“Eric, don’t!” Ingrid said. “He’s FBI!”
She flipped on the lights, and it took a second for Fulmar’s pupils to contract as they adjusted to the brightness.
Fulmar now got a good look at the man.
He was smaller than Fulmar, about five-five, one-thirty, and in his midthirties. He wore a rumpled dark suit, dark blue shirt, dark patterned tie, and scuffed black leather shoes. His face and neck were bright red, thanks to the way Fulmar had him pinned to the slate floor. And he had a bloody nose.
Guess the door got him good.
Some three feet away, at the foot of a tall curtain, was the pistol that the man had dropped. Fulmar recognized it as a small-frame Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver, a five-shot model with a two-inch barrel made for the military and police.
Apparently, the man had had a round under the hammer and when the gun had struck the slate floor the impact had caused the hammer to move and fire off a round.
I have no idea where the damned bullet went, Fulmar thought. Just lucky it didn’t hit anyone.
Ingrid quickly closed the door, then knelt beside Fulmar.
“Eric, please—”
He looked at her.
“You know this guy?”
She nodded.
“Who is he?”
“F-B-I,” the man grunted angrily.
Fulmar looked down at him and saw the man’s angry right eye staring back.
What Fulmar did next took Ingrid—not to mention the man—completely by surprise.
Fulmar started laughing, slowly at first, then more deeply.
Of all the people I could run into, I run into one who’s on our side….
The man’s angry eye darted about in its socket.
“Get off me!” the man grunted.
Fulmar looked at Ingrid.
“Is he really FBI?”
She stared wide-eyed back at him and nodded slowly.
“What’s so funny?” she said.
“I can’t say,” Fulmar replied as he reached down with his left hand, dug into the man’s inside coat pocket, and brought out a small leather wallet.
He flipped it open and saw a badge and an ID card.
Well, shit. So much for wild sex with Ingrid tonight….
Fulmar stood and tossed the wallet on the floor beside the man’s face.
Ingrid Müller came into the living room from the kitchen carrying a small, light blue bag made of a thin, soft rubber material in one hand and a small, stainless steel pot in the other. She had just filled the rubber bag with crushed ice and a small amount of cold tap water, then sealed its screw-top opening. The pot was about a quarter full of tap water.