Free The Killing Machine by Ed Gorman Page B

front. I wanted to know which rooms Dennis Wayland and Lee Spenser were staying in. It was convenient that two of the men on the list were staying in my hotel.
    The clerk gave me the room numbers, then said, “But they’re not in their rooms. They’re in having coffee.” He nodded a shining, bald head in the direction of the hotel restaurant. “Those slings are a nuisance, aren’t they? I had to wear one for a month one time. And wait till you take it off. You won’t have any real feeling in your arm for a day or two.”
    I thanked him with a nod and then went into the restaurant. It was Victorian in the heaviness of its furnishings and the lack of sunlight. There was an almost funereal sense to the large room. All the workers wore clothes of dark brown and black. Cheery.
    Wayland and Spenser made it easy for me. They were the only two people in the place except for a thin woman with twitching nervous eyes, sipping tea.
    Wayland and Spenser both watched me walk toward them. When I was about halfway there they glanced at each other.
    I moved the discussion along right away. I set myinspector’s badge down and pulled out a chair with my good hand and sat down.
    The heavy red-haired man in the dark suit said, “You must be working with the marshal.”
    â€œAre you Wayland?” I asked him.
    â€œNo. Spenser.” There was something of the Viking about him. Maybe it was the red hair and the broken nose. Or maybe it was the simple, deep-blue ferocity of the pitiless eyes. “You’d think the government would have better ways of wasting money than to have people like you follow us around.” His size and attitude suggested strength.
    â€œI’m Wayland, Mr. Ford.”
    â€œWe need to talk a little bit,” I said.
    â€œI’m trying to have a goddamn drink and a goddamn meal if you don’t goddamn mind it,” Spenser said.
    They make a mistake, men like these two. They work for the rich and powerful and then slowly begin to believe that they’re rich and powerful themselves. They’re not. They’re hired functionaries, the same as I am.
    â€œMind telling me why you’re in town?” I said.
    â€œNone of your damned business,” Spenser snapped.
    â€œOh, hell, don’t let him rile you, Spenser,” Wayland said. He was tall, slim, lawyerly, right down to the way he tucked his thumbs into the slant pockets of his vest. He had thinning brown hair and shrewd brown eyes. “He thinks he matters because he has a badge, and that’s supposed to frighten people like us.”
    Wayland talked like a lawyer, too, but there was a hurt, weak, quality to his eyes, and his voice was pitched higher than he probably liked.
    But Spenser couldn’t let go. “Some gunny with a badge thinks he’s some big important man.” He glared up at me. He had a bubble of steak sauce hanging off his fierce red mustache. This probably wasn’t a good time to mention it. “There’s nothing illegal in what I’m doing. I work for the Brits, yes. The Brits are friends of ours, in case you hadn’t heard. And they need to defend themselves the same way we do. That means keeping up with new weapons. I’m here by invitation of…” He hadn’t made the connection before. “Ford. I was here at David Ford’s invitation.” His rage cooled some. “Was he a relative?”
    â€œBrother.”
    The two men looked at each other again.
    Wayland said, “That’s odd, isn’t it? You investigating your own brother?”
    They obviously didn’t know that I’d used the gun as a pretext. Yes, the government wanted it. That had been their interest in David. Mine was in saving my brother’s life. If another investigator had been sent, he likely would have killed David on the spot.
    â€œI grew up with him,” I said. “I knew his patterns and how he thought. It made sense for the