I think Weiss has already checked in” I said.

Chutsky lumbered up from the bed and over to the closet. He stared for a moment and then said, “Shit.” He reached his hand in and felt for a pulse —rather unnecessarily, I thought, but I suppose there's a protocol for these things. He felt no pulse, of course, and mumbled, “Fucking shit.” I didn't see how repetition would help, but of course, he was the expert, so I just watched as he slid a hand into each of Rogelio's pockets in turn. “His pass key” he said. He put that into his pocket. He turned out the usual junk —keys, a handkerchief, a comb, some money. He looked carefully at the cash for a moment.

“Canadian twenty here” he said. “Like somebody tipped him for something, huh?”

“You mean Weiss?” I said.

He shrugged. “How many homicidal Canadians you know?” It was a fair question. Since the NHL season had ended a few months ago, I could only think of one —Weiss.

Chutsky pulled an envelope out of Rogelio's jacket pocket.

“Bingo” he said. “Mr B Weiss, room 865.” He handed the envelope to me. “I'm guessing it's complimentary drink tickets. Open it up.” I peeled back the flap and pulled out two oblongs of cardboard.

Sure enough: two complimentary drinks at the Cabaret Parisien, the hotel's famous cabaret. “How did you guess?” I said.

Chutsky straightened up from his ghoulish search. I fucked up” he said. “When I told Rogelio it was Weiss's birthday, all he could think was to make the hotel look good, and maybe pick up a tip.” He held up the Canadian twenty dollar bill. “This is a month's pay” he said. “You can't blame him.” He shrugged. “So I fucked up, and he's dead. And our ass is deep in the shit.” Even though he had clearly not thought through that image, I got his point. Weiss knew we were here, we had no idea where he was or what he was up to, and we had a very embarrassing corpse in the closet.

“All right” I said, and for once I was glad to have his experience to lean on —which was assuming, of course, that he had experience at fucking up and finding strangled bodies in his closet, but he was certainly more knowledgeable about it than I was. “So what do we do?”

Chutsky frowned. “First, we have to check his room. He's probably run for it, but we'd look really stupid if we didn't check.” He nodded at the envelope in my hand. “We know his room number, and he doesn't necessarily know that we know. And if he is there then we have to, what'd you call it, play OK Corral on his ass.”

“And if he's not there?” I said, because I, too, had the feeling that Rogelio was a farewell gift and Weiss was already sprinting for the horizon.