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Page 294
of cold steel, sit up and confront my uninvited visitor.
The Mauser was gone.
Now I bolted upright out of fear.
Jake Madden was slumped in the room's only chair with a frown deeply etched into his furrowed face. "I could charge you with grand theft auto," he said a little testily.
Remember the old Gibby trick? When you're on the defense, attack. "How long have you been sitting there?" I snapped, equally surly and equally taciturn.
"Ten minutes, no more. Figured you'd be here. When I found my truck missin', I put two and two together."
"I figured I might get lucky and find that Kelto kid. If I could get him to give me some straight answers, it might save us some grief."
"What's your fascination with him?"
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, reached down and searched around till I found the half-empty glass of B & W, took a swig and tried to get myself oriented to reality. It wasn't all that easy in a room composed of half-shadows and what appeared to be a coat of thick gray paint obscuring the world beyond the dingy windows of the rented cubicle. The thought tumbled through my mind that it might be now or never. Either I brought someone in on everything I had learned up to this point

 
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