Backfire by Dan Marlowe

Author:Dan Marlowe
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: マイコンテンツ
Published: 2011-01-27T05:00:25.337000+00:00

CHAPTER VII

The Alamance Hotel had seen better days, Marty decided as he passed through the foyer into the lobby. The leather-covered armchairs were six months past due for re-upholstering, and the dark maroon rug considerably longer past replacement. Marty stopped at the mail section of the registration desk and asked for the hotel security officer.

“Down that corridor, sir. First unmarked door.”

Marty followed the direction indicated by the pointing pencil. He tapped twice on the door, and entered. From behind a small desk a big, grizzle-headed man looked up at him owlishly before removing plastic-rimmed glasses. “Something I can do for you, sir?” he inquired in a heavy bass.

“You can skip the 'sir',” Marty told him. He advanced to the desk and spread out his wallet opened to his badge. “The name's Donovan.”

“Fitzgerald,” the big man acknowledged. His face was a florid full moon. He swallowed up Marty's extended hand in a huge, gnarled one. “Georgie MacDonald still the kingfish up at your bowlin' alley?”

“This side of Captain Byrne,” Marty agreed.

“Ahhh, it's seldom the footsloggers get to see the general,” Fitzgerald said comfortably. “I put in a little time with Georgie myself, more years ago than I like to remember.” He heaved himself to his feet with a grunt. “We got somethin' for you here?”

“Unofficially,” Marty said. “Room 518.”

Fitzgerald nodded. “Joe Miller. Ladies' man.” The thick lower lip curled in contempt. “Unofficially? You're not takin' him out of here?”

“It depends on what I hear. I wouldn't think so, but it's not impossible.”

“He in any shape to holler about the way he gets called on?”

Marty hesitated. He couldn't ask Fitzgerald to put his job on the line. “He's not on parole now. I'm sure he's armed, though.”

“Good enough,” Fitzgerald said cheerfully. “Armed means no beef. We'll go on up an' give you a chance to loosen the hinges in his knees.” From a desk drawer he removed a pair of flat, odd-shaped pliers. “We'll roll in on him so fast he'll think his ass is cemented to the mattress.”

On the way to the elevator Marty noted that despite the white hair and the shambling stride Fitzgerald carried himself easily. In the fifth floor corridor he led the way to the door of 518. His left hand inserted a passkey in the lock and turned it carefully. His right darted inside as the door opened three inches and lodged firmly against a chain latch. With a metallic ping of the cutting pliers the chain dissolved in two sections, and Fitzgerald strode into the room.

He was over at the bed before Marty was much more than inside. Marty saw a broad-shouldered man belatedly bounce up on an elbow. He scowled at his visitors, gray eyes surveying them with venom. Joe Coombs was bare to the waist beneath the partly covering sheet, a smooth-skinned, dark-haired man with more than his share of rugged good looks. Beside him on the next pillow Marty could see a bleached blonde head.

Coombs made no further move as Fitzgerald deftly ran his hands beneath both pillows.

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