Tyranny Read Free Page B

heard shoe leather slapping against the floor as he swung around. Vern was still pale and gasping for air, but somewhere he had found the strength to come lumbering after Kyle like a charging buffalo.
    The store aisle wasn’t big enough. Kyle didn’t have room or time to get out of the way.
    Vern plowed into him and the impact drove Kyle backwards. Both men crashed into a stacked-up display of two-liter plastic jugs of cola that flew everywhere as they sprawled to the floor.

Chapter 3
    T he Sierra Lobo Inn was at the eastern edge of town on the state highway. The horseshoe shape in which it was built, curled around a fenced-in area with a swimming pool in it, betrayed its origins in the 1950s.
    The pool hadn’t had a fence around it in those more innocent, less litigious days, of course, but now, what with liability lawsuits, the insurance company demanded the enclosure. Several signs on the fence warned people that no lifeguard was on duty and they swam at their own risk.
    People lived at their own risk, Barton Devlin thought as he parked the late-model sedan in front of the office and looked through the windshield at the signs on the fence. Nobody got any sort of guarantee when they woke up in the morning.
    After all, nothing was certain in life except death and taxes.
    Even after all this time, that corny old chestnut brought a smile to Devlin’s lips.
    He got out of the car, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and went into the motel office, grateful for the blast of air-conditioned coolness that greeted him.
    Even though the walk had been only a few feet and the temperature really wasn’t bad for West Texas, he didn’t like the heat and didn’t see how people could live in this hellhole. Some of them even spent their whole lives here, he reminded himself. He wouldn’t be able to stand that.
    There were much better uses for West Texas.
    â€œHelp you?” the man behind the counter asked. He was stocky, with graying fair hair, and wore jeans and a polo shirt. “Check-in time’s not until three o’clock. Not officially, anyway. But if you need a place to stay, I’ve got a few units that are already cleaned and ready to go.”
    â€œI’ll take one of them,” Devlin said as he slid his credit card across the counter. It looked like a regular card, but actually it was issued by the federal government and billed back to Devlin’s expense account. He had used it to pay for everything since he’d left Washington.
    â€œAll right, Mister . . .” He read the name on the credit card. “Devlin. If you’ll just fill this out . . .” He gave Devlin a registration form and pen, then went on, saying, “Traveling on business?”
    â€œWhat makes you think that?” Devlin asked as he began filling out the form.
    â€œI know a rental car when I see one,” the clerk said with a nod at the vehicle parked just outside the office window. “Enough of ’em come through here. I’ll bet that’s a corporate credit card, too. Nice suit, accent says you’re from back East somewhere. . . . Easy enough to make the deduction.” The man gave Devlin a toothy grin. “I like to think I’m sort of a detective, you know, like the guys you see on TV.”
    â€œIs that right?” Devlin cocked his head a little to the side as he looked across the counter at the man. “Let me have a try at this. You’re not Middle Eastern, so I assume you don’t own the hotel, you just work here. I haven’t stayed at a motel in years that wasn’t owned by a Pakistani or an Iranian or a Lebanese.”
    The clerk said with apparent satisfaction, “Well, you’re wrong right off the bat. The Sierra Lobo Inn is mine, all right, and I’m a hundred percent American, born and bred. Lou Scarborough’s my name.”
    â€œAll right, let me try again,” Devlin said. He looked around the small lobby.