“This capability with numbers of yours?”

“Yes?”

“Would one of those numbers be three hundred thousand? And would that be the number allowing you to stop doing outside work?”

The slight smile stayed right where it was. Behind that face with its black-rimmed Cabinet of Caligari eyes and that fucking facsimile of a smile, wheels were turning.

“The feds took this place apart,” he said. “It was a fool’s errand—that money was like most of my guests—just passing through. The Coral Court’s walls aren’t stuffed with money, Mr. Heller. Get that out of your head.”

“What do you think became of it? The missing half a ransom.”

“I wouldn’t know. And I don’t care.” He stood. “Now, I hope you enjoy your stay. Speaking as one well-seasoned individual to another, I would suggest that while you’re in the St. Louis area, you ask your questions, get what information you can, and then get the fuck out before you get yourself killed. Oh. One more thing.”

“What would that be, Jack?”

“You’ll need your room key.”

He got back behind the desk and I wandered over to my side of the counter. He handed me the key. The smile grew just enough to show me an edge of teeth.

“You’ll get a kick out it,” he said. “It’s what we call the Red Room. Honeymooners love it. Great for Valentine’s Day. And if you act fast enough, before it dries and goes brown, no blood stains.”

* * *

I pulled the Caddy into the nearest of the side-by-side garages separating the two rooms making up my building. When I entered from the mini-garage into the unit itself, I was indeed in a red room. Not the walls—those were cream-colored—but the furnishings: red bedspread, red vinyl couch, red vinyl-upholstered armchairs, pink-shaded nightstand lamps, red-and-black broadloom carpet, red-framed modernistic St. Louis cityscape over the bed.

My bag went on the wooden luggage rack and I tossed my suitcoat on a chair, got my tie off, and kicked off my shoes. Padded into the red-and-black-and-white tiled bathroom, threw water on my face, dried it off while the mirror told me I looked every one of my years at the end of a long day. Went back out and flopped on my back onto the red spread. A Beautyrest beneath me, I’d bet. I placed my nine millimeter Browning on the nightstand next to the paperback of Compulsion by Meyer Levin (a bit of a busman’s holiday, I grant you). Thought about the people I hoped to interview tomorrow and considered catching the last half of Jack Paar on the tube when somebody knocked on the door.

Carr?

Or somebody Carr had called in who might not be friendly? It sure as hell wasn’t room service.

I got the nine mil and held it, barrel high, as I answered the second round of knocks. Cracked the door.

My caller was female, to say the least—tall with black hair in a Gwen Verdon pixie cut, her voluptuous shape wrapped up in a red-and-white striped short-sleeve shirt (smokes in the pocket) and black capris. Tucked under one arm was a quart of Seagram’s and under the other a big bottle of Seven-Up; one hand held a hotel-room ice bucket to herself, the other made a fist in mid-knock. Maybe this was room service.