Liars & Thieves (38 page)

I thought he might want to be close by.

But where was he?

About that time the gas tank in the truck that had been parked in front of the van ignited. Perhaps the burning asphalt got to it.

The first fire truck roared up, then another; police vehicles came from all directions. Extinguishing the fires in the street was the firefighters’ first priority, so that they would have room to attack the blazes taking hold in nearby buildings.

How much explosives had that guy used?

The sidewalks were filling up with onlookers as the firefighters fought the fires in the drug and jewelry stores, police investigators and paramedics examined the corpses, and investigators poked and prodded at the remains of our van. The police quickly rigged yellow crime scene tape. A uniformed female cop pushed me and a bunch of other folks back as the tape went up in front of us. She was a slip of a thing, her hat cocked at an angle. She looked like a sausage in her bulletproof vest, complete with belt, holster, gun, spare ammo, mace, and radio. I don’t know how she walked.

I knew it was time to leave when the first television crew turned on their lights and got their reporter on the air.

That’s when something jabbed me in the back and a familiar voice said softly, “I didn’t think you’d be in that van when it popped. Told them that, but they said to blow it anyway. I think the bugs you planted pissed him off.”

The lady cop immediately in front of me had her back to me and was oblivious to my situation.

If I tried to elbow the pistol out of my back as I turned, more than likely he would put one in my kidney.

He grabbed my upper left arm and jabbed the pistol barrel deeper into my back, then whispered in my ear. “I owe you for sticking that gun in my face, Carmellini. Just wanted you to see it coming. Adios, motherfucker.”

I had run out of time and options. I spun left, trying with my left elbow to sweep the gun aside, while I gathered up the female cop with my right arm.

A tremendous force hit me in the lower back, nearly dropping me. The sound of the shot came simultaneously with the impact—and for that reason didn’t really register.

Somehow I stayed on my feet and kept turning.

Joe Billy Dunn’s second shot hit the cop in the lower abdomen—I heard her grunt as the bulletproof vest absorbed the bullet’s energy.

I pushed her forward into Dunn. His muffled third shot went off point-blank against the vest. Squeezing the trigger had been a reaction, probably, not intentional.

She collapsed at his feet. As he turned to run, trying to create space between us, the crowd impeded his progress. I leaped over the cop at him . . . too late. I sprawled on the sidewalk.

He ran as the crowd parted.

The cop sprawled and groaning, the noise, flashing lights and

stench, screaming, running people . . . that was the way hell was going to be when I got there, probably in the very near future.

The only bright spots in this mess were that the right side of my lower back was numb, and I could still make my legs work, so the bullet hadn’t hit my spine.

I scrambled up and ran after Joe Billy.

Joe Billy Dunn ran, so I chased him. It never occurred to me to wonder why he was running away. He had tried to kill me, had even put a bullet in my back—although I didn’t know if he knew that—and if he hadn’t run I’d have taken his pistol away from him and killed him with my bare hands. Maybe it’s my overdeveloped male ego, too much testosterone shrinking the brain, but I thought getting away from me was the natural thing for him to do.

Of course, the other possibility was that he didn’t want to stand around shooting me until twenty cops in bulletproof vests got their pistols out and used him for their monthly target qualification. If his first point-blank shot had killed me, he could have turned and walked away and no one would have noticed his face. That was probably his plan; it didn’t work out because he got to talking when he should have been shooting. I had absolutely no intention of making that mistake myself. Shoot first and talk later—I learned that from Jake Grafton.

Whatever his reason, Joe Billy ran like a deer.

I wasn’t running like a deer, believe me. Not with a bullet in my back. I put my hand back there and pulled it away wet. A glance was enough. I was leaking blood at a fair rate. And I was beginning to hurt. Really hurt. I thought maybe the bullet had nicked a rib or something, because I got a stab of pain with every breath, and it got worse with every passing second. I ran like an old woman in tight shoes.

I didn’t think he’d run far. When he got away from the crowd and the cops around the obliterated van, I figured he’d turn around and wait for me. To finish the job of killing me. I didn’t figure he’d be doing much talking this time.

