I took a deep breath, then went over to Sanderson and tapped his shoulder. "Why don't I go talk to this man?"
"And get yourself blown across the hall? How am I supposed to explain that to the voters next fall? One more term and I'm officially retired. We've never had an unsolved homicide."
"It won't be unsolved if he shoots me," I pointed out in a remarkably cool voice. "You, Japonica, and Lloyd will all be witnesses. Well, Lloyd will have to get off his rear and come into the hall if he wants to watch the fun, but that's not important. What is important is that this man is holding Estelle in her room. I'm the only person who can talk to him."
"Why's that?"
I didn't have a good answer, but rather than admit it, I rolled my eyes and said, "Haven't you read Japonica's reports? It's all laid out like a recipe for lemon icebox pie. Maybe you should go to the office and get caught up. We'll wait here, our fingers crossed that no one gets hurt until you get back."
"You're one major pain in the neck," Sanderson said, holstering his gun as he stepped back into the foyer. "Anybody else ever tell you that?"
I gave him a tight smile as I went down the hall and knocked on the door of eight-eleven. "Estelle?" I called. "Are you in there?"
The door opened an inch. I could see Estelle's face, whiter than a pillowcase and dazed with fear.
"Arly?" she said huskily.
"You want to go down to the restaurant and have supper?"
"I don't think I can do that just now."
"Has someone got a gun stuck in your back again? I swear, Estelle, I can't take you anywhere without this happening. Let me talk to him."
The man who'd assaulted me earlier took her place. "You must think you're pretty damn funny. Any other jokes before I put a bullet in your friend's head?"
"And then dive off the balcony? In how many languages can you say 'Splat'?" I clapped my hands in case he'd forgotten his previous sound effects.
He grunted. "So what else you got to say?"
"There's a highly trained SWAT team in the parking lot. If you so much as step onto the balcony, you'll be hyperventilating in ways you never thought about before. I guess that covers it."
"Just take the money and let me be," said Estelle from behind him. "I hadn't even gotten around to considering how to spend it. Easy come, easy go."
"That's not what he's after," I said. "It's something that used to be in Stormy's bag. Of course, if it's in the hotel safe, he's going to have to do more than wave a gun under your nose."
"It's not something she'd have put in the safe," the man said, curling his lip. "She didn't hide it in her hotel room or the one right next door, either."
"Why would she have hid it in here?" I asked.
"'Cause she saw me in Memphis and knew I was after her. Someone saw her carrying three bags yesterday afternoon. She must have switched 'em around."
"You want to look in mine?" said Estelle. "Be my guest."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mackenzie edging along the wall toward us. This was not good. I extended my hands. "I'm unarmed. Why don't you let me inside and we'll all search together? Afterward, you can keep me as the hostage until you're out of the hotel and on the road to wherever your heart desires."
Mackenzie was so close that I could hear his shoes scuffling the carpet. Surely he'd been informed that Estelle was in there, I told myself. I glanced toward the elevators. Japonica and Chief Sanderson were watching from behind a potted plant; Lloyd must have chosen a more prudent position, perhaps in a rapidly descending elevator.
"I already looked in here," the man said. "Besides, I don't trust those trigger-happy cops at the end of the hallway. Goddamn amateurs, thinking they'll get their pictures on the front page of the local newspaper for being heroes."
"I'll make sure they agree to meet your demands. They may not be able to arrange for a helicopter to land out front, but they'll cooperate if you want a car and a picnic basket. That's the only way you're going to get out of this, you know. Estelle's prone to fainting when she's scared. I can't see you tossing her over your shoulder like so much dead weight and trotting down the stairs."
Estelle's face reappeared. "I am not prone to anything, thank you very much. If this man wants me to be a hostage, then I can walk out of here on my own two feet. You make me sound like a dirty dishrag. I can't recall when I've ever fainted, not even when the doctor lanced a boil on my buttocks without bothering to give me a local anesthesia. It was not pleasant, let me tell you."
He looked back at her. "You are about the wordiest woman I've ever met. I ought to-"
Mackenzie shoved me aside, shouldered open the door, and fired his gun. The man gave him a stunned look, then crumpled to the floor. Rather than faint, Estelle opted to scream bloody murder (which was partly true). Japonica and Chief Sanderson thundered down the hall. I learned later that Lloyd was the guilty party who panicked and set off the deafening clamor of the fire alarm. An elderly lady in a silk bathrobe charged out of her room, swinging an umbrella. A dog raced past me and disappeared around the corner. Doors flew open and voices demanded to know what was happening. A sprinkler head on the ceiling began to mist us as if we were ferns.
I sat down on the floor. Mackenzie had continued into the room; the door was ajar but I couldn't see what he was doing. Chief Sanderson followed suit, but Japonica stopped and knelt beside me.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Just peachy," I said. "I had the situation under control. The guy was willing to allow Estelle to leave. I really didn't think he would hurt me, as long as everybody stayed calm. That did not happen, as you may have noticed. Why couldn't Mackenzie have held off for a few more minutes?"
"Kind of gung-ho, wasn't he?"
"No kidding." I pushed myself up and wiped water out of my eyes. "I guess I'd better see if Estelle's okay. Why don't you see if you can convince someone at the desk to cut off the alarm and the sprinkler?"
Japonica headed toward the foyer. I went into the room, stepped over the supine body in the same fashion he'd stepped over mine hours earlier, and sat down on the bed next to Estelle. Mackenzie was on the telephone, requesting an ambulance-no lights, no sirens, no unnecessary disruptions. Chief Sanderson was examining what I assumed was the perp's wallet.
"Well, you've still got your winnings," I said to her. "When Ruby Bee has recovered, you two need to take a really boring cruise in which your most pressing problem is how to eat your way through all the buffets without spilling out of your bathing suits."
She looked up with a faint smile. "I'll keep that in mind. Who was he, Arly?"
"I'm pretty sure he was the second man in the car you saw at the Starbright Motel. He was looking for Stormy's duffel bag, which he seemed to think might have ended up in here. Problem is, he already searched it earlier this afternoon. It was in the closet in her room. He also searched mine, Cherri Lucinda's, Jim Bob's, and Brother Verber's. He seemed to believe Stormy switched the three bags she brought upstairs in the elevator. Hers, yours, and"-I hesitated-"Ruby Bee's. Japonica told me he'd gone through Stormy's bag and left the contents on the floor of the closet. You don't think…?"
"Think what?"
"Just sit here. I'll be back." I wormed my way through the horde of security people who had appeared as if they'd been delivered on a chartered bus, and went down a couple of doors to the room I was sharing with Cherri Lucinda. I let myself in, engaged the chain, and opened the closet door. The faded flannel nightgown and support hose were hard to overlook, as was the tube of denture adhesive. These were not the items a sexually active young woman packed for the weekend. I was looking at the contents of Ruby Bee's bag-not Stormy's. Which meant, of course, that the pertinent bag was stashed on a shelf several miles away.