Stolen Away by Collins Max Allan

Author:Collins, Max Allan [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2011-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

23

Toward the middle of the next afternoon, uptown in the rail-and-harbor city of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a powder-blue Lincoln Continental drew up along the curb of the posh Carteret Hotel. The grandly uniformed doorman moved swiftly down the red carpet in the shadow of the hotel canopy to open the rear right door for the Lincoln’s solitary passenger, beating the chauffeur to the punch. The chauffeur, however, in his neat gray wool uniform with black buttons, was there in time to help the stately lady passenger, Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, out of the backseat. She wore a black velvet dress with a large quilted black-and-white scarf tied stiffly, squarely around her neck, and a black velvet conical hat, an outfit whose festive styling clashed interestingly with its mournful coloration; but for diamond earrings and a diamond bracelet on one of her white gloves, Mrs. McLean’s jewelry was uncharacteristically absent. Her thin, pretty lips were blood-red. The chauffeur, a rather handsome young man in his twenties with reddish-brown hair, allowed the doorman to usher lithe, lovely Mrs. McLean into the hotel lobby. The chauffeur, by the way, was me.

I got our luggage out of the trunk of the Lincoln—my simple traveling bag and a big heavy leather number for Evalyn; I told her we’d only be one night, and shuddered to think what she’d bring for a weekend away. I turned our things over to the bell captain, who told me I could for a fee park in the private lot behind a nearby bank. On my way back, on foot, I cased the exterior of the hotel a bit.

The Elizabeth Carteret Hotel was a nine-story, heavily corniced brick building between a massive Presbyterian church and various storefront businesses; the Ritz Theater was diagonally across the way. Narrow alleys were at the left and right of the hotel, with a service-and-delivery-only alley in back, a side entrance with a bellman on the right-hand alley, and no outside fire escapes. An exclusive, expensive hotel, with relatively tight security. I was glad I’d come in undercover.

Evalyn was waiting in the marble-and-mahogany lobby, where businessmen and bellboys mingled with overstuffed furniture and potted plants.

“We have separate rooms,” she said quietly, handing me a key, “on the ninth floor.”

“Adjoining?” I asked.

“No. Traveling together like this, just the two of us, is dangerous. If my husband found out, it could be used against me, in court.”

“I get it.”

“But I have a suite.” Her smile was tiny and wicked. “Plenty of room for company.”

Soon I was in my own small but deluxe room on the ninth floor, getting out of my chauffeur’s uniform and into my brown suit, as well as my shoulder holster with nine-millimeter Browning. I really should have boiled the latter, after sticking it in Gaston Means’s yap, but somehow I hadn’t got around to it. I’d had my hands full since yesterday.

First they’d been full of Evalyn, of course, in her gigantic canopy bed with its pink satin sheets that matched the sprawling bedroom’s pink satin walls.

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