Hit List

left the room and walked around the building to the lobby, where a young man with a wispy blond beard and wire-rimmed glasses was manning the desk. He looked up at Keller’s approach, an apologetic expression on his face.
    “I’m sorry to say we’re full up,” he said. “So are the folks across the road. The Clarion Inn at the next interchange going north still had rooms as of half an hour ago, and I’ll be glad to call ahead for you if you want.”
    “I’ve already got a room,” Keller said. “That’s not the problem.”
    The young man’s face showed relief, but only for a moment. That’s not the problem —if it wasn’t, something else was, and now he was going to hear about it, and be called upon to deal with it.
    “Uh,” he said.
    “I’m in One forty-seven,” Keller said, “and whoever’s in the room directly upstairs of me, which I guess would be Two forty-seven—“
    “Yes, that’s how it works.”
    “I think they’re having a party,” Keller said. “Or butchering a steer, or something.”
    “Butchering a steer?”
    “Probably not that,” Keller allowed, “but the point is they’re being noisy about it, whatever it is they’re doing. I mean really noisy.”
    “Oh.” The clerk’s gaze fell to the counter, where he seemed to find something fascinating on the few inches of Formica between his two hands. “There haven’t been any other complaints,” he said.
    “Well, I hate to be first,” Keller said, “but then I’m probably the only guest with a room directly under theirs, and that might have something to do with it.”
    The fellow was nodding. “The walls between the units are concrete block,” he said, “and you never hear a peep through them. But I can’t say the same for the floors. If you’ve got a noisy party upstairs, some sound does filter through.”
    “This is a noisy party, all right. It wouldn’t be out of line to call it a riot.”
    “Oh.”
    “Or a civil disturbance, anyway. And filter’s not the word for it. It comes through unfiltered, loud and clear.”
    “Have you, uh, spoken to them about it?”
    “I thought I’d speak to you.”
    “Oh.”
    “And you could speak to them.”
    The clerk swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Two forty-seven,” he said, and thumbed a box of file cards, and nodded, and swallowed again. “I thought so. They have a car.”
    “This is a motel,” Keller said. “Who comes here on foot?”
    “What I mean, I took one look at them and thought they were bikers. Like Hell’s Angels? But they came in a car.”
    He was silent, and Keller could tell how much he wanted to ask a roomful of outlaw bikers to keep it down. “Look,” he said, “nobody has to talk to them. Just put me in another room.”
    “Didn’t I say, when you first walked in? We’re full up. The No Vacancy sign’s been lit for hours.”
    “Oh, right.”
    “So I don’t know what to tell you. Unless . . .”
    “Unless what?”
    “Well, unless you wanted to call in a complaint to the police. Those guys might pay a little more attention to the cops than to you or me.”
    Just what he wanted. Officer, could you tell the Hell’s Angels upstairs to pipe down? I’ve got urgent business in your town and I need my rest. My name? Well, it’s different from the one I’m registered under. The nature of my business? Well, I’d rather not say. And the gun on the bedside table is unregistered, and that’s why I didn’t leave it in the car, and don’t ask me whose car it is, but the registration’s in the glove compartment.
    “That’s a little abrupt,” he said. “Think how you’d feel if somebody called the cops on you without any warning.”
    “Oh.”
    “And if they figured out who called them—“
    “I could call the Clarion,” the clerk offered. “At the next interchange? But my guess is they’re full up by now.”
    It was a little late to be driving around looking for a room. Keller told him not to bother. “Maybe they’ll make it an early night,” he said, “or maybe I’ll get used to it. You wouldn’t happen to have some ear plugs in one of those drawers, would you?”
    The bikers didn’t make it an early night, nor did Keller have much success getting used to the noise. The clerk hadn’t had ear plugs, or known where they might be available. The nearest drugstore was closed for the night, and he didn’t know where Keller might find one open. Would a 7-Eleven be likely to stock ear plugs? He