Макс Коллинз - Killing Quarry

“No.”

“No?”

The heel of my hand hit the steering wheel. “Tonight. We’ll go in, pack up, and follow the example of those working girls. Get the hell out of Dodge.”

She thought about it, then nodded.

We went in that first-floor door — all the guests had been given keys to the chalet — and I switched on a light over the entry area. Still mostly in the dark was the big low-ceilinged living room, awash in wood, where all the fun had been had.

For a change, we used the elevator. On the third floor, we went to our room and turned several lights on, which had a settling effect on us, even if the doe-hoof lamp didn’t. Nonetheless, my mind hadn’t been changed. I began packing and so did Lu, which for her largely consisted of collecting the guns she had salted around.

And I was paranoid?

She stepped into one of her jumpsuits and I got back in the black Aloha shirt with white blossoms and my lined black leather jacket and black jeans, the nine millimeter in the deep jacket pocket. I noticed she was carrying her little Smith and Wesson .22 in a palm.

Soon, like guests trying to duck the bill, we crept out of our room and I almost missed it.

Almost missed it because I had been wrong — somebody did have a light on. I hadn’t noticed when we’d got off the elevator and quickly made it to our room, probably because the half-open door was off to the side, and the light within probably wasn’t more than a nightstand lamp.

We were waiting for the elevator when something made me go over and check it out.

“Jack,” she whispered, “what are you doing?”

“Not sure,” I said, something prickling at the back of my neck. I was getting my nine mil out.

With the toe of my right Reebok, I nudged the door open just a little. Just a tad. Not much at all.

But enough to see him sprawled on the floor.

“Jack,” she whispered, not having the view I did. “Elevator’s here.”

I summoned her with a curled finger.

She came over, frowning, then as I shouldered the door gently open, her eyebrows went up and her jaw went down. I slipped inside and she followed, shutting the door quietly behind her with an elbow. For a good ten seconds, which is longer than it sounds, we just stared.

Pudgy Alex Kraft, in yellow pajamas and brown slippers, was on his back and he was staring at the open-beamed ceiling with three eyes. Well, really two eyes and a red hole in his forehead. His hands were over his head, as if he were doing a prone jumping jack, though I doubted he’d ever done one standing up. His weak-chinned, blond fuzz-topped head lay in a little lake of blood, still glistening red.

This had happened not long ago. Probably not while we were in the building, although that was not impossible. But not long ago.

I checked the bathroom and the closet, and even under the bed, then glanced at Lu and shook my head.

Nobody.

We used our sleeves to wipe off anything we’d touched, then reconvened in the area by the elevator, which had gotten impatient waiting for us and gone away.

“What now?” she asked, softly but not quite a whisper.

“We could just fucking go,” I said, also sotto voce, “and maybe get shot in the back stepping off the elevator or coming down the stairs.”

“Or?”

My look told her this was my preferred option. “Check out the rest of this building.”

We did that.

In the room next to ours, the door was also cracked open but no lights were on. Enough moonlight was coming in the windows, though, to illuminate George Callen in his bed, sleeping on his side, or anyway he had been when somebody put a bullet in his left temple, turning his pillow an irregular scarlet. He appeared to be in his underwear, but I wasn’t about to pull the covers back to confirm that.

She was frowning. “Could all this have just happened? Wouldn’t we have heard it?”

My nod was slow. “Probably. Even with a silenced gun, the noise in a place this quiet would’ve got our attention.”

“Then you think if this had happened before we left, we’d have heard the shots.”

“I think if this had happened before we left,” I said, “ we’d have been shot.”

She shuddered, frowned, shook her head as if to clear cobwebs. “So the shooter is gone.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

That left one more room on our floor, which proved to be unlocked, but showing no sign that anyone had slept there. Probably the room Goldman would have used, if he hadn’t bailed.

On the second floor, we encountered a locked door. We knocked, got no answer. Probably a room without a guest, including both categories — living and dead.

The next door was locked too, a replay of the previous one.

But another unlocked room came next, only the bed was rumpled, obviously slept in. No sign of a current occupant. So, presumably, one of the seminar participants wasn’t in his room.

The last door we tried was ajar on a room offering up another sleeping beauty, only not a beauty and nobody who could be woken with a kiss. Thin-faced Joe Field, in shiny brown pajamas too big for him, appeared to have been shot in the head in his sleep, like Callen. Also a side sleeper, but the other side. Also resting on a blood-soaked pillow.

For the moment, we returned to our room. Sat on the bed with our guns in our laps.

She asked, “Somebody have keys to the rooms? A passkey maybe?”

“Maybe. Or just as likely got let in, because the person knocking was another seminar participant, stopping by for some conversation or whatever. Who then left the door unlocked without the occupant noticing, or taped it to prevent locking.”

She seemed confused, not afraid. “So what do we do? Call the cops?”

“You’re funny. No. You notice who isn’t among those present? And dead?”

“Poole. The room with the rumpled bed is obviously his. You must be right about him.”

I nodded. “And he’s probably disappointed he didn’t add us to his tally. He could be downstairs waiting.”

She shook her head. “No, he would have taken us out when we got here.”

“Probably. Shall we risk that?”

“...Maybe not.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “We’ll go down and check the lower floor. Make sure that we’re alone. You haul your travel bag along. Because then, you’re leaving.”

“I am?”

“You are. You can meet me at my A-frame or head back to St. Paul, as you please.” I got my car keys from my jacket pocket and handed them to her. “Just don’t take my Firebird with you if you head back to the Twin Cities, okay? Get some use out of that Camaro.”

She nodded, smiled.

We checked the main floor out.

Nothing, nobody.

It was possible we’d just played out a bedroom farce with the shooter, with us coming up and going into our room, and him then coming out of a victim’s room and going down. Fawlty Towers with guns.

Finally we hustled from the chalet into the parking lot to the nearby Firebird, staying very fucking low.

Then she was gone, with a throaty roar of my car’s engine, and I went back in.

Just me and the dead.

I called the front desk at the main lodge and got put through to Dan Clark, who was staying in a room there to be handy in case anything came up at the chalet. I felt like this qualified.

I met him at the door. He’d come over in his dark blue Jaguar sedan, which he didn’t look as spiffy as. His short dark hair managed to stick up a little on one side, where he’d slept on it, his face appeared a little puffy, eyes lacked their usual sharpness, and he looked like a guy who’d been woken up in the middle of the night. Which he was, although at after two AM, this really was morning, wasn’t it?