The Consummata

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 the Morgan-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 smile was friendly back at me.

“You’re welcome to stay with us, though I can’t imagine why under these circumstances you would want to.”

But I was already signing in. “Hell, friend, I’ll see worse places tomorrow.”

“Really?” Just a polite response, but with some curiosity in it, too.

“Yeah. My business is snatching up crappy blocks of buildings for a song, and then holding them until the government shells out for urban renewal projects. This is the closest lodging to where I want to prowl around.”

That was enough to get his attention, and explain my unlikely preference for this hotel. He’d remember my cover story, I knew, because I noted his shrewd look as he studied me. Maybe he could be part of the next buying parcel, he was thinking.

I was almost home free, but a fire inspector—he wore a fireman’s helmet and a plainclothes cop’s business suit— caught the tail end of me checking in, and came over to give me a hard time.

“You don’t want to be checking in here,” he said. He was big and blond and about fifty, with shaggy eyebrows as out of control as the worst fire he ever investigated.

“Actually, I do,” I said. “I have business near here tomorrow, and there are plenty of undamaged rooms available, well away from what you fellas are looking into.”

He said he thought I was nuts, and called over a tall, thin cop he called Homer. They talked about me while I stood there placidly, hoping nobody asked me for the I.D. I didn’t have, and that the .45 in my waistband under the gray sport jacket wasn’t bulging at all.

Then the fire inspector trotted off to handle something more important, while Homer the cop said in a high, husky voice, “Buddy, this place is liable to be closed officially pretty soon.”

“Tonight?”

“No, but by tomorrow maybe.”

I picked up my empty suitcase and looked at him. “Friend,” I said, “where else is there around here to go right now?”

“Sir....” His voice was pleasant. Too damn pleasant. “There are plenty of other hotels.”

“In season and right now, without reservations?”

“So maybe you’ll have to look around a little.”

“How much got busted out by the blast?”

“Quite a bit.”

“But not in the wing I’m in.” I gave him a big boys-will-beboys grin. “Come on, buddy—during the war I was shacked up with a broad in a London flat, and we never stopped going at it, even when the apartment house took a direct hit.”

The cop let out a half-grudging grunt of appreciation and said, “Awright—suit yourself, mister. I just wanted to warn you what you might be getting yourself into.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m dead on my feet and need to hit the rack. I probably won’t be around that long.”

But the cop was already wandering off, forgetting all about me.

So I sat in the room with the .45 in my lap and looked out the window, watching the reflections of nighttime Miami on the overcast sky, a small section of Miami Beach in the far background. Down on the street, the curious still milled and two construction trucks were pulling up to the curb to join the fire wagons. Across from the hotel, local TV mobile units had finished their pictures for the late news show and were packing away their gear.

I got up and went over to the bed and sat on its edge, put the .45 on the nightstand, picked up the phone, and dialed a number, and when a familiar voice answered, I said, “Hello, Bunny.”

“Morgan?”

“That’s right. You sound surprised to hear my voice.”

Maybe she’d put out another contract on her old friend....

“How’d you get this number?”

“I got sharp eyes, kid. I read the dial on your phone on your desk.”

Her voice was low and tremulous—for a cool customer, she was off her game.

“God, Morgan,” she said, “I heard what happened.”

“Who from?”

“It’s all over the radio and TV.”