Flashback part 5 (Pulp 12)

When I walked back into the Hotel Marrones, the Wide Man was gone. Just my luck. I could hear the sirens that told me some helpful joe had called the five-oh. It was obvious there was nothing to be done for the waitress, she wasn’t even bleeding anymore, and the pool around her had spread to cover maybe ten square feet of floor.
I bellied up to the bar and reached over for the well whiskey. There was an empty tumbler still on a nearby table; I grabbed it and sniffed. Rye. Close enough. I filled it with whiskey and threw it back in a smooth motion. It burned like a good round of free weights, but with less work and more satisfaction. I waited for the cops.
The sirens drew closer, but then receded. I paused in pouring myself another shot. What could draw more attention than a shootout in a bar?
I left the bar and headed towards the flashing lights in the distance.

When I reached the source of the lights and sirens I was in front of a large white structure that reeked of money about to be taken in. It had nattily attired parking attendants out front, currently being interviewed by dusty street cops, and the façade was all marble and brass.
Across the face it said ‘Concord Inn’ in big gothic letters. My heart gave a little flirt when I saw it, like someone heavy had stepped on my grave. I stopped and took a second to shake the jitters out. Coincidence? I didn’t buy the stuff.
The cops hassled me a little when I went over, but their hearts weren’t in it, and they waved me through when I showed ‘em my license. I was surprised, they usually weren’t so nice to private dicks, but they seemed spooked by something.
Just inside the lobby was a beat cop throwing up on a potted fern in the corner. This was officially a bad sign. Beat cops are not weak of stomach. For a second I thought he might be a new guy, but then I spotted the sergeants stripes. Very bad. I steeled myself and walked on by.
I’m not sure what I expected, but I know that I was unprepared for what I found. It looked like a meat grinder had exploded all over the inside of one of the elevators, halfway through grinding up a full-grown horse. Except that all the recognizable parts weren’t horse. There was gore on the floor, walls, and (I looked up to check) the roof of the car. There was one pale-looking detective standing outside the door, his shoulders shaking a little. The other cops in the hallway were studiously looking away from the scene. When I walked up to the pale detective I made sure my boot heels clicked on the marble floor. This was not a time to startle someone. He turned around with a relieved look which quickly hardened when he saw I wasn’t on the force.
“What are you doing here?” the words came out clipped and terse, like he was going for tough, but it more sounded like he was trying not to retch. Which was probably true.
“Peace, officer. I’m a private eye. I’m working on a case nearby and I came to see if I could help.” I offered my hand, but he ignored it and kept staring me in the eyes, so I dropped it.
“We don’t need any help, thanks, and what case?” He seemed to be relaxing a little, but was obviously working up to throwing me out.
Some instinct prodded me, and I lied. “Looking into a man named Magoffin’s gambling debts, nothing to do with this. I’ll be going now, if you’re all set.”
I could see the realization spark in his eyes that if I left he would have to go back to looking at the scene, and he reflexively reached out a hand, but I turned and walked off. As I got to the sergeant he was lurching into a bathroom and I quickly slipped behind the reception desk and into a housekeeping door.
It was no work at all to get up to the fifth floor, where Angela St. Ives once had lived. However, it was going to be more of a trick to get past the cops on guard outside her door. That sinking feeling was back. I didn’t know how, but I was going to eat one of the Concord Inn’s fluffy white bathrobes if the scene in that room did not exactly match one I had in my possession…