of the robbers was weasel-faced, with thick black hair slicked straight back. The other had a shaved head and a Fu Manchu mustache. Both were big and covered with prison tats. I made my voice as eerie as possible and whispered, “I see dead people.”
Quinn said, “Sixth Sense, 1999.”
Alison surprised me by walking straight up to Quinn with her hand extended.
“I’m Alison,” she said.
Quinn looked at me before responding. I nodded, and he got to his feet. Alison took a step back to accommodate his size, but never took her eyes off him. He placed her hand in his and studied it, as if it were a plaything and he was a gorilla. He lifted her fingertips to the area of his face where lips are normally found, and made a kissing sound.
“I already like you better than your friends,” he said, gesturing toward the bodies.
Alison looked them over carefully. They were dead, with no visible injuries.
“How’d they die?” she said.
Quinn looked at me. I nodded again.
“I Pronged ‘em,” he said.
It was Alison’s turn to look at me.
I said, “Robert Pronge was a fearsome psychopath who discovered a way to mix cyanide with dimethyl sulfoxide, which he used to put in spray bottles. He sprayed his victims in the face like they were bugs, and like bugs, they died within seconds.”
To Quinn I said, “These guys are big. How’d you manage to spray both of them?”
“One came in while the other stood guard in the hall. The first guy kept the door cracked so he could leave quietly after robbing you.”
He glanced at Alison, and she dropped her eyes and looked away.
“The guy searching the room finally opened the bathroom door. When he did, I sprayed him and grabbed him by the shirt to keep him from falling. Son of a bitch was heavy, and hard to maneuver onto the bed, but I managed. Couple minutes later the other one’s getting antsy, puts his face near the open part of the door and whispers to his partner, ‘You need help?’ I whisper back, “Yeah!’ He comes in and I Pronge him and lay him next to the first guy.”
“Alison,” I said. “You know these guys?”
She looked at me through eyes of sincerity. “I’ve never seen them before. But Hector knows them.”
“Hector the bellman?”
She nodded. “This whole thing was Hector’s idea.”
“You’ll only get this one warning,” I said.
Alison looked at Quinn.
“You’d kill me?” she said.
“At first I would,” he said.
Alison said, “I’m not sure what that means, but it’s so creepy I want to amend what I said just now. Okay, so yes, I planned the robbery. But it was Hector’s idea to use these guys. He was supposed to rob you.”
We were silent a moment, and Alison said, “You understand, none of this was planned with you specifically in mind, right?”
“You’d planned it beforehand, and I happened to be the mark.”
“Right.”
“But I’m not the first.”
