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“That thought had occurred to me,” I said. “Along with a few others of a more personal nature.”
He showed me his teeth and took my elbow. “Time for recriminations later,” he said. “Right now there’s work to do.”
I nodded and let him hurry me along up the stairs and down the hall to Room 324. I opened the door and we went in, and Brian stepped directly over to look at the body on the bed.
“Octavio,” he said. “As I feared.”
“You do know him,” I said.
He nodded. “He was an ally. Perhaps even a friend.”
“Friendship is such a fragile thing,” I said.
“Like life itself,” Brian said, looking down at Octavio with an expression that might almost have been regret, if I hadn’t known Brian so well.
“I don’t want to intrude on your grief,” I said. “But—”
His head snapped up and he looked at me, all traces of expression completely gone. “Yes,” he said briskly. “You said there were two?”
“I did,” I said. I motioned him over to the closet, and he pushed the door open and knelt beside Stranger Two for no more than three seconds. Then he stood and said, “I don’t know him.”
“Well,” I said. “Even so…”
“Right,” Brian said. “Let’s get them out of here.” He reached into his
canvas bag and took out a rolled-up gray cloth something. “Put this on,” he said, tossing it to me.
I unrolled coveralls that matched his own, and pulled them on over my clothes. By the time I had them buttoned up, Brian had rolled up the bedspread, with Octavio snugly inside. “If you would, brother?” he said politely. “Take that end, please.”
I picked up the near end of the bundle. It felt like the feet. Brian picked up the other end, nodding toward the door, and together we clumsied Octavio out, into the hall, and down the stairs. For some reason dead bodies always seem to be heavier than live ones, and Octavio was no exception. He was surprisingly heavy for such a small corpse, and by the time we had him down the stairs to the back door I was thoroughly winded, and had acquired a brand-new cramp in my back muscles.
Brian bumped the door open with his backside, and we carried Octavio the short distance to the back of the van. Showing surprising strength, Brian held the bundle with one hand while he opened the van’s rear door, and then lifted the body up and in while I came forward with my end. I looked casually around as Brian pulled the bedspread out and slammed the doors shut. I saw nothing at all except a few dozen parked cars.
“All right,” Brian said. “Next?”
We went back up the stairs and repeated the process with Stranger Two. Luck was with us, and we saw no one—and hopefully no one saw us, either. In any case, it was only a few more minutes before we had the second body in the van. I stretched and wondered whether I would ever again have feeling in my back that wasn’t pain.
Brian slammed the van’s back doors, locked them, and nodded at me. “One more trip,” he said.
“Really?” I said. “I only counted two bodies.”
“Your things,” he said, moving past me to the hotel door. “It might be best if you check out now?” He turned and showed me a small and knowing smirk. “Even better if you do it by phone,” he said.
“You may be right,” I said.
He nodded. “It had to happen someday.”
We went up together, pausing cautiously on the third-floor landing, and again at the door to my room—or ex-room, to be more precise. There was no sign of anything or anyone, and I went on in. It took me less than a minute to gather my meager possessions, and we trudged back down the stairs and out to the parking lot. I walked past the van and threw my suitcase into the trunk of my rental car while Brian climbed into the driver’s seat of the van.
“Follow me,” he said, and then added, “Not too far.”
“All right,” I said. I got into the rental car and followed Brian as he nosed slowly out of the lot.
The police car was still parked by the front door, and there was no sign of its occupants. We crawled by and out onto U.S. 1, and a few blocks up, Brian made a U-turn and drove south. I followed along, wondering what he had gotten himself into, and why it should be my problem.
A few minutes south, Brian pulled into a strip mall that held, among other things, an all-night doughnut shop, and I nodded. Nobody would notice my rental car here. I parked it in a spot close enough to the doughnut shop that some of the bright fluorescent lights spilled onto the car, and walked to the far corner of the lot, where Brian sat in the van, engine idling. I climbed into the passenger seat, and he drove back out onto U.S. 1 again, heading south.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes, until finally, as we passed Sunset Drive, I couldn’t take it anymore.
