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“Yeah, Texas. Whatever. I was damned if I was gonna give the guy up to the fucking FBI, dead or alive. He owed me for my hooker. So we went to squeeze him—nobody cheats me, ever—and his Kraut buddy starts a fucking shoot-out.”

He paused, then went on:

“They lost. And now the sonsofbitches are fish food.”

He made a thin smile.

“That enough ‘to go on’?”

Fulmar thought for a moment.

“Is this pistol all you found? No wallets? No IDs?”

The fat guy glanced at Christopher and jerked his head to say, Give it to him.

Fulmar turned and saw Christopher holding out what looked like a pen.

“Found this in a duffel in their room. Maybe you can make something of it.”

Fulmar took it and looked at it closely.

It’s an acid fuse disguised as an ink pen.

And where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Or maybe explosives…

“There wasn’t anything else in the bag?”

The hairy guy looked at him with a blank face.

“Nope.”

My ass. Of course there was.

But…okay…I’m not going to get anywhere with this.

You keep whatever you got.

“I need to use your phone,” Fulmar said.

“Help yourself,” the hairy guy said, motioning to the black one on his desk.

Fulmar gave a number to the operator.

“Switchboard oh-five,” a woman’s monotone voice answered.

“Fulmar for Chief Ellis.”

“Hold one.”

There was a clicking sound, then a familiar voice.

“Ellis.”

“Got a pencil handy?”

“Huh?” Ellis said, then recognized Fulmar’s voice. “Uh, yeah…okay, go.”