Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter

full of hate for himself and his botched moment, leaden with infinite, futile regret.
    He realized his fingers were bleeding from pounding on the door.
    “Mister! Hey, mister, I don’t think he’s there!”
    Nick looked up from his fade-out to see a maid.
    “Oh, yeah,” he said, “sorry. Say, you see the guy? What kind of guy was he?”
    “Older guy, you know. Nothing special. Just another traveler.”
    “How long ago he leave?”
    “I didn’t never see him leave. They came to visit him. Then they left. You a cop?”
    “I’m with the FBI. Who came to him? What kind of guys?”
    “Guys in suits, you know. Like you. Younger maybe. Darker maybe. That’s all. Left, oh, maybe, ten minutes ago.”
    “Do me a favor, go get the manager.”
    The manager was a geezer in a Hawaiian print shirt so garish it looked like a nuclear nova, hurling gobs of orange light off into the universe. It was quite a shirt for such a scrawny old rat who smelled of bourbon and deodorant.
    Nick flashed badge and ID and told the guy to pop the door.
    “You got a warrant or anything?”
    It amazed him, the lip he had to take. It was television and the movies. Ten years ago it was all, Yes sir, thank you sir, what can we do sir. Now everybody thought the FBI was a bunch of fascists and had an attitude to throw.
    “What are you, a lawyer?” Nick asked. “The guy wants to talk to me. Maybe he’s sleeping. Come on, you don’t need a hassle here. Just do me the favor, okay?”
    “No, it’s that this guy was a bastard. He insisted on this room. The one next to the Coke machines. It wasn’t even made up yet. But he threw a horror show. So that’s why I didn’t want to come crashing—”
    “Just pop the lock, and let me do the talking,” Nick said.
    The old guy made a face, and let Nick know how reluctant he was, and Nick realized he was being played for a ten-spot, but he just put his dumb, patient look on, and waited the performance out and finally the man unlocked the door.
    The first thing Nick noticed as he stepped inside was the blood. The blood everywhere. On the walls, on thebed, on the mirror, on the ceiling. Classic arterial spatter pattern.
    “Aghhhhhhh!” the maid screamed.
    “Holy fuck,” said the manager.
    “All right,” Nick said, “you two, out. This is a crime scene. You go on in and call eight-eight-five, three-four-three-four and ask for Agent Fencl. You give him the address, tell him it’s a real bad eleven-twenty and that he should get the troops out fast before the city boys get here. Tell him Nick is already here, do you understand?”
    The old guy’s eyes were broadcasting Station P.A.N.I.C. but he ran off to do what he was told.
    Nick edged into the room. It was a slaughterhouse.
    Most of the killing had been done on the bed. It was soaked in blood and there were jet sprays all over the wall above the headboard. Nick thought they’d hit him with axes and from the gore on the walls figured that maybe two or three whackers had gone to it. He could see blood-soaked adhesive tape where they’d splayed him to the bedpost to work on his soft areas with the axes. But Eduardo wasn’t there.
    Nick could see a blood trail leading off the room into the bathroom. Jesus, the guy chopped and mangled like that, he had somehow tried to crawl into the bathroom.
    Nick could see his bare feet now, pigeon-toed in that loose way that prerigor bodies often have, where there’s no will or dignity, and the limbs just arrange themselves into random patterns as defined by gravity. He walked delicately over to the bathroom doorway and leaned in to look down at the body. He noted a broad but old bare back and sinewy muscles. Eduardo still wore his suit trousers, blood-soaked white linen. The head was skewed to the right and Nick could see the profile of an elegant, perhaps aristocratic face with balding white hair and an aquiline nose. A bondage of electrician’s tapecrudely encircling the lower head locked a wad of cotton into