The Killing Machine by Ed Gorman

David would never dance at any of the local festivities. He always said that dancing was for girls. I smiled at the picture of him leading a pretty girl around on the floor. And in the case of Nurse Jane…she was quite the pretty girl.
    â€œYou didn’t know that, huh?”
    She was getting everything ready for tonight. Plumping pillows, straightening sheets, setting a fresh pitcher of water on my nightstand.
    â€œThey went out and everything?” I said. Had she known he had a wife?
    â€œIf you mean courted, I guess you’d call it that. She visited him a lot at the ranch he rented, anyway. People talked, both of them being unmarried and everything. But then you know how people do. They make something dirty out of everything, just so they’ll have something to talk about. Live and let live, I say.”
    â€œWell, I’m with you,” I said in a stout, half-kidding voice. “If people want to defile each other in the middle of the road, I say, durn well let ’em.”
    She poured me a glass of water.
    â€œNow you’re making fun of me.”
    â€œNo, I’m not. Just fooling around a little.”
    â€œI don’t mind admitting that I wish men treated me the way they treat her.”
    â€œYou mean Jane?”
    She nodded. “Just to go through life one day theway she does. Having all these men treat her so special and everything.”
    Her voice was genuinely wistful. A middle-aged woman and a fond daydream. I liked her and felt sorry for her. Life is an awfully random process when you come right down to it, and the nice people don’t always get the reward they deserve. A lot of ugly folks are awfully nice, and a lot of beautiful ones aren’t. Then again, some ugly ones are pretty vile and some beautiful ones are gentle and kind and good. Figuring out life tends to give me a headache sometimes.
    â€œBut I’m just jealous.”
    â€œNothing wrong with that. You’re just human, is all.”
    â€œI suppose. But I always feel that I should grow up someday and not let things like that bother me.”
    I took her wrist, gently. “An old priest in the war told me something. He said that after hearing a couple thousand confessions, he’d figured out that nobody ever really grows up.”
    Her whoop of a laugh was almost like the note of a song perfectly sung. “Now, that one I’ll have to remember.”
    â€œDon’t you think it’s true when you think of it? You look at people from the outside and they can look really old, but you listen to them and they’re basically the same as they were when they were younger—the same anger and pleasure and fear. We’re all kids hiding out in these adult bodies.”
    â€œI’m going to quote you on that.”
    â€œThat’s what the old priest said. Not me. I’m not smart enough to say things like that.”
    â€œI’ll just bet you’re not,” she said.
    Then she was gone and then it was night. She came in later and asked me if she should turn up my lantern. I said no. I wanted the darkness. David, dancing. David and the nurse named Jane. I found myself resenting him again. And without quite knowing why.

Chapter 5
    DENNIS WAYLAND—ASSOCIATED WITH GERMAN EMBASSY IN NEW YORK
    THOMAS BRINKLEY—REPRESENTATIVE OF THE KRUGER ARMS COMPANY, BELEURS, KENTUCKY, PROMINENT COPPERHEAD
    LEE SPENSER—FREELANCE ARMS DEALER
    GILES FAIRBAIN—STAFF MEMBER, SENATOR LAWTON CAINE
    I woke up much earlier than I wanted to. From the gray sky, I guessed it was an hour or so before dawn. There wasn’t much to do except turn up the lantern and go over the files Marshal Wickham had left me.
    I was glad he’d had them typed up. Wickham had scribbled a note to me on the corner of a page and it took me five minutes to decipher his handwriting. What it said was, “Be interesting to see your reaction to these fellas.”
    I spent nearly two hours with