Warnock. The round struck Warnock’s left side and knocked him halfway around.
Purchase broke into a trot that carried him past the still seated McCorkle. Without weighing the possible consequences, McCorkle stuck out his long right leg and tripped Purchase, who went into an awkward, stumbling fall. If he had dropped the pistol, he could have broken the fall with both hands. But he didn’t drop it and wound up sprawled on the marble floor, his right hand still clutching the gun.
McCorkle, now on his feet, slammed one heel down on the gun hand. Purchase grunted and released the pistol. McCorkle kicked it away, turned back and kicked Purchase in the face. The kick made Purchase grunt again.
McCorkle hurried toward Warnock, who, down on knees, was pressing his left side with his left hand just below the rib cage. His right hand held a revolver that McCorkle thought might be a five-shot Smith & Wesson.
McCorkle was ten feet away when Warnock roared, “Behind you, damnit!”
McCorkle spun around. Purchase was in a seated position and bleeding from his mouth and nose. His knees were up, as was his right pants leg, which revealed a black ribbed sock and an empty ankle holster. Purchase used both hands to aim a very small semiautomatic at McCorkle. Automatically classifying the small gun as a .22 caliber, McCorkle made a desperate side-hop to his right, alarmed and dismayed by the way the gun followed him, as if it were just waiting for him to land.
Purchase’s left eye disappeared with a bang. McCorkle, at the end of his hop and suffering from terror-induced detachment, tried to decide whether he had heard the gunshot before or after the left eye disappeared. He was still trying to decide when Purchase seemed to melt onto the marble floor of the lobby where he lay, dead or dying, in a small puddle of urine and blood.
Then the shouts began. One man cursed monotonously. A woman decided to scream. A pair of hotel security men, guns drawn, rushed up to the still kneeling Warnock, who snarled something that made them put away their guns, help him to his feet and into a chair. A few gawkers, mostly men, slowly circled the dead Purchase, staring down at him with morbid fascination.
Once seated in the chair, Warnock grimaced, looked around, located McCorkle and nodded toward the elevators. McCorkle hurried into one of them and, as its doors closed, lit a Pall Mall cigarette with hands that he suspected might never stop trembling.
McCorkle pounded on the door of Granville Haynes’s room until a man’s muffled voice demanded. “Who is it?”
“McCorkle.”
“You alone?”
“Christ, yes.”
“Prove it.”
“Open the door.”
“Not yet.”
“Then how the hell do I prove it?”
“Turn around and put your hands on your head,” Haynes said through the door. “After I open up, back in. If there’s a problem with you, he’ll have to go through you to get to me.”
“The problem’s down in the lobby—dead.”
There was a long silence before Haynes said, “We’ll still do it my way.”
McCorkle turned so that his back was to the room’s door. He held his cigarette between his lips and clasped his hands on top of his head. He heard the door open and Haynes say, “Back in.”
McCorkle backed in, hands still on his head. He lowered them and took the cigarette out of his mouth as Haynes closed the door, shot all of its bolts and fastened the chain lock. Haynes wore only boxer shorts. McCorkle thought his stomach was too flat.
Haynes turned, noticed McCorkle’s cigarette and said, “This is a nonsmoking room.”
McCorkle nodded politely and blew smoke at the ceiling.
Haynes said, “I had a visitor.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He came with a small bolt cutter for the door chain and a pass-card—one of those electronic gizmos you can stick in the slot to open any door in the hotel. You can buy them the way you used to buy passkeys, but they’re a lot more expensive.”
“What kept him out?” McCorkle said.
“Acting.”
“Acting?”
“He was working on the chain with the bolt cutter when I started playing two parts—myself and Tinker Burns. Tinker and I talked about what we’d do to the son of a bitch once we got him inside.”
Suddenly, an uncanny duplicate of Burns’s voice came out of Haynes’s mouth. “You hold him, Granny, and I’ll reach down his throat and yank his gizzard out.” Haynes paused and resumed speaking in his normal voice. “The guy left and I thought he might’ve stuck a piece in your face and made you come back with him. But you say he’s dead.”
“Shot dead,” McCorkle said and headed for the room’s small refrigerator. He removed a miniature bottle of Scotch whisky, poured its contents into a glass and drank half of it.
“Who was he?” Haynes asked.
“Harry Warnock called him Purchase.”
