterious to pass off as just nonsense. If, as I suspected, Mrs. Zuplez had not brought me to New York to find her husband, exactly why then did she want me out here? I had to know why. The cab driver had been quiet up until this point but he interrupted my thoughts as we passed the Ed Sullivan Theater. He asked me if I ever watched Ed’s show. I took a look at the letters CBS in big lights and told him no. I noticed the signature eyeball that the TV network used as a kind of symbol and I wished then privately that I had such an eye. With any luck I’d see a little more clearly the next time somebody tried to pull the wool over me.
The cabbie let me out at the corner of Broadway and 57th Street, as I’d asked him to. Sure enough, I saw a big sign with yellow letters that read The Big Game, Inc. The sign was over what appeared to be the entrance of a bookstore. From the street, before I even walked into the place, I could see tables with piles of books, standing displays of books and wall-to-wall shelves filled with books. I said to myself if this place is a publishing company, it could sure double for a bookstore. But my suspicion wasn’t aroused, so much as my curiosity piqued. After all, it wasn’t an unusual idea that a company in the business of publishing books would have a lot of books lying around. It was just that I’d never heard of a publishing company that sold its own books on the street. Only an underground press would need to control every facet of its operation. It made me wonder about the kind of books that the Big Game published. As soon as I walked into the place I saw my suspicions confirmed. Books were being sold. I saw a cash register with a cashier behind it. There was a line of people in front of this register and each person on that line was holding at least one book. As they came up to the register they presented their books to the cashier and the cashier rang them up. She then told the customer what they owed and the customer then promptly paid their bill. The cashier accepted the cash and in some instances gave the customer change. She would then place the customer’s receipt into a bag with the book or books that they purchased. The customer would then accept the bag of books from the cashier, thank her and leave the premises. This process was repeated again with the next customer. I had to hand it to the people that ran this joint. They were making money hand over fist. Why did these books have such a demand? I wondered
I walked a couple of feet over to a display table of books. There was a sign over the table that read, Best Sellers. I picked one of them up and started reading. It was a self-help book. The author offered the reader ‘psychic tips’ on how to predict the future. One of the tips suggested drinking goat milk from a human skull. I thought to myself, ‘I’ll stick to drinking scotch out of a dirty glass and worrying about the present.’ I guessed I must have looked out of place, because a sales clerk came over to me and asked if he could be of some assistance. I put the self-help book down and took the picture of Mr. Zuplez out of my wallet, the one that his wife gave me the day before in my office. “Yea, you can help me,” I said. “Have you ever seen this guy?”
The clerk looked at the photo and then at me. “No, I have never seen him,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Because he’s a friend of mine. I am trying to find out what happened to him. He disappeared a few weeks ago. I was told by a mutual acquaintance that he had some business dealings with the Big Game just before he disappeared. Is there someone I could talk to about that?”
“You could talk to the store manager,” the salesman told me. He pointed across the room at a man that was seated behind a desk with a big sign over it that read, Information.
The big guy behind the Information desk must have seen the salesman pointing him out, because our eyes locked before I even got to him. Before I could open my mouth, he asked me how he could be of assistance.
I handed him the picture of Mr. Zuplez. “Ever seen this guy?” I asked.
The man glanced at the photo and shook his head. “Nope.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
The man handed me back the photo. “I’ve never seen him. What’s this all about?”
“You manage the Big Game?” I asked.
“That’s right,” he said. “I manage the store, this store.”
“You publish books?” I asked.
“Publish books?” he repeated. “No, we don’t publish books. We sell books.” He stated petulantly.
“The Big Game doesn’t publish books?” I asked.
The man leaned over the desk and scowled at me. “The Big Game is a bookstore, mister. It’s a chain of bookstores around the city. This is one of the stores and I manage it. Now, what is this all about?”
I put the photograph back in my wallet and told him what it was all about, that a friend of mine had disappeared and I was trying to find him, the last piece of information I had on this friend was that he had flown from San Francisco to New York to meet an alleged representative of the Big Game, Inc. This person claiming to represent the Big Game had expressed an interest in publishing a book that my friend had written. He’d expressed his interest in writing and over the phone, enticing my friend to fly across the country to meet with him. All of this had taken place three weeks ago and my friend had not been heard from since.
The scowl on the store manager’s face faded and was gradually replaced with a smile. “Are you nuts?” he asked me.
I was startled by this response. I had not expected it. “What do you mean, am I nuts?” I asked him back.
The store manager laughed to himself and then explained, “The little vignette you just gave me is the plot outline to a short story written by Steven Orion.”
The name Steven Orion rang a bell, but I didn’t know why. “Who is Steven Orion?” I queried, trying to digest all of this.
“He’s a writer and he wrote a short story with the exact same premise you gave me. It’s entitled, The Case of the Lost Writer. It’s part of book of short stories he wrote called, Roots and Seeds . . . Just in case you’re interested.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you sure that the plot premise of this book matches the story that I just told you?”
“You really are a character, mister. You think this is funny?” He asked me evenly.
“Look,” I told him, “I’m not pulling your leg, but someone might be pulling mine. Are you sure that the plot premise of this book matches the story that I just told you?”
“I’m positive,” the manager declared. The writer had to get permission to use the name of our store in his book. It was a big deal in the book business, a kind of endorsement.”
“Well, where can I find this book?” I questioned, hungry for any kind of clues or leads.
