J.A. Johnstone - The Loner - Crossfire

As soon as he spoke, he stepped quickly to one side, in case somebody in the hall decided to let loose with a shotgun blast through the door.

Instead, a voice he recognized as belonging to one of the bellboys replied, “I have a telegram for you, Mr. Browning.”

Conrad started to ask who the wire was from, then realized the message was probably sealed up and the boy wouldn’t know. He tucked the gun behind his belt where it would be handy and opened the door.

The bellboy’s eyes widened a little at the sight of the black gun butt sticking up at Conrad’s waist, but he didn’t say anything except, “Here you go, sir,” as he held out the Western Union envelope. Conrad took it, nodded his thanks, and handed the boy a silver dollar. He shut the door and tore open the envelope to slide out the yellow telegraph flimsy.

A frown creased his forehead as he read the words printed on it in a telegrapher’s block letters:

WILL KNOCK ON YOUR DOOR IN FIVE

MINUTES STOP PLEASE TALK TO ME STOP

There was no signature.

Conrad studied the telegram for a long moment, then abruptly crumpled it and tossed it in a waste basket. He hurried back to his bedroom, finished buttoning his shirt along the way, and picked up his clean suit coat to shrug into it. He had brushed his hat as clean as he could, so he settled it on his head, then picked up the gunbelt on his way back through the sitting room. He pouched the iron and buckled the belt around his hips.

His hand was on the butt of the Colt as he opened the door and stepped into the corridor, which was deserted at the moment. The hotel had elevators, several of them, in fact, but there was also a stairwell down the hall to the left, and the door to it was set back in a small alcove. Conrad went to it and stepped into that alcove, then stopped and edged his head slightly past the corner so he could look back down the corridor. He had a good view of the door to his suite. He wanted to see who was going to knock on that door in a couple minutes.

He still had a lot of acquaintances in Carson City. None of them had anything to do with him now, though. It wasn’t like he had tried to keep in touch over the years. In fact, some of his former friends were probably still angry with him for making it look like he had died when his house burned down, then letting everyone believe that for months.

The only other people he knew were Deputy Wallace and Dr. Liam Taggart, and neither of them would have sent him a telegram. If they’d wanted to talk to him, they simply would have shown up at the hotel and knocked on his door. There was something fishy about that telegram, and he wanted to know what it was. Staking out his suite door seemed like the best way to find out.

He stiffened as a man emerged from the elevators and came along the corridor, looking at the numbers on the doors. He wore a gray suit and a black derby and sported a close-cropped beard. Conrad had never seen him before, at least not that he recalled. He put his hand on his gun butt again as the man paused in front of his door, then took a piece of paper out of his pocket and looked at it for a second. He put the paper back, shrugged to himself, and raised his hand to knock.

At that moment, Conrad heard the faint click of the stairwell door behind him, then a rustle of fabric. The cold ring of a gun barrel pressed itself to the back of his neck.

“I knew you’d take the bait,” a woman’s voice said, as down the hall the bearded man’s knuckles pounded on the door of Conrad’s suite.

Conrad moved with blinding speed, twisting away from the gun and whirling around. His left arm came up, hit the woman’s arm, and knocked it to the side so the gun was no longer pointing at him. He drove his body against hers, forcing her back against the wall of the alcove, and closed his hand around the cylinder of the little revolver so it couldn’t fire even if she pulled the trigger. He wrenched the gun out of her fingers. His other hand came up and caught hold of her chin, making her gasp. He knew he was probably hurting her and he regretted that, but he wanted answers.

“I’m not the only one who took the bait, Miss Eastman,” he told the blonde he had last seen in the offices of the late and unlamented Carl Monroe.

Chapter 6

Conrad kept the pressure on Lorraine Eastman’s chin, preventing her from screaming or making even the smallest outcry. Her blue eyes were wide with fear as he pinned her to the wall. He was aware of the warm, full curves of her body under her dress, but at the moment they didn’t mean much to him.

Down the hall, the bearded man continued to knock on the door of Conrad’s suite for a minute or so. Then the knocking stopped and he heard receding footsteps as the man walked away. A moment later the elevator door rattled as it closed and the cage started to descend.

“We’re going to my suite,” Conrad told the blonde. “Don’t make a racket, and you won’t get hurt.”

She hissed something unintelligible at him. He figured she was trying to curse him. Quickly, he shifted his grip on her, getting his left arm around her waist from behind and clapping his right hand completely over her mouth. She struggled in his grasp, but he was too strong for her. He pulled her out of the alcove and forced her down the hall toward his suite.

He hoped no other hotel guests or employees came along before he was able to get her through the door. If they did, trying to force a young woman into his suite would certainly look bad for him. Luck was with him, however. The corridor stayed deserted long enough for him to open the door, which he had left unlocked. A hard shove sent Lorraine Eastman stumbling into the sitting room.

She turned toward him and opened her mouth to scream. He grabbed her again and clamped his hand around her throat, stifling any outcry.

“I know I’m not being much of a gentleman,” he told her, “and I’m truly sorry about that. But you’ve attacked me a couple times now, and I want to know why. If I take my hand away from your throat, do you promise not to scream?”

She glared at him for a couple seconds, then a look of resignation came into her eyes and she nodded.

Conrad didn’t believe her. “I can knock you unconscious before you manage to get a peep out, and I will if you don’t cooperate. I’ll try to pull my punch, but I can’t promise you won’t be injured. I have the rest of the day and all night if you want to be stubborn about this.”

The fear in her gaze struck him as genuine. When he asked again if she promised not to scream, she nodded and he believed her. He moved his hand away from her throat but held it ready to strike if he needed to.

“I’m not going to yell,” she said in a surly voice. “If you’ll swear to let me go, I promise to tell you whatever it is you want to know.”

“You answer my questions first, and then we’ll talk about what’s going to happen to you,” Conrad suggested in return. “That’s the best deal you’re going to get.”

She sighed wearily. “All right. I agree. Now, will you stop pawing me and let me sit down?”

“Keeping you from trying to kill me isn’t exactly the same as pawing you,” Conrad pointed out. He released her and pointed to one of the well-upholstered armchairs. “Sit down.”

The blonde sat. She wore the same dark blue dress she had worn at Monroe’s office earlier. A matching hat perched on her head. She had tucked her hair back up as best she could after Conrad wrecked the arrangement of curls. She looked down at the floor. “What is it you want to know?”

“Your name is Lorraine Eastman, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. How did you know that?” Before he could answer, she went on, “Never mind. I suppose the law told you. They’ve been trying to get something on Mr. Monroe for as long as I’ve worked for him.”