1 had him in sight ahead of me when he dived down a subway entrance.

That was where it would happen.

I stopped at a fire hydrant, put my right foot up on it, and pulled the Smith & Wesson snub-nose .38 from the ankle holster. Just lifting my foot made my back scream.

I crossed the street and went down the entrance there. Went down very carefully.

These subway entrances join up at the bottom of the first flight of stairs … if I picked the right entrance to descend.

I had. Joe Billy wasn’t in sight.

I kept going down, easing around corners. Got to the turnstiles and looked for my man Dunn. He wasn’t in sight. No one was.

Of course, being an ex-Boy Scout who is always prepared, I didn’t have a MetroCard. I had to heist myself over a turnstile, which cost me some pain. There was a surveillance camera pointed at the turnstiles; I gave the unseen watcher the finger.

I went slowly down another Bight of stairs and got my first look at the platform. Not a soul in sight, not even a mugger or gangbanger. Everyone in town must have gone to bed after the president’s stirring speech.

Dunn would be to my right or left, waiting to plug me again

when I came out of this stairway. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and leaned against the left wall.

“Joe Billy!” I shouted. “Have you figured out why Willie and I weren’t in the van?”

No answer.

“Because we knew you had sold out to Royston. And we told Grafton. Even if you kill me, you’re going to prison for the rest of your life, maybe even the chair. How many people have you killed, anyway?”

“If I’m doomed, I might as well take you with me, Carmellini.” The voice came from the platform behind me.

I crossed over to the right side of the entry way, leveled the pistol with two hands. It’s impossible to hit anything beyond ten feet with a pistol with a two-inch barrel unless you use two hands and aim carefully.

I waited. I could feel a warm wetness soaking the back of my shirt and trousers. How much blood I had lost I didn’t know—I wasn’t feeling very chipper. Just holding the pistol at arm’s length with both hands took about all I had.

I saw him a second before he fired. He had climbed off the platform down onto the tracks and sneaked along until he was almost abeam the entrance. Then he popped up, leveled his pistol with both hands, and fired. In that masonry tunnel, his pistol sounded like a cannon.

I was going forward by then, and the bullet gouged the tile on the wall behind me.

I went all the way down onto my stomach and leveled the snubbie.

Of course, he wasn’t in sight. He had dropped down below the level of the platform the instant he fired.

The next time he popped up, he was going to be to my right or left, and he was going to nail me. I was going to die right here, lying on this subway platform.

As panic flooded over me, I sprang up and dashed for the stairs I had come down. Another cannon shot boomed and the bullet whacked the stairs just to my right—I saw the chips of concrete fly out. I went up those stairs like my tail was on fire.

I was scared, truly scared. I was an amateur facing a consummate professional in a fight to the death, and I didn’t like my chances.

The reason he ran from me on the sidewalk outside the Hilton was that he knew I was stupid enough to follow him. I thought I was the hunter and he was the prey. Ha! It was a miracle Joe Billy had missed me with his first two shots. He wouldn’t keep missing—oh, no! You could bet my life on that.

I was so scared I didn’t even feel my back. I went up the stairs three at a time, running for my life.

At the turnstile level I looked around wildly for some cover. Got behind a pillar with a trash can in front of me, got down on my knees and stuck the toy pistol out so I could shoot quickly the instant I had a target.

That was when I realized I was gasping for air. Getting to here had cost me all my strength.

I listened for his footsteps.

Nothing.

My pulse and breathing rate were slowing when I heard a subway train roar up to the platform below and stop. Thirty seconds later it got under way again.

So where was this asshole?

Someone coming up the stairs. I heard the footsteps.

I leveled the pistol. A black kid in a T-shirt and pants that were held up only by the dictates of fashion popped out of the staircase and headed for the exit. He didn’t even look at me.

He went through the turnstile and on up the stairs.

()h, Christ, my back was killing me! Maybe I needed to go find an emergency room right now, before I passed out and bled to

death waiting tor a good Samaritan. I doubted if there were many Samaritans good or bad in the New York metropolitan area.

