with turquoise accents.
Burt Wicke, the occupant, was in his late forties. He was about six
feet tall, and at one time he’d been solid and strong, but now all the
hard meat of him was sheathed with fat. His shoulders were big but
round, and his chest was big, and his gut overhung his belt, and as he
sat on the edge of the bed, his slacks were stretched tight around his
hammy thighs. Jack found it hard to tell if Wicke had ever been
good-looking. Too much rich food, too much booze, too many cigarettes,
too much of everything had left him with a face that looked partly
melted. His eyes protruded just a bit and were bloodshot. In that
coral and turquoise room, Wicke looked like a toad on a birthday cake.
His voice was a surprise, higher pitched than Jack expected. He had
figured Burt Wicke to be slow-moving, slow-talking, a weary and
sedentary man, but Wicke spoke with considerable nervous energy He
couldn’t sit still, either. He got up from the bed, paced the room sat
down in a chair, bolted up almost at once, paced, all; the while
talking, answering questions-and complaining.
He was a non-stop complainer.
“This won’t take long, will it? I’ve already had to cancel one business
meeting. If this takes long, I’ll have to cancel another.”
“It shouldn’t take long,” Jack said.
“I had breakfast here in the room. Not a very good breakfast. The
orange juice was too warm, and the coffee wasn’t warm enough. I asked
for my eggs over well, and they came sunny-side up. You’d think a hotel
like this, a hotel with this reputation, a hotel this expensive, would
be able to give you a decent room service breakfast. Anyway, I shaved
and got dressed. I was standing in the bathroom, combing my hair, when
I heard somebody shouting. Then screaming. I stepped out of the
bathroom and listened, and I was pretty sure it was all coming from next
door there. More than one voice.”
“What were they shouting?” Rebecca asked.
“Sounded surprised, startled. Scared. Real scared.”
“No, what I mean is-do you remember any words they shouted?”
“No words.”
“Or maybe names.”
“They weren’t shouting words or names; nothing like that.”
“What were they shouting?”
“Well, maybe it was words and names or both, but it didn’t come through
the wall all that distinctly. It was just noise. And I thought to
myself: Christ, not something else gone wrong; this has been a rotten
trip all the way.”
Wicke wasn’t only a complainer; he was a whiner. His voice had the
power to set Jack’s teeth on edge.
“Then what?” Rebecca asked.
“Well, the shouting part didn’t last long. Almost right away, the
shooting started.”
“Those two slugs came through the wall?” Jack asked, pointing to the
holes.
“Not right then. Maybe a minute later. And what the hell is this joint
made of, anyway, if the walls can’t stop a bullet?”
“It was a .357 Magnum,” Jack said. “Nothing’ll stop that.”
“Walls like tissue paper,” Wicke said, not wanting to hear anything that
might contribute to the hotel’s exoneration. He went to the telephone
that stood on a nightstand by the bed, and he put his hand on the
receiver.
“As soon as the shooting started, I scrambled over here, dialed the
hotel operator, told her to get the cops. They were a very long time
coming. Are you always such a long time coming in this city when
someone needs help?”
“We do our best,” Jack said.
“So I put the phone down and hesitated, not sure what to do, just stood
listening to them screaming and shooting over there, and then I realized
I might be in the line of fire, so I started toward the bathroom,
figuring to hole up in there until it all blew over, and then all of a
sudden, Jesus, I was in the line of fire. The first shot came through
the wall and missed my face by maybe six inches. The second one was
even closer. I dropped to the floor and hugged the carpet, but those
were the last two shots-and just a few seconds later, there wasn’t any