We went up the steps as if we were afraid they would break under our feet.
The rumbling voice had stopped. There was something else in the air. I didn’t know what. Maybe a voice not quite loud enough to be heard, if that means anything.
I had counted nine steps when a voice spoke clearly above us. It said:
“Sure, I killed the bitch.”
A gun said something, the same thing four times, roaring like a sixteen-inch rifle under the iron roof.
The first voice said: “All right.”
By that time Mickey and I had put the rest of the steps behind us, had shoved a door out of the way, and were trying to pull Reno Starkey’s hands away from Whisper’s throat.
It was a tough job and a useless one. Whisper was dead.
Reno recognized me and let his hands go limp.
His eyes were as dull, his horse face as wooden, as ever.
Mickey carried the dead gambler to the cot that stood in one end of the room, spreading him on it.
The room, apparently once an office, had two windows. In their light I could see a body stowed under the cot—Dan Rolff. A Colt service automatic lay in the middle of the floor.
Reno bent his shoulders, swaying.
“Hurt?” I asked.