Flashback - Part One (Pulp 08)

It was a cold but sunny morning. The juxtaposition did nothing to ease my mind as I drove into Kentown. The heavy weight of the three guns I carried should have helped, but the queer ammunition in two of them made me nervous, and I didn't like being nervous. I liked being calm, and rational, and in the know, but silver bullets weirded me out, and I didn't like it.
I realized I was repeating myself in my head and made myself stop.

The briefing materials I had been sent were complete, down to a practically photograph quality sketch of the body on the floor, surrounded by a halo of blood. There were ancillary sketches of all of the people involved, which I had categorized in my head by nicknames: The Wide Man, Grandma, The Laughing Man, Knives, and Joe Cool were my primary suspects. There were others that would bear an interview or two, but they seemed to have the best motives.
The Wide Man topped my list. He had had an affair with the victim, which she had cut off abruptly and recently. He owed her money, and did not have a dime in his accounts to cover it. And finally, he had had mob connections in the past, and had a fair to middling rap sheet... but with no convictions.
Of the others, Knives was a convicted murderer now out on parole, Grandma was a confidence women and part-time psychic, Joe Cool was another ex-lover of the victim, and the Laughing Man had no information available about him whatsoever, except that he was on an Interpol watch list.

I had decided that the Wide Man was my first stop, and had called him from DC on my way in. He was to meet me at a bar on Second and Winchester, in a not-very-nice section of town. I had talked to a few people that knew Kentown, and they all said that the Hotel Marrones was a good place to talk without attracting attention or being overheard by nosy parkers.

I had brought the guns I had been given along with the briefing materials, but had decided to keep my own trusty Beretta in an in-the-pants holster instead of the fancy shoulder rig that I had been given to go with the new guns. I was comfortable with the Beretta, and didn't want some new trick messing me up if things got tough. And I had a feeling things might get tough...