The wallpaper was flowered and purple-faded-to-gray. Varnished light wood floors showed around the worn edges of the large round braided rug. There was no john (other than the floor’s communal one, down the hall) and a single, shallow closet he hadn’t hung anything in was behind the couch, in the corner. The dresser was over left of the window, near the bed; its drawers contained clothing and what I mentioned before. His shaving kit was on top of the dresser, which had a mirror. On the floor under the bed was a stack of skin magazines, of which Hustler was the most genteel.

I was surprised I could find nothing in writing, no record of my activities as noted by Turner. He might possibly be keeping that on his person, in a little notebook or something, but I didn’t think it likely: the kind of record a person working stakeout would keep isn’t easily kept in anything smaller than a secretarial-size pad, and Turner’s habit during the time he’d worked back-up for me had been to use a spiral notebook larger than that. Of course that was five years ago.

Which in itself had me thinking. It was a little late in the day for Turner to come looking for revenge. Five years ago I’d kicked him in the balls, and reported him fucking up to the Broker, but it hadn’t cost Turner anything: Broker had simply put him with another partner. I didn’t doubt Turner carried a grudge against me, but I did doubt it was big enough a one for him to come looking for me with a gun.

Besides, he was obviously on stakeout duty. Which meant he was part of a team, and not the trigger part, either. He was hired help and nothing more. My first instinct was to tie his presence here in with the bad blood between us: but I no longer felt that way. Turner was not working on his own initiative.

So I’d just have to talk to him and find out who hired him. Or at least find out who his new Broker was, so I could put a gun to that guy’s head and get the name of whoever it was took the contract out.