Gun Work

It was parked on the other side of the street, a leased Dodge Hemi Charger in gunmetal gray. The only armament it offered was one of Karlov’s Benellis, in the trunk along with some spare ammo for the .40. Both useless.

It stinks, amigo. It stinks like underbrush when you probe by fire.

Carl’s words from an eternity ago echoed back at him. That’s what this superior sonofabitch was doing, but from a leisurely bench rest. He probably had time to sip a Primer Pop between rounds until it was time for him to pack up, drive away, and eat his own goddamned steak.

Nothing left to do. No options.

Barney unholstered his .40 and put five rounds through the windows in front of the morgue, aiming high, hoping not to hit anybody. The sheet glass caved in with a breathtaking racket, people screamed, hollered and sought cover, alarms sounded, and pretty soon there would be police swarming.

Barney crawled toward his car, hands and knees the whole way, cringing at honking traffic.

After parking on Ocean Boulevard and punching the steering wheel a few times to vent his backlog of adrenalin, Barney refreshed his SIG Sauer and walked toward the hotel entrance, where he spotted Erica Ledbetter crossing the lobby in a brisk hurry.

She coded as feminine right down to the ground: attractive ankles, hell on heels, calves with the precise roundness to stop traffic at a leg crossing, the classic hourglass, real hips. She lacked the insectile height of fashion models, but put her in a bikini magazine spread where height is a digitally enhanced mystery and all you’d ever notice were those soft-shoulder, dangerous-when-wet curves. Her padding was all to her advantage and she lacked the bovine look of women who fret about dress size. This woman never fretted about anything. You could read her determination in the precise cut of jaw, the elegant neck, the eyes so blue they hurt to look at, like pure cyan broken off the sun’s spectrum and laser-refracted through a crystal. She was the woman Barney had seen in Carl’s photograph, but distilled into something more fierce.

She walked like a woman with a mission, and Barney managed to trap her in the elevator, alone.

“Wow, I always wanted a new man in my life, and voila,” she said, startled yet not surprised. “I’ll assume that’s a gun in my ribs, and not that you’re happy to see me.”

“Overjoyed,” said Barney. “Stay in the corner. Hold the rails. Bag on the floor.”

Now she was looking at him directly. “You’re him,” she said. “Carl’s guy.”

From the bag Barney extracted a ten-shot, Black Melonite-coated Cobra Patriot in .380. He quickly popped the magazine. Three rounds gone.

It might have been any of them walking into the kill zone back at the gun range, but Sirius had drawn the duty. The hole in his head had not come from a guy with a four thousand dollar rifle, but someone who got close enough to shoot point-blank, perhaps with this pistol.

The illuminated numerals crawled toward the fourth floor. “What do I call you?” said Barney.

“Who cares?” she said. “What’s in a name?”

She fostered dislike, but apparently did not care, even with a gun pointed at her. She was far too attractive to be smiling at her captor now and saying, “It’s nice to meet you at last,” as though they were headed for a high school reunion. She should have had hazard tape on her forehead, and Barney was acutely aware of a completely different kind of arsenal coming into play.

“If you have any sort of special knock, or code, don’t break it to warn him,” said Barney, meaning Tannenhauser. “If there is gunfire, lady, you are going to be point number one, I swear it.”

“Whatever,” she said, as though this had all been rehearsed. Her sheer indifference was disorienting.

He swept the hall. No bystanders.

“Oh, the drama,” she said. “It’s not necessary. Listen, Tannenhauser is not going to shoot you. I promise.”

Barney indicated she should use her key card and walk through first anyway.

They were top floor in one of the Miramar’s biggest suites, and she strolled in on those fabulous legs as though she owned a controlling interest in the hotel.

“Slow down,” Barney said.

“Relax,” she returned. “Look, I did not kill your friend.” She headed for a fully stocked roll-in cocktail counter that must have billed at a good $1200.

“Sit in the chair right there.”

“And stay?” she said impishly. “Woof. I am going to fix myself a drink for our little talk. You’re welcome to one too, but I don’t expect you’ll take one and relax.”

She set about concocting a bourbon and branch water while Barney stared at her. “This isn’t some kind of goddamned meeting, lady,” he said.

“Yes it is,” she said. “A meeting. You’ll see.”