A Fatal Glass of Beer by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page A

Chimp and recommended the chicken and dumplings. The ice cream was melting on my pie.
    “Thank you,” said Gunther, checking his pocket watch.
    “Warning,” I said. “Waitress is a nice young dish who doesn’t get around much and isn’t shy.”
    “I shall endeavor to resist,” he said. “Chicken and dumplings?”
    “Apple pie’s good too,” I added, taking a bite.
    Gunther was back in about an hour. He ate slowly, even when he was alone. He had not seen the Chimp and the waitress had expressed to him a similar invitation to the one she’d given me, which he had politely refused.
    We went to bed early. My gun was on the table near my mattress. The door was locked and a chair in place under the knob.
    I fell asleep almost instantly and stayed that way until I heard the two gunshots a little after three in the morning. They were followed by two more.

Chapter Six
     
If man is made in God’s image, does God have prostate trouble?
     
    I fumbled for my gun and the light, found both, and saw Gunther standing next to his bed, waiting for direction. I was wearing boxer shorts, a white undershirt, and a look of bewilderment. I ran for the door, kicked the chair out of the way, opened the locks, and dashed out into the hall, where the chances of getting myself shot were pretty good.
    The door to Fields’s room was open. I ran to it, gun ready, breathing hard. The lamp was out but from the light in the hall I could make out a figure crouched next to the bed.
    Behind me a few people were opening their doors just a crack to see what was going on. A hum of low voices murmured in a frightened blur. There was a switch on the wall. Gunther, at my side, hit the switch and I leveled my gun.
    Kneeling beside Fields’s bed was the Chimp—Albert Woloski—with a gun in his hand and confusion on his primate face.
    He stood up and reached toward the bedclothes, still holding the gun in his hand.
    “Drop it,” I ordered.
    Maybe it was the boxer shorts and undershirt. Maybe the Chimp thought I could shoot faster than he could. Whatever the reason, he went headfirst through the open window next to the bed.
    Gunther and I ran after him and leaned out. It was a two-story drop, but the Chimp was up and running down the empty street. He was limping slightly but moving fast.
    I turned to Fields’s bed and pulled back the covers. By now the young girl who had checked us in stood in the doorway in a pink robe, her blond hair down.
    The bed was empty. A pillow lay under the blanket. Feathers were showing through the two bullet holes in the pillow. I checked the blanket. Two more bullet holes.
    “How many shots did you hear?” I asked Gunther.
    “Four,” he said. “Where is Mr. Fields?”
    “What’s goin’ on here?” the frightened girl in the doorway asked.
    “Long story,” I said, going for the washroom.
    It was empty.
    “Is there an all-night bar in town?” I asked the girl.
    “No,” she said as Gunther and I moved past her.
    There were three people, a woman and two men, in the hallway, tentative, close to the doors to their rooms. They were all over sixty.
    “Any of you see or hear anything?” I asked.
    They stood silently, stunned.
    “I’m a detective,” I said, feeling more like a half-dressed idiot with a gun in my hand.
    “Shots,” said the woman.
    “Four,” said one of the men.
    “Running down the hall,” said the other man. “Shots woke me up and I heard someone running down the hall and two more shots.”
    “Just go back to your rooms,” I said as calmly as I could. “No one’s hurt. Domestic squabble. Got out of hand.”
    The trio of guests went reluctantly back to their rooms. We could hear the chains being pulled and the locks snapping into place.
    “What’s happening?” asked the girl.
    “We’ve got to find Mr. Fields,” I said.
    “Make more sense with your pants on,” she said. “Is anything broken?”
    “You’ll need a new blanket and pillow,” I said, heading back toward our room.