Vengeance by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Author:Stuart M. Kaminsky [Kaminsky, Stuart M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2000-11-15T06:00:00+00:00

There was a vacancy at the Best Western. The night clerk, a thin woman with a slightly pinched face and a nice voice, asked pleasantly if I had any luggage. I knew why she was asking. Suicides sometimes checked into hotels without luggage. They knew they weren’t going anywhere and didn’t need a change of clothes. There was also the chance that I had a prostitute or someone’s wife out of sight in a car and needed the room for a few hours. That was none of the management’s business, but dead bodies and bloody walls were.

“Fire in my place, down the street, behind the DQ. Lost everything.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m insured,” I said with my most plaintive Jobian smile.

I needed a shave. I needed a bath. I needed to think. The clerk gave me a complimentary disposable orange-and-white Bic razor and the key to my room. It was two doors down from the one Beryl Tree had sat in waiting to hear from me.

A shave, a hot bath, a shampoo of what remained of my hair and I was ready to think. It was nearly eleven. I turned on the television instead and watched the rerun of a soccer match on ESPN. Manchester United was playing someone. I didn’t know who.

I lay in bed in my underwear with the lights out watching men running back and forth, crashing into each other, shouting, kicking and trying to score. I turned off the sound and fell asleep knowing that my inner clock would wake me in time to get back to my rooms, change clothes and drive the rented Geo to my appointment with Ann Horowitz.

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