Free Fire Lake by Jonathan Valin Page A

Karen
said.
    "Why don't you call some friends," I said.
"In the meantime, I'll go down to the lobby and make a few calls
of my own.

I slipped the pants on and Karen shuddered. "I'll
stop at the apartment later on," I said apologetically. "And
get some fresh clothes."As I put on my shirt Karen said, "I've
thought of a few people here in town we could check with, too. Some
of Lonnie's old crowd."
    " Fine," I said.
"We'll get right on it."
    ***
    I took the same precaution I'd taken early that
morning, walking up one flight before I took the elevator down to the
lobby. I was probably being paranoid, but until we had a few solid
facts I figured my paranoia was excusable.
    Karen's room had been heavily curtained. And the
daylight pouring through the lobby doors made me wince. The storm had
blown over sometime during the morning, and it had turned into one of
those cold blue winter days, with a high sky full of blazing,
cheerless sun. I bought an Enquirer at the hotel newsstand and sat
down in a lobby chair to read it. I didn't have to look very hard to
find what I wanted-it was all over the front page. CLERK
MURDERED IN MOTEL ROBBERY . I skimmed the
article, looking for some mention of a possible drug tie-in; but the
newspaper was playing up the robbery angle.
    I folded up the paper, stuck it under my arm, and
walked over to a phone stand opposite the reception desk. The clerk
smiled at me pleasantly, although his smile wilted a bit when he took
a closer look at my trousers. That was going to be a problem. I
decided to drive over to the Delores when I was done on the phone.
There was no point in taking Karen with me.
    I called Al Foster at Central Station and asked him
if there'd been any news about Lonnie.
    "It just went out an hour ago, Harry," he
said irritably. "Give us a chance."
    "You must have had a busy night," I said.
    "Meaning?"
    "Meaning that motel thing," I said with as
much casualness as I could muster.
    "It was pretty ugly, all right," Al said.
"Somebody must have really had it in for that guy."
    "The newspapers said it was a robbery."
    "That's what we told them," he said.
    "What are you telling me?"
    "You got a reason to ask?" he said.
    "Just plain old curiosity."
    "Take it someplace else," A1 said, and hung
up.
    I slipped another quarter in the phone and called
George DeVries at the D.A.'s office. A1 was a cop with principles;
George wasn't. DeVries regarded police work as the choicest flower of
the free-market system.
    "Can't talk right now, Harry," George said
after we'd exchanged hellos. "Got a million things on my desk."
    "How'd you like to make it a million, one
hundred?" I asked.
    "Sounds interesting," he said. "Whad'ya
have in mind?"
    "The motel murder-tell me about it."
    "Don't have much yet, Harry," George said
sadly, as if he could see that one hundred dollars flying south for
the winter.
    "Was it a robbery, like the papers said?"
    "There was money missing from the till. But,
Christ almighty, nobody carves somebody up like that for a few
dollars. We figure it was personal. Revenge, maybe."
    "Revenge for what?"
    "This guy, Jenkins was a two-time loser. Real
unsavory character. Statutory rape, indecent exposure, petty larceny.
Dope."
    "What kind of dope?" I said with interest.
    "Small potatoes. Grass. Ludes. Probably a little
coke. He was in tight with a bunch of bikers out in Clarmont County.
We're thinking maybe he screwed one of them, somehow. The way he was
taken out--it looks like bikers. Or some other kind of psychopath."
    "Thanks, George," I said. "The check
will be in the mail."
    "Preciate it, Harry," he said. "Always
good talking to you."
    I hung up and stared dully at the chrome facing on
the phone box. "Personal" didn't get me very far. Personal
could be bikers or Lonnie. Or someone else altogether. At least I'd
learned a little more about Claude, whose criminal past hadn't
surprised me. The man was as venal as they come--I'd known that on
Thursday night. It was still possible that his murder had