Scudder - Eight Million Ways To Die Part 77

'For your girlfriend. Fine-looking woman. I got some coffee made. You'll have a cup, won't you?'

'Thanks.'

I went into the kitchen with him. I said, 'You're a hard man to get hold of.'

'Well, I sort of stopped checking with my service.'

'I know. Have you heard a newscast lately? Or read a paper?'

'Not lately. You drink it black, right?'

'Right. It's all over, Chance.' He looked at me. 'We got the guy.'

'The guy. The killer.'

'That's right. I thought I'd come out and tell you about it.'

'Well,' he said. 'I guess I'd like to hear it.'

I went through the whole thing in a fair amount of detail. I was used to it by now. It was the middle of the afternoon and I'd been telling the story to one person or another ever since I'd put four bullets into Pedro Antonio Marquez a little after two in the morning.

'So you killed him,' Chance said. 'How do you feel about that?'

'It's too early to tell.'

I knew how Durkin felt about it. He couldn't have been happier. 'When they're dead,' he had said, 'you know they're not going to be back on the street in three years, doing it again. And this one was a f.u.c.king animal. He had that taste of blood and he liked it.'

'It's the same guy?' Chance wanted to know. 'There's no question?'

'No question. They got confirmation from the manager of the Powhattan Motel. They also matched a couple of latent prints, one from the Powhattan and one from the Galaxy, so that ties him to both killings. And the machete's the weapon used in both killings. They even found minute traces of blood where the hilt meets the handle, and the type matches either Kim or Cookie, I forget which one.'

'How'd he get into your hotel?'

'He walked right through the lobby and rode up in the elevator.'

'I thought they had the place staked out.'

'They did. He walked right past them, picked up his key at the desk and went to his room.'

'How could he do that?'

'Easiest thing in the world,' I said. 'He checked in the day before, just in case. He was setting things up. When he got the word that I was looking for him, he went back to my hotel, went up to his room, then went to my room and let himself in. The locks in my hotel aren't much of a challenge. He took off his clothes and sharpened his machete and waited for me to come home.'

'And it almost worked.'

'It should have worked. He could have waited behind the door and killed me before I knew what was happening. Or he could have stayed in the bathroom a few more minutes and given me time to get into bed. But he got too much of a kick out of killing and that's what screwed him up. He wanted us both naked when he took me out, so he waited in the bathroom, and he couldn't wait for me to get into bed because he was too keyed up, too excited. Of course if I hadn't had the gun handy he'd have killed me anyway.'

'He couldn't have been all alone.'

'He was alone as far as the killings were concerned. He probably had partners in the emerald operation. The cops may get somewhere looking for them and they may not. Even if they do, there's no real way to make a case against anybody.'

He nodded. 'What happened to the brother? Kim's boyfriend, the one who started everything.'

'He hasn't turned up. He's probably dead. Or he's still running, and he'll live until his Colombian friends catch up with him.'

'Will they do that?'

'Probably. They're supposed to be relentless.'

'And that room clerk? What's his name, Caldern?'

'That's right. Well, if he's holed up somewhere in Queens, he can read about it in the paper and ask for his old job back.'

He started to say something, then changed his mind and took both our cups back to the kitchen to refill them. He came back with them and gave me mine.

'You were up late,' he said.

'All night.'

'You been to sleep at all?'

'Not yet.'

'Myself, I doze off in a chair now and then. But when I get in bed I can't sleep, I can't even lie there. I go work out and take a sauna and a shower and drink some more coffee and sit around some more. Over and over.'

'You stopped calling your service.'

'I stopped calling my service. I stopped leaving the house. I guess I been eating. I take something from the refrigerator and eat it without paying attention. Kim's dead and Sunny's dead and this Cookie's dead, and maybe the brother's dead, the boyfriend, and what's-his-name is dead. The one you shot, I disremember his name.'

'Marquez.'

'Marquez is dead, and Caldern disappeared, and Ruby's in San Francisco. And the question is where's Chance, and the answer is I don't know. Where I think I am is out of business.'

'The girls are all right.'

'So you said.'

'Mary Lou isn't going to be turning tricks anymore. She's glad she did it, she learned a lot from it, but she's ready for a new stage in her life.'

'Yeah, well, I called that one. Didn't I tell you after the funeral?'

I nodded. 'And Donna thinks she can get a foundation grant, and she can earn money through readings and workshops. She says she's reached a point where selling herself is starting to undermine her poetry.'

'She's pretty talented, Donna. Be good if she could make it on her poetry. You say she's getting a grant?'

'She thinks she's got a shot at it.'

He grinned. 'Aren't you gonna tell me the rest of it? Little Fran just got a Hollywood contract and she's gonna be the next Goldie Hawn.'