I hung up the telephone and went up to my room. I tried my key, and it didn’t work. While I was trying to figure that out, the door was jerked open from the inside, and a big man, whose figure loomed against the light seeping in from the window, said, “Come on in, Lam.”
He switched on the lights as I stood there on the threshold, looking up at him.
He was around six feet and weighed over two hundred. He wasn’t thin, and he wasn’t fat. He was broad across the shoulders, and the hand which shot out and grabbed my necktie was a big, battered paw. “I said, ‘Come on in,’ ” he observed and jerked.
I shot on into the room. He gave a swing with his shoulders, and I went spinning across the carpet to crash down on the bed. He kicked the door shut, and said, “That’s better.”
He was between me and the door — between me and the telephone. From what I’d seen of the service the night clerk gave at the hotel switchboard, I figured it would take at least thirty seconds to get any action on the telephone. Nor could I picture this guy standing idly by while I tried to telephone the police.
I straightened my necktie, pulled down the edges of my collar, and said, “What do you want?”
“That’s better,” he said, drawing up a chair and sitting down, keeping between me and the door.
He grinned, and I didn’t like his grin. I didn’t like anything about him. He was beefy and assured and acted as though he owned the town and the hotel.
“What,” I asked, “do you want?”
“I want you to get the hell out of here.”