Where was he?

Fuck!

And where were the goddamn transit cops?

My back was on fire. I was on one knee and couldn’t stay there. I sank to a sitting position.

Tried to keep the pistol up and couldn’t. Where was the bas—–I glimpsed him on the other side of the turnstiles. He was lev-ling his pistol. I rolled and fired all at the same time. Missed, of course. His bullet clipped me on the scalp, just a glancing blow, like a riendly tap from a baseball bat.

I concentrated on the sight picture. The good news was that I was now flat on the floor, lying on my left shoulder, steady as a rock. I squeezed off one, reaimed the piece and sent another on the way.

His pistol was firing, and I tried to ignore it. I fired again … and knew I had only one more left. He was a small target by then, down on his knees. I cocked the hammer, aimed as carefully as I could, and touched her off. Joe Billy Dunn sprawled on the concrete.

It was all I could do to get to my feet. Went over and looked at him. He had at least two bullets in his chest and one in his throat. The throat wound was bleeding badly. I kicked his gun out of his hand, then bent down and picked it up. If I left it there the first kid who happened along would snatch it. “You knew, huh?” he whispered.

“Royston said his suite was bugged. He said it in O’Shea’s suite, which I bugged after you left. It had to be you who told him.” Blood was leaking down over my ear from my scalp wound. I wiped at it. “How much did he pay you?”

“Not enough.” He breathed in and out, hghting to stay conscious. “I’ve had a good run,” he whispered.

“Your luck ran out.”

“How’d you know I was behind you?”

“Heard something. Maybe your foot scraping. Maybe I just sensed it. For sure you weren’t coming up those stairs.”

He coughed blood. When the coughing subsided he whispered, “Just ran out of luck. That’s all. Yeah.”

I left him there. Didn’t want to watch him die.

I felt better when I got up to the street. The night was misting rain again, and it felt good on my face. I was weak and tired and suffering from adrenaline aftershock, but I could still put one foot in front of the other. My back didn’t cause me agony—I was just sore as hell.

I put the empty snubbie in one trouser pocket and Joe Billy’s shooter in the other. Swabbed at the blood on the side of my face, wiped my hand on tree trunks, those baseball-bat-sized saplings growing up through holes in the concrete.

I wondered if Joe Billy Dunn was Stu Vine. Probably should have asked him that, but I didn’t think of it. Don’t guess it really mattered.

A wino staggered over. “Hey man, can you spare a dollar?”

“No.”

“How about some change, a quarter or two? Ain’t much. I need it bad.”

“No.”

“You’re bleedin’, dude. What happened5″

“Fell down.”

“Better get that looked at.” He turned and retreated to the store entrance that he was homesteading.

A young couple in expensive, fashionable clothes came along

(

the street from the direction of the Hilton. They studiously avoided looking at me and passed on by.

I was leaning against a building, taking stock, when my cell phone went off. Took me a while to dig it out of my pocket. It was still buzzing.

“Yeah.”

“Where are you, Tommy?” It was Jake Grafton. I’d know that voice anywhere.

“Holding up a building. Had a little run-in with Joe Billy Dunn. He blew up the van and got a bullet in me.”

“Where are you precisely?”

I looked around, saw a street sign and read it off.

“The driver says we’re two minutes away. Stay right there.”

It I was going to get a ride, there was no reason to continue to stand. I staggered over and seated myself on the curb.

Sure enough, a couple minutes later a stretch limo pulled to the curb and Jake Grafton got out. He looked at my head and back, helped me into the car.

Callie was sitting beside Goncharov, and there were two men in suits who I didn’t recognize.

“What happened?” Jake asked as he inspected the hole in my back.

I told it as plainly as I could, about leaving the van and sitting in the bar, hearing the explosion, and rushing outside. I told him about the cop and her bulletproof vest, and I told him about Joe Billy.

Grafton felt my pockets, got the pistols out with my help, and passed them to one of the men in the car, who inspected them and slipped them into his jacket pockets. “The police officer is going to be okay. They took her to the hospital. She’s shaken up and badly bruised.”