Read Online The Loner: Crossfire by J.A. Johnstone - Free Book Online

“No, I’m going to hang on to it. But you can describe it to them and see if they remember ever seeing anything like it.”
    “Fine. I’ll do that. In the meantime, what are your plans?”
    “You told me to rest and relax, remember?” Conrad smiled. “That’s what I intend to do.”
    Turnbuckle looked a little like he had a hard time believing that, but didn’t say anything. He finished his coffee and left.
    A short time later, dressed in a brown tweed suit, Conrad opened the door of the suite and looked out into the hall. A large man wearing a derby and sporting a red handlebar mustache sat a few feet away in an armchair he had pulled up from somewhere. The man was reading a newspaper, but he looked over and gave Conrad a polite nod.
    “I suppose Claudius stationed you there,” Conrad said.
    “The boss says you ain’t to be disturbed, Mr. Browning. It’s my job to see to it things stay that way.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Dugan, sir.”
    “Well, Mr. Dugan, you’re supposed to prevent anyone from getting into this suite. Are you also supposed to prevent me from leaving?”
    Dugan set his paper down in his lap, took off his hat, and scratched a bald, somewhat bulletshaped head. “He didn’t say nothin’ about that.”
    “I’m surprised,” Conrad said.
    “Just that if you go anywheres, I’m to go with you and make sure nothin’ happens to you.”
    “Oh. Do you have a family, Mr. Dugan?”
    A grin split the big man’s face. “Aye, sir. A fine wife and four redheaded little ones.”
    “Did Mr. Turnbuckle inform you that the last men he hired to watch over me all wound up dead?”
    Dugan’s grin went away. “He told me. That don’t matter. I’m bein’ paid to do a job, and I figure on doin’ it.”
    “That’s an admirable attitude. And I assure you, if anything happens to you, I’ll see to it that your family is taken care of financially. Or if I can’t, Mr. Turnbuckle will.”
    “And that’s a reassurance indeed, sir,” Dugan said. “But I don’t plan on windin’ up dead.”
    “Let’s hope for the sake of those four redheaded little ones that you’re right.”
    Conrad went back inside and closed the door. It was going to make things a little more difficult, because he was determined no one else was going to lose their life because of him.
    A little more difficult, yes ... but not impossible.

    Conrad stayed close to his hotel room all day, leaving it only to eat lunch in the Palace’s sumptuous American Dining Room. Dugan trailed him and took a table in an unobtrusive corner where he could keep an eye on Conrad. It was likely Dugan could not afford to eat there and Conrad assumed Turnbuckle had instructed the hotel to put the bodyguard’s meal on his tab.
    Conrad chose to have supper in the suite, as he had breakfast. Dugan had gone off-duty and been replaced by a short, thick individual who introduced himself as Morelli. The new bodyguard followed the waiter into the suite.
    “Could be one o’ them assassins in disguise,” Morelli explained. The waiter, who by his accent was Russian, took offense at that, and Conrad shooed them both out and told them to take their squabble outside.
    He ate supper and waited for full darkness to settle over the city by the bay. When it had, he took off his tweed suit, his cravat, and his white shirt. In their place he pulled on a homespun shirt and a rough brown coat and trousers of the sort working men wore. While he was downstairs for lunch he had stopped at the concierge’s desk and made arrangements to have the clothes bought and delivered to his suite that afternoon, along with a stevedore’s cap. He tugged the cap down over his fair hair and tucked the Colt behind his belt at the small of his back, where the coat would conceal it.
    The Palace was as modern and up-to-date as it could be, but it didn’t yet have fire escapes outside the windows the way some hotels back east did. However, it did have decorative ledges along the