seymoure

The Meeting

“Tiger the dog had a showdown with a fast moving flower truck in the middle of the street and lost.”

-Barry Williams

I stopped at the desk to see if we got any messages.

There were two.

The first was from Harry Vernon, back at the agency, saying that he had e-mailed me a file with everything they had found on Vern Decker, Simon Churchill, and they were still working on Terry Mahoney.

It seems there were so many that they were having trouble narrowing it down. If I could send them a picture of Mahoney it would help a lot. I thought that I could send them about a dozen from the articles I had gotten from Eddie and that should do the job. The manager of the hotel said he could scan them as a service and it would be no trouble.

The second, strangely enough, was from Terry Mahoney. It read:

“Must have a meeting at earliest moment. It is a matter of life or death. Will call again at 7 pm.”

Chester and I decided to order our dinner from room service to make sure we were available.

I waited for dinner by unpacking and cleaning my guns. I had brought about 100 rounds of ammunition, so that wouldn’t be a concern.

Then as I ate, I read the newspaper I had picked up in the lobby. For some reason I had left the television on in the background, something I almost never do.

My attention was drawn by a reporter doing a remote report. There had been a gas explosion, and a half a block was destroyed.

I was stunned when I recognized the neighborhood. I turned the sound up and focused.

“Pending notification of any family, the dead man’s name is being withheld. The explosion originated in his house.”

There was a rap on my door, then, “Boss, it’s me, Chester”

“It’s not locked; come on in.”

Chester came in with a bewildered look, and said, “I was just watching the news on Channel 3, and….”

“I know,” I cut him off; “I’m watching Channel 7 and they just showed it.”

“I think the dead man…”

“Yeah, Vern Decker. What do you think?”

He dropped onto the bed, befuddled. “Didn’t he tell us that he had cut off his gas?”

“That’s right,” I put down my fork and my hand went unconsciously to one of my guns, “If that is the story they are putting out, he was murdered, and they may not question enough to find out. It’s easier to get the case off your load than go out on a limb.”

“What are we going to do?”

“After we meet with Terry Mahoney, I think we should find out who is leading the investigating.”

We waited until almost midnight without seeing or hearing a word from or about Mahoney.

I decided that, since the news reports hadn’t changed, the morning would be good enough time to check in with the police.

The near collision of earlier that evening took on an even darker portent.

We had to get serious about this.

Back to the Beginning

Continue on to Chapter 16