Red rose and advanced, covering the fallen man.

....lack trousers, a black jacket with a leaking hole drilled through its lower right quadrant. It was the man he had seen in the dining room earlier, with his back to the wall. Red put an arm about his shoulders, supported his head, raised him.

Pinkish bubbles had formed about the man's lips. He gasped as he was raised. His eyes flickered open.

"Why?" Red asked. "Why were you trying to shoot me?"

The man smiled weakly.

"I'd rather leave you—with something to think about," he said.

"It won't do you any good," Red said.

"Nothing will," replied the other. "So the devil with you!"

Red slapped him across the mouth, smearing the bloody spittle. He heard a gasp of protest from behind him as he did. A crowd was forming.

"Talk, you son of a bitch! Or I'll make it harder than it's going to be!"

He jabbed him in the upper abdomen with stiff fingers, near the wound. "Here! Stop that!" said a voice from behind him.

"Talk!"

But the man followed a sharp gasp with a long sigh and stopped breathing. Red began hammering at his chest beneath the sternum.

"Come back, you miserable bastard!"

He felt a hand on his shoulder and shook it off. The gunman was not responding. He let him fall and began going through his pockets.

"I don't think you should be doing that," came another voice from behind. Finding nothing of interest. Red rose. "What car was this guy driving?" he asked. Silence, then murmurs. Finally, "He was a hitchhiker," the Victorian gentleman stated.

Red turned. The man was staring at the body, smiling faintly.

"How do you know that?" Red asked. The man withdrew a silk handkerchief, unfolded it, touched it several times to his brow.