Free The Howard Hughes Affair: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Four) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page B

had locked behind Trudi Gurstwald.
    “We know you are in there, Peters,” came a voice suspiciously like the one on the phone. “We called from across the street. Now open the door and we will have a nice talk without disturbing people.”
    His use of the editorial “we” failed to convince me that someone was with him. On the other hand, he seemed to have a gun and mine was in my car’s glove compartment.
    “Look,” I said, backing away in the hope of making it to the phone, but the “look” was as far as I got. The figure in the hall put two shots through the window, shattering Shelly’s name and mine. The bullets hit somewhere in the general vicinity of the whitish square where the gum disease chart once rested. I remember thinking we’d have to put the chart back to cover the bullet holes, and then I realized the bullets had come within a hair of hitting my face. The guy with the gun had been waiting for my voice so he could fire toward it. I backed against the wall, reaching for one of the alcove chairs. There was an open square where the window had been and it showed the hall. I saw no one there. But I heard no footsteps. Stupid anger took hold, and I went for the door like a Neanderthal, with chair in hand. Chair against gun. Idiot against achiever.
    I opened the door, pushing glass out of the way, and stepped into the hall. Whatever he hit me with, and I think it was the gun, was right on target, low on the skull. I went down, knowing he had suckered me into the hall while he pressed himself against the wall.
    I didn’t go out right away. My hand must have automatically dropped the chair and went to the back of my head to keep in the blood or stop another blow. I rolled over on my back and dimly saw a guy above me with a gun. I had never seen him before. He reminded me of a fuzzy version of Ward Bond, and then I was out.
    Koko the Clown took my hand and led me into the inkwell where we found ourselves in Cincinnati. He drove me up the side of the hill across the river and out to the suburb in the hills where I lived. Then Koko disappeared. I ran to my two-level house to greet my family, but they weren’t there. I ran outside and they weren’t there. I ran past rows of shacks and no one was there. I was alone in Cincinnati and scared. I was scared because no one else was alive in Cincinnati and because I’ve never been in Cincinnati in my life and I wondered even while I dreamt what the hell I was doing there. I think I also wondered if I was dead. Someone groaned, and Koko reappeared to take my hand. He led me to my car, with the bumper still missing because Arnie hadn’t gotten to it, and drove me back down the hill and out of the inkwell.
    Early morning sunlight burnt my eyes and I forced them open. I was still alive, or as close to alive as I usually am. The chair I had taken into the hall was a few feet away. The glass from the broken window of my office was all over the place. The back of my head screamed, and I remembered a warning from Young Doc Parry about not taking any more jolts in the head. I managed to sit up, wondering what time it was and why I was still alive.
    The door to our offices was open and so was the door to the alcove. From my sitting position, I could see Shelly’s dental chair, the same chair where Trudi Gurstwald and I had tussled minutes or hours ago. Someone was in the chair, and that made me wonder. If Shelly had a patient in there, he must have seen me in the hall. He was insensitive, but not enough to leave me out there. He’d at least wake me to complain about the broken window.
    My eyes focused slowly and I recognized the man in the chair, though there was something strange about him and the way he stared at me. The something was that he was dead and covered with blood. I started to crawl toward him, remembered the glass on the floor and pulled myself up, using the open door. Then I touched the back of my head and discovered that there was no blood, just a massive