Nobody.

But I could still hear her. In my pajamas, leaving the gun behind, I exited the room as barefoot as Steve had been, the door ajar, and stepped out onto the white metal landing at the top of the exterior stairs; it was crisp and chilly outside.

Sandy was on the far end of the landing in her purple dressing gown, leaning over the rail and yelling at a young colored maid poised by a housekeeping cart.

“What do you mean,” my unlikely Juliet was indignantly asking, “you can’t bring us some breakfast? We’ll pay for the privilege!”

The maid, in a green and white uniform, looked up and said, “We ain’t allowed to do that, lady. And I ain’t asking the manager a question when I know the answer, because he’s not in a good mood mornings. Actually, he ain’t in a good mood, period.”

And the maid and her cart rumbled on.

Sandy hadn’t noticed me, so I spoke. “Good morning.”

She gave me barely a glance. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Why, aren’t you available?”

That got a throaty laugh out of her. “Well, breakfast isn’t. I’m not hungry, but Steve’s having a cow.”

“That’ll save him buying you a Guernsey.”

She laughed again, just something short from her belly. Now she looked at me—surprisingly pretty, make-up free, though the hardness of her life lingered. “You always this funny in the morning?”

“Keep trying. Maybe you’ll find out.”

She grinned and gave me a middle finger. We were finally getting along.

“I’ll handle Steve,” I told her, as she slid past me into the hall and we slipped into our respective quarters.

Bathed and shaved and back in the Richard Bennett with the holstered nine mil accouterment, I knocked at the 49-A door and Sandy answered, back in her big blonde wig and in a pink knit sweater and black pencil skirt and low black heels. She rolled her eyes at me. Beyond, Steve was pacing like an expectant father.

I stepped past her. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m gonna talk to that fucking manager,” he said, still pacing. “Johnny told them, when we checked in, we were to get the first-class treatment.”

“First-class treatment in this kind of place,” I said, “does not include breakfast. They don’t have a restaurant, much less room service.”

“I’m gonna let that manager know who he’s dealing with.”

Sandy took my arm, sending her words back and forth between me and Steve. “I know the manager. Jack Carr. He’s tight with Buster Wortman and an ex-con himself. Not a good idea getting his attention.”

Wortman was known as the rackets boss of East St. Louis, Illinois.

She gave me a little nod toward the footlocker and suitcase against the wall. The likes of Carr and Wortman would just love to know about those…if they didn’t already.

I said, “I’ll go out and get us some breakfast.”

Steve froze but his expression melted. “Would you, Nate? That’d be mighty white of you.”

“Anything else you need?”