Boulevard by Bill Guttentag

of it drifting under the reflection of Erin’s soft, sad face.
    The Chateau’s lobby was nearly empty. A guy dancing an unlit cigarette in his mouth hurried past them with a pony-sized Great Dane. Behind the desk was a clerk in a Nehru jacket—so far out of fashion Jimmy figured that it must be the cutting edge of fashion. He had very short bleached blonde hair and blue-tinted, tiny, round John Lennon glasses. But what the Beatle had for them was worthless. He searched the computer and came up with the earth-shattering news that the room was charged on Mark Lodge’s Amex card.
    â€œHe ever stay here before?” Jimmy said.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHe make any impression on you?”
    â€œImpression?”
    â€œYeah. Was the guy happy? Sad? Pissed off? Anything?”
    â€œIn truth—I can’t remember him at all.” He looked at Jimmy with a barely perceptible sneer. The kid was pissing him off. The pecking order around here was pretty obvious. Jimmy was only a lowly cop—a cop who’d taken two bullets, arrested a battalion of child abusers, pimps, and murdering assholes, and on the other side of the desk was coolness incarnate—an actor, model, singer, whatever, wannabe. He may be a twelve-buck-an-hour desk clerk, but he got to print the hotel bills for the stars. And that gave him the right to look down on bottom-crawling cops.
    â€œHe was here, right?” Erin said.
    â€œSure. There were about a hundred cops taking out his body.”
    â€œBut he checked in here. At the desk. With you?”
    â€œHe’s registered. But you have to understand, with our clientele, no one is going to remember someone like that.”
    â€œLike what?” Erin said.
    â€œVanilla.”
    â€œPrint me a copy of his bill,” Jimmy said.
    They went into the huge, nearly-deserted kitchen—and the instant they came in, the back screen door bounced shut as two waiters in white jackets ran out. Jimmy followed fast after them—scooting around tables and room service carts, racing for the door, passing a rail-thin chef at the grill who barked “Fuck!” and stared at him with venom. Jimmy made it to the doorway to see the two guys disappear down the hill and into the night. Uncatchable.
    Jimmy turned back around. The kitchen was something out of the thirties, with glass cabinets and floral-pattern tiles everywhere. On a long, pale-yellow tile counter, a small TV was playing a soccer game with an announcer screaming in Spanish. The chef, a tall scraggy guy with a blonde goatee that hung past his chin, and a barbed wire wrap tattoo on his upper arm, paced by the grill.
    â€œFuck a duck!,” he said, throwing his spatula onto the counter. “Now who’s gonna take this shit upstairs. You, buddy?”
    â€œSorry, man,” Jimmy said.
    â€œBet you are.”
    â€œHey. We’re LAPD, okay?
    â€œOh. Thanks for telling me. Why do you think they ran like dogs?”
    â€œYou tell me.”
    â€œFucking obvious.”
    â€œPeople with nothing to hide don’t bolt like that,” Jimmy said.
    â€œWhat do they gotta hide? They’re makin’ five ninety-five an hour bringing trays to rooms that rent for seven hundred and fifty a night. That’s what they gotta hide. Fuck a duck.”
    He slammed a plate on the table in front of him. Jimmy could feel himself getting pissed, but Erin jumped in.
    â€œIt’s not green card stuff,” she said. “All we want is to ask them about the night the guy was killed. His last supper came from room service.”
    â€œThat’s all?”
    â€œAll. After that, they can work here forever as far as we’re concerned.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThen stick around. They need the bucks. They’ll be back.”
    Nice job, Jimmy thought.
    The Chateau pool was lit by half a dozen flood lights below the surface turning the water a cool, pale blue. It was too cold