Chapter Twenty-NineIn Line Of Duty
Tim lit a cigarette. He lit it because he thought it would quiet his nerves, then he realized that his hands were steady and that his nerves were already quiet. His brain, which had been a blur upstairs in the hotel, felt cool and clear. It was a funny thing about death; it did that sometimes. It had been that way in the war, when he’d had to go into a town where there were snipers. Scared green till he got there, then it was all right. Not good, but all right.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“Cops,” said Mrs. Barrelforth. “We don’t call ’em, though, we go to ’em. Mahomet to the mountain.” She jerked her head toward the hotel entrance. “And we take that little bundle of trigger-happiness with us.”
They picked little bundle up between them and carried h
