He nodded. “Where do I begin?”

“Begin with telling me who that is in there.”

“His name is Tony Bing. He’s a bookmaker. He was a bookmaker.”

“Go on,” I said.

“I came to pay off a debt.”

“At this time of night?”

“He called me earlier,” he said. “He wanted the money.”

“What’s he doing at a motel?”

“He lives here. Some people do that, I guess. They live at a motel.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said. “How much did you owe him?”

“Five thousand dollars,” he said.

“You have it with you?”

“Yes, right here,” he said. He patted his coat pocket.

“So you drove over here to give him his money. Then what?”

“I knocked on the door and nobody answered.”

“So you went inside?”

“The door was open. I figured he fell asleep.”

“You walked right in.”

“I came all this way just to give him his money,” he said. “I wasn’t going to leave without giving it to him.”

“Okay,” I said. “So you go inside and you see him.”

“Right.”

“And then you call me.”

“Right. I’ve got a phone, too. In the car.” He pointed at his Mercedes.

“You see the dead man and then you call me.”

“Exactly,” he said. “God, have you ever seen such a thing?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have.”

“That’s right,” he said. “On account of you being a cop before. You probably saw a lot of that in Detroit.”

“Two or three times a night,” I said. “You get used to it.”

“Two or three times a night? Really? That often?”

For fifty cents I would have slapped his face right there in the truck. “Edwin, can I ask you one more question?”

“Sure.”

“Why in God’s name did you call me instead of calling the police?”

“I don’t know, Alex. I mean, you have to understand the state of mind I was in. I walk into that room and I see that guy, I just panicked, I guess. I didn’t know what to do. So I called you. And then I called Uttley.”