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clipboard. I passed under a canopy into a generous lobby for an overnight place, paved in gray tile and containing a plastic reservation desk molded to resemble carved maple. There were no chairs or benches. Exotic-looking plants grew out of squat concrete planters, but they had thought of those too and set big spikes around the edges to discourage anyone from sitting on them. You can tell a lot about hotels and motels by their lobbies.
    The towheaded clerk was speaking into a red telephone to match his blazer. He wore a black clip-on bow tie and an arsenal of ballpoint pens in a plastic holder in his handkerchief pocket. One of them was gone from the holder and he was using it to write something on a buff pad with the motel’s name printed across the top. Up close he had a pale moustache whose hairs reminded me of the spikes in the planters. I propped an elbow on the desk and waited for him to finish his conversation. After five minutes he said good-bye and glanced at me and worked the plunger and pecked out a number and spoke to someone else. Ten minutes later he said good-bye again and punched some more buttons. I waited until he started talking, then stretched out an arm and pressed down the plunger.
    He glared and got his mouth into gear. It was a feminine mouth, pink-lipped and mobile under the spiky growth. “What do you—” He closed it again when he saw the buzzer.
    “Two calls when a customer’s standing in front of you, okay. Three is abusing the privilege.” I snapped shut the folder. “I want to see the house man.”
    He went through an open door at the back without saying anything. While he was gone I stood around scowling at my watch every couple of seconds and looking like I had an ulcer and troubles at home, just in case he was watching me through a crack. Real cops don’t act like that, but he didn’t look as if he’d been on the job long enough to know a real cop from his clip-on.
    He came back in finally and picked up the telephone and slotted himself between me and it while he used the buttons. That wasn’t necessary, because I’d lost interest in him. A very tall, bald, gray-eyed man in a well-cut gray suit had entered behind him, and this was a different number altogether. He had a gray silk tie on a gray shirt and a gray moustache that looked to be the grandfather of the bristle on the towhead’s lip and when he spoke his voice was gray.
    “I’m the night manager, Mr. Charm,” he said. “And you are?”
    “The name’s a gag, right?”
    The moustache twitched. “I assure you, no. Has there been a complaint? One of our guests?”
    I returned his serve. “Lady claims her room was broken into night before last. She couldn’t get any satisfaction from the help so she came to us.”
    He drew a slim notebook bound in gray leather from an inside pocket and started leafing through it. “Name?”
    “Alice Irving.”
    “Oh yes.” He shut it and returned it to his pocket. “Someone’s idea of a joke.”
    “Breaking and entering is funny?”
    “There was no sign of forced entry. She reported nothing missing. Guests are often mistaken about such things. They neglect to pack something and immediately assume it’s been stolen.”
    “How many report something was added?”
    The moustache twitched again. It was round and thick and groomed sleek as a greyhound. “May I see your badge, Mr….?”
    “Walker.” I flashed it, not quick enough. I saw it in the gray eyes.
    “I have one of those too,” he said. “The sheriff’s department used to auction them off whenever they changed designs until too many private licenses started showing them around. Are you aware of the penalty for impersonating a police officer, Mr. Walker?”
    “They vary according to the judge. And I never said I was an officer.”
    “Just having the badge could get your license suspended. At the very least. I could have you escorted from the premises, but you saw the door on your way in.”
    “I saw your security