The Killing Machine by Ed Gorman Page B

up using my burglar’s pick anyway. So what the hell. I used the pick, swung the door inward, and went for my gun before he could even drop the newspaper he was reading.
    I didn’t want to take the chance of him having a Colt lying on his belly behind the newspaper.
    â€œGet up.”
    â€œYou could be arrested for breaking in here like this.” He sat on the bed with his back to the wall. His suit coat and celluloid collar were off, as was his cravat. His right white sock had a hole. His big toe peeked through. He had a violently discolored toenail. Some kind of fungus.
    â€œI said to get up. If you don’t, I’ll drag you.”
    â€œWhat the hell’s going on?”
    I didn’t tell him. I left the room. He followed in his stocking feet and caught up with me. When we reached the door, I said, “Watch where you step.”
    When he saw what I was talking about, he said, “My Lord. That’s blood. From under the door.”
    â€œSure is.”
    â€œIs he dead?”
    â€œI don’t know. I haven’t been in his room. I knocked but there was no answer. So I thought we’d find out together.” I gave him my best harsh laugh. “Unless you killed him. Then I guess you’d know what we’re going to find, wouldn’t you?”
    I used the pick again and we went into the room.

Chapter 9
    F ifteen minutes later it got awfully crowded in Fairbain’s little room. Two heavyset men with a stretcher came up and took Fairbain to the hospital. They weren’t the gentlest of fellows. One of them banged the center of the stretcher against the door as they were going out. The scrawny doc with one brown glass eye rolled the good one and said, “He’ll live, unless you two boys kill him on the way over.”
    The thing with head and face wounds is that you can bleed a whole hell of a lot without being mortally wounded. Whoever had worked Fairbain over had worked him over with a sap of some kind, mistakenly assumed that he was dead, and then left. Fairbain had other ideas. He’d managed to walk or crawl across the room to the door. Unfortunately, he’d collapsed before he could get it open; collapsed in such a way that the blood from his head wounds drained between the bottom of the door and the floor.
    Given the blood, I’d assumed that he’d had his throat cut, the way my brother had. The use of the sap, though, made more sense in this circumstance. No matter how deft you are with a knife, there’s afair chance the victim will have time to scream at least once before your blade opens up his throat. But if you surprise him with a sap—you can render him unconscious before he can say a word, and then ease him to the bed or the floor where you can continue to work him over quietly.
    You don’t want anybody screaming in a respectable hotel at the dinner hour, not unless you want to attract a lot of attention.
    â€œWhat’s going on here?” Marshal Charley Wickham said after the room started emptying out.
    â€œLooks like somebody tried to kill him.”
    â€œThat wouldn’t be you, would it, Mr. Ford?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t like arms dealers, but I didn’t kill this one.”
    Wickham regarded me thoughtfully for a minute, then went over to the closet door.
    â€œMan hides in here. Waits for Fairbain. Fairbain opens the closet door. Man hits him so hard, Fairbain’s out. Then the man goes to work on him.”
    â€œSounds reasonable.”
    Wickham turned back to me. “Or somebody knocks on the door. Fairbain knows him. Fairbain opens up, man saps him, knocks him out, drags him back inside the room and goes to work on him.”
    â€œThat also sounds reasonable.”
    â€œI’m not finished yet.”
    â€œBe my guest.”
    â€œMan thinks Fairbain’s dead. Leaves hotel believing his work’s done.” Then: “Or.”
    â€œI knew there’d be an