Darkfall

down here on a repair job for the first time, and he starts feeling cramped up, starts to shake, gets short of breath, feels the walls closing in, starts hearing things, imagining things. If that’s the case with you, don’t worry about it. Doesn’t mean you’ll be fired or anything like that. Hell, no! They’ll just make sure they don’t give you another underground assignment; that’s all.”
    “I saw those things, Ted.”
    “Nothing’s there.”
    “I saw them.”
    X
    Down the hall from the late Dominick Carramazza’s hotel suite, the next room was large and pleasant, with a queen-size bed, a writing desk, a bureau, a chest of drawers, and two chairs. The color scheme was coral with turquoise accents.
    Burt Wicke, the occupant, was in his late forties. He was about six feet tall, and at one time he’d been solid and strong, but now all the hard meat of him was sheathed with fat. His shoulders were big but round, and his chest was big, and his gut overhung his belt, and as he sat on the edge of the bed, his slacks were stretched tight around his hammy thighs. Jack found it hard to tell if Wicke had ever been good-looking. Too much rich food, too much booze, too many cigarettes, too much of everything had left him with a face that looked partly melted. His eyes protruded just a bit and were bloodshot. In that coral and turquoise room, Wicke looked like a toad on a birthday cake.
    His voice was a surprise, higher pitched than Jack expected. He had figured Burt Wicke to be slow-moving, slow-talking, a weary and sedentary man, but Wicke spoke with considerable nervous energy. He couldn’t sit still, either. He got up from the bed, paced the room sat down in a chair, bolted up almost at once, paced, all the while talking, answering questions-and complaining. He was a non-stop complainer.
    “This won’t take long, will it? I’ve already had to cancel one business meeting. If this takes long, I’ll have to cancel another.”
    “It shouldn’t take long,” Jack said.
    “I had breakfast here in the room. Not a very good breakfast. The orange juice was too warm, and the coffee wasn’t warm enough. I asked for my eggs over well, and they came sunny-side up. You’d think a hotel like this, a hotel with this reputation, a hotel this expensive , would be able to give you a decent room service breakfast. Anyway, I shaved and got dressed. I was standing in the bathroom, combing my hair, when I heard somebody shouting. Then screaming. I stepped out of the bathroom and listened, and I was pretty sure it was all coming from next door there. More than one voice.”
    “What were they shouting?” Rebecca asked.
    “Sounded surprised, startled. Scared. Real scared.”
    “No, what I mean is-do you remember any words they shouted?”
    “No words.”
    “Or maybe names.”
    “They weren’t shouting words or names; nothing like that.”
    “What were they shouting?”
    “Well, maybe it was words and names or both, but it didn’t come through the wall all that distinctly. It was just noise. And I thought to myself: Christ, not something else gone wrong; this has been a rotten trip all the way.”
    Wicke wasn’t only a complainer; he was a whiner. His voice had the power to set Jack’s teeth on edge.
    “Then what?” Rebecca asked.
    “Well, the shouting part didn’t last long. Almost right away, the shooting started.”
    “Those two slugs came through the wall?” Jack asked, pointing to the holes.
    “Not right then. Maybe a minute later. And what the hell is this joint made of, anyway, if the walls can’t stop a bullet?”
    “It was a.357 Magnum,” Jack said. “Nothing’ll stop that.”
    “Walls like tissue paper,” Wicke said, not wanting to hear anything that might contribute to the hotel’s exoneration. He went to the telephone that stood on a nightstand by the bed, and he put his hand on the receiver. “As soon as the shooting started, I scrambled over here, dialed the hotel operator, told her to get the cops. They were a very long time coming. Are you always such a long time coming in this city when someone needs help?”
    “We do our best,” Jack said.
    “So I put the phone down and hesitated, not sure what to do, just stood listening to them screaming and shooting over there, and then I realized I might be in the line of fire, so I started toward the bathroom, figuring to hole up in there until it all blew over, and then all of a sudden, Jesus, I was in the line of fire. The first shot