“You can find it in fiction, over there—” The manager pointed toward the back wall. You’ll find it listed alphabetically under the author’s last name, so look under the O’s for Orion. Again, the book’s called Roots and Seeds.” Another customer was standing behind me and the manager turned his attention to this individual, “Can I help you?” I took this as my signal to go and look for the book.
Back against the wall I saw a big sign that read, Fiction. ‘This must be the place,’ I thought. There were shelves and shelves of books. As the manager said, they were all alphabetized by author’s last names. I looked for the O’s and found a few books authored by Steven Orion. I was hoping to find the one entitled Roots and Seeds. Otherwise, I was going to have to run out and look around for another bookstore that was still open. And it was getting late. There was simply no way I could put this off another day or two. I had to find the book tonight or I was going to go insane. To my great relief, I found one copy of Roots and Seeds still left on the shelf. The binding looked a little tattered, like it had been damaged in shipping. But this did not matter. I walked toward the cash register, passing the Information desk on my way. The store manager looked down at me as I passed him. “You found the book, O.K.?” He asked me. I nodded. I think they were anxious to get rid of me. I was the last customer in the place and as I looked at my watch I saw that it was 7:55 p.m. That meant they were closing in five minutes. The cashier already had her jacket on. I handed her the book. She took it and rang me up. After she told me the price, I gave her the money and she bagged the book. She put the receipt in the bag before handing it to me with my change. I expected all of this, as I had memorized her little routine. There was a big black man guarding the entrance/exit to the store. He had the door locked to prevent new customers from coming in and he had to unlock it to let me out. “Goodnight,” he wished me. I wished him the very same. Outside, I saw a pizzeria and thought to give some solid food a chance. My jaw still ached a bit but I had little hope of finding a grocery store where I could purchase baby food at this late hour. Instead, I settled for two slices of pizza and a bottle of Coke. Chewing the pizza was a little difficult at first, but I got used to it. Afterwards, I walked out on the street corner to search for a cab to take me back to the hotel. As I looked around me, I saw that the Big Game was closed. Down the block I spotted a big neon sign that read, BAR. I forwent the cab and capriciously headed in that direction. Inside of this bar, I found an empty booth with a light and I settled into it. The barmaid came over and asked me if I wanted to order food. “No,” I said, “Just a scotch on the rocks.”
I took the book out and flipped through the pages. Like the manager of the Big Game said, it was comprised of short stories. Sure enough, one was entitled, The Case of the Lost Writer. I was about to read the story when the barmaid brought my scotch on the rocks over. It had a stirrer in it and I gave it the once around before relegating it to the little napkin that the barmaid had placed beside the drink. I took a healthy sip of the scotch. I thought it would be good medicine for what I was about to read. I was right. The first thing I saw on the page was my name, Serop. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I realize better than anyone how unusual my last name is and I’m not accustomed to seeing it in print. As I read the first paragraph, written in first person, I realized that this Serop character was a private dick. Like me, he was from the Bay Area. The coincidences became even more bizarre by the sixth sentence when this detective mentioned the name of his female client. It was Zuplez. Further down, I read that this woman resembled a High School English teacher from the detective’s past. Uncannily, that woman’s name was Ms. Red Lids. I could feel my heart beating faster as I progressed in the reading. The similarities in the story and my own experiences in this case became more acute when I read that the detective had been hired to search for his client’s husband in New York. This plot development was not much of a surprise to me as I had been enlightened to it by the store manager of the Big Game. But it certainly was a surprise and yet another bizarre coincidence to learn that while in New York the detective stayed at a hotel named, Le Hotelier Baroque. It was located on East 27th Street. Furthermore, Characters named Smitey and Smitty worked in the lobby of this hotel. I drank the rest of the scotch in my glass and scanned the rest of the story. My avid reading was disrupted only by the barmaid’s voice when she came over and asked if I needed another scotch. I didn’t remember telling her I did, but I must have, because she brought it right over. I stirred the scotch and then placed the stirrer on the napkin beside the drink. For some reason, this insignificant action gave me a profound sense of déjà vu. I thought to myself, ‘Oh, it’s nothing. I did the exact same thing before with the other drink. But then when I picked up the book again I read that the detective put his stirrer down beside his drink. Just like me, he was sitting in a booth in a bar scanning through a book that he’d bought at the Big Game, at the advice of that bookstore’s manager. It gave me pause for thought. The strange short story ended with these words:
“Magine that!” I heard myself say, incapable of saying much else at that moment and in a way those were fitting last words for a private detective that was never anything more than a fictional character in a short story written by a man with a familiar name, Steven Orion. As I paused and reflected about that name I realized why it was familiar to me. Steven Orion was the name of a friend and fellow student in my 12th Grade English class. Like me, like all of us in that class, he was a creative writer. Perhaps there was a good chance he had written this very story. I considered the possibilities. If indeed he had written this story and his words were my constitution, he was the one responsible for bringing me to New York, was thereby responsible for my being in this bar, drinking and pondering the likelihood of my own existence, reading a book that I realized I was part of. I took a long drink of my scotch and finished it so that the ice in the glass touched my lip. Was this my first or second scotch? I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t care, but somehow knew it would be my last. My thoughts turned to the Baroque Hotel, how there was no need for me to ever go back there. I thought about San Francisco and how I would never again see my hometown or even my apartment in North Beach. There was no need for me to go anywhere or be anywhere other than right here in this no-name bar. It was the perfect place not only to finish a drink of scotch but to also finish a story.
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