“Sir, I just now started in here. I can come back if–”
“It isn’t my room. Are you a friend of Cathy’s?”
“You looking for her, great big strong girl, she’s working the downstairs wing right under here, mister.”
“I know where she is. I asked you if you’re a friend of hers.”
“Why you asking me, mister?”
“She might need a friend to do her a favor.”
“She and me, we get along pretty good.”
“Would you come down to Room One-O-nine?” She looked very skeptical. “What she wants to do and what I want are a couple of different things, mister. I do maid work, period. I don’t hold it against her, but she ought to know by now if she wants a girl for anything else, she can go call that fat Annabelle or that crazy kid they got working in the kitchen.”
“I got back to my room a couple of minutes ago, Lorette. Your friend Cathy tapped one of my bottles. She thought it was gin. It was sleeping medicine. She’s down there passed out. Now, if you don’t give a damn, say so.”
Her eyes were round and wide. “Cold stone passed out? You go on down, please, and I’ll come right along quick.”
Ten seconds after I was back in the room, she pushed the door open and stood on the threshold, staring in at Cathy.
“It’s like you said?” she asked. “You didn’t mess with her any kind of way, did you?”
“There’s the bottle over there. Go take a slug and in a little while you can lie down right beside her.”
She made up her mind and pulled the door almost closed as she came in. She dropped to her knees and laid her ear against Cathy’s chest. Then she shook her and slapped her. Cathy’s sleeping head lolled and Cathy made a little whine of irritation and complaint.
“Can you cover for her?” I asked.
She sat back on her heels and nibbled a thumb knuckle. “Best thing is get Jase to bring a laundry cart and he’p load her in and put a couple sheets over her and put her in an empty.” She stared suspiciously up at me. “That’s no kind of poison, is it? She’ll come out of it okay?”
“In two to three hours, probably.”
She stood up and stared at me, head tilted. “How come you don’t just call the desk?”
“Would they fire her?”
“They sure to hell would.”
“Lorette, if I’d had that bottle locked up in my suitcase and she’d gone digging around in there and tapped it, then I might have called the desk. Maybe I would have called anyway if she’d been giving me sloppy service since I’ve been here. But she’s kept this place bright as a but-
ton, and I plain forgot that bottle and left it on the closet floor over there where any maid would find it. So I share
the blame.”
“And maybe you don’t want to have to tell a lot of folks how come you keep your sleeping medicine in with
the gin?”
“I think you’re a nice bright girl and you can cover for
her without any trouble at all.”
“Because it’s slack right now I can do hers and mine both, what rooms we got left. But one more thing. If you turned her in, could she rightly say that you’ve been messing with her some?”
“No. She couldn’t say that.”
“Then, I’ll be back in just a little while.”
It was five minutes before she came back. She held the door open for a tall young boy with enormous shoulders, who pushed a laundry hamper on wheels into the room. He parked it beside Cathy and picked her up easily and lowered her into it. Lorette covered her with a couple of rumpled sheets and said, “Now Annabelle will be waiting right there in Two eighty-eight, Jase. You just put Cathy on the bed there and let Annabelle tend to her, hear?”
“Yump,” said Jase, and wheeled her out.
“Finish up fixing your bed for you, mister.”
“Thanks.”
As she was finishing she giggled. She had a lot of lovely white teeth. She shook her head. “That ol’ girl is sure going to wonder what in the world happened to her.”