Free Medusa by Timothy C. Phillips

mind. Instead I thanked her, and rose to go.  
    I put a few bills in the offering plate that sat on a table by the door. As I grasped the knob, she called out behind me.  
    “Mister.”  
    I turned, saw that she had half-risen from her seat.  
    “Yes?”  
    “You be careful, now. You find the man you look for. He is a bad man, a very bad man. But he will not be alone. He will have friends now, and they will be every bit as bad as he. God goes with the good man. You be careful.”  
    “Thanks,” I said, scarcely able to believe any of what had just transpired there in that small space. “Thank you. I’ll do that.”

 
    Chapter 11
     
    We were sitting in the hotel restaurant, about an hour after I got back to the hotel. I had already eaten a light meal for dinner and was sitting sideways in my side of the booth with my arm draped across the back. Tiller was sipping his ever-present coffee.  
    “I still can’t make out who the guy in the blue suit could be,” I mused.  
    “Beats me,” Tiller admitted. “He’s no cop, that’s for sure. His game is way too obvious. It’s always possible he was just some nut. This city’s full of ’em.”  
    “I don’t buy that, Tiller. It’s highly unlikely some nut, as you choose to call him, would decide to follow us around, especially dressed in a snappy suit. I think that guy knows something about this case—something we don’t know.”  
    “An interesting theory, Mr. Longville, but one utterly without supporting evidence. That a hunch?”  
    “Call it that, if you like. Intuition, maybe.”  
    Tiller smirked. “I swear, Roland, you’re getting a little spookier on me every day. I’m beginning to worry that you’re gonna try to spring some hocus-pocus theory on me.”  
    Tiller wore an uneasy expression again, and I wondered if it bothered him that he, too, had felt Fain’s presence at the LeGrandville place. Tiller was a rational man who lived and died by careful examination of the facts. If one saw hoof prints, one assumed a horse had been by, not a zebra. Or a centaur. The supernatural, if one wanted to call it that, was an address that was off any police beat, never mentioned in any police procedural, and something cops didn’t talk about.  
    But there it was, and it must have bothered Tiller.  
    If it did, he didn’t bring it up again. “Why don’t you get some rest?” he suggested abruptly, in reaction to my lengthy and heartfelt yawn. “It’s been a long day.”  
    “Maybe I’ll do that.” I rose and patted Tiller on the shoulder. See you in the morning, you ornery old goat.”  
    “Yeah, well, we ornery old goats know the ropes, junior,” Tiller said with a dry smile. As I walked away, though, I took a last look behind me, and the older man was bent over the table, his head bowed, chin resting on one knuckled fist, seemingly lost in deep thought.  
    * * *
    I entered my room and switched on the light, and froze. Sitting across from me in a chair was the man in the powder-blue suit. His legs were crossed and his right hand was in his lap. In that hand was a black automatic pistol, which was leveled at me. For a moment the two of us regarded each other silently.  
    “Please, do not be alarmed,” the man in the blue suit said presently. He had a heavily accented voice, somewhere between Greek and Russian. The “please” came out “pliss.”  
    “I am Corsack, and I am here, perhaps, to assist you.” He had a light olive complexion, and was leggy and tall, probably my height or better, though of a much more slender build. He had thick, black curly hair, cropped very close on the sides, and the thinnest of mustaches.  
    “How did you get in here? What do you want?” I growled at the blue-suited man, who seemed quite unperturbed by my anger.  
    “Please, Mister Longville. Do not be alarmed. I mean you no harm. Allow me explain my intrusion. But first, if you will, come in please and shut the door.”  
    At this, the