Free The Consummata by Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane Page A

into the stuff Gaita had bought for me, the same gray jacket, black sport shirt and gray slacks, and I made sure the .45 was in place in my waistband.
    Then I told the driver to take Tami and his heap back to where he had picked us up.
    The hooker’s face in the rear window was tense with worry, her fingers splayed against the glass. I blew her a kiss that got a tiny smile out of her.
    Then I walked the other eight blocks.
    As I came around the corner, I got a great view of a pyrotechnics display that must have rivaled anything Miami pulled off on July Fourth.
    I flinched, but that was all, as I watched the nearest side of the Hotel Amherst blow apart in a shower of brick and glass that decorated a huge orange ball of flame and billows of charcoal smoke.
    Cars screeched to a stop, some pedestrians froze and screamed and others ran and yelled, and I moved through them toward the hotel like a sleepwalker, stepping over burning rubble. Sirens were just kicking in as I entered the building.
    Not much later, I learned that four people had died in the explosion, and that room 409—where I had reservations under the name of R. Sinclair—had disintegrated.
    What the hell. I decided to check in, anyway.
    Surely they had other rooms available.

CHAPTER FIVE
    The lobby had only the faintest tinge of smoke, the explosion happening several floors up and on the other side of the building.
    I had to stand in line behind flustered, frightened guests who were hurriedly checking out, businessmen mostly but a few couples, hauling their own luggage. I carried an empty suitcase that had contained the change of clothes I was wearing now. The process was slow, because a guest inventory was under way, which would be tricky to execute, because anybody who happened to be out for the evening would start out on the M.I.A. list.
    A frazzled-looking group of guests who apparently hadn’t decided to check out (at least not yet), some in bathrobes, all with wild eyes, were clustered among the plump chairs and potted ferns while a female hotel staffer threaded through, checking their names off a list.
    The missing would not include the Mr. Sinclair who was supposed to have occupied the room, because he hadn’t checked in yet. And nobody would blame him, either, for taking one look at the smoke-bleeding Hotel Amherst and turning around to go looking for another place to stay.
    Checking in, I of course did not use the name R. Sinclair.
    I took a room on the first floor under H. Moran, figuring if anybody really wanted to find me, the initials and theMorgan-Moran similarity would make it easy for them— friend or foe. After all, why hide?
    Somebody had been on to our arrangements. Somebody knew what time I was expected to check in, and had made all the preparations for my arrival, and they hadn’t left a fruit basket. Firemen were moving through the lobby, their chatter indicating they were processing an apparent gas explosion. But I figured it was a time bomb set-up.
    The firefighters let it slip, as they spoke among themselves, that so far four bodies had been located. Four people dead, casually murdered, in the failed attempt to remove me. Collateral damage, the military called it. I wouldn’t forget that four strangers lost their lives for my sake. They hadn’t done so willingly, their sacrifice had been thrust upon them, but I would avenge them just the same.
    The owner of the place, a small bald mustached fellow with a calm his staffers might well envy, had taken over the desk.
    “As you can see, Mr. Moran,” he said with admirable professionalism, “we are mostly checking guests out , not in. Are you quite certain you want to stay with us? I have no way to tell what kind of inconveniences you may face.”
    “Have the fire department boys said you have to shut down? That you’re not to take any new guests?”
    “Well, no....”
    “Then I’m going to assume my money is as good as the next guy’s.”
    I said that in a friendly way, and his