Panic!

“The john,” Vollyer said apologetically. He was the picture of guilelessness.

“Outside,” the target told him.

“Oh. Well, thanks.”

“Something I can get for you?”

“A glass of milk,” Vollyer said. “Nice and cold.”

“Coming up.”

Vollyer leaned against the counter and watched the target open a refrigerator unit, take out a bottle of fresh milk, pour from it into a tumbler. The bottle went back into the refrigerator, and the tumbler was set before Vollyer on the counter top. He lifted it, tasted, drank deeply. There was nothing like a cold glass of milk in the morning, especially on a hot morning like this one.

The door opened and Di Parma came inside. He crossed to where Vollyer stood, looked at the target, and then said, “Okay.”

“No cars?”

“Nothing.”

“Clean in here,” Vollyer said. “Let’s get it done.”

The two men backed off several steps, and their hands went down to the pockets of their jackets. The target had his mouth open to ask Di Parma if he wanted anything, but when he saw the expressions on the faces of the two men, he pressed his lips together. His eyes narrowed, and his forehead wrinkled into deep horizontal lines.

Vollyer and Di Parma took out their guns.

The target made a half-step backward, involuntarily, and his buttocks came up hard against the refrigerator unit. His eyes bulged with understanding, and a thin stream of saliva worked its way out over his lower lip and trailed down along his chin. “Oh Jesus,” he said. “Oh Jesus.”

The two guns were steady on him, and he couldn’t run, there was no place for him to go. He knew he was going to die, and the knowledge released his sphincter muscles; the odor was strong and sour in the hot, still room.

“No,” he said, “no, there’s some kind of mistake.”

“No mistake,” Vollyer said quietly.

“Listen, please, they promised me it was all right. They said I could get out; they said nothing would happen. Listen, I’m clear, I’m out of it, I never said a word, I’m no fink. Listen, don’t you understand? For Christ’s sake!”

“All right, Livio,” Vollyer said.

“No!” the target screamed. “No, no, no, no!”

They shot him six times, three times each, the bullets transcribing a five-inch radius on his upper torso. The target died on his feet, the way he was supposed to die, without making another sound.

Four

Lennox finished stacking crates of tinned goods against the near wall of the storage basement, and rubbed sweat from his eyes with the back of one arm. It was close in there, the air thick with fine particles of dust. The back of his throat felt hot and parched.

He tried to work saliva around inside his mouth, but the ducts seemed to have dried up. A spasm of brittle coughing seized him, and he pushed away from the wall to stand in the middle of the still-cluttered room. His mind felt sluggish, and yet somehow claustrophobic. He had an irrational impulse to rush headlong into one of the walls and pound it with his fists. He wanted to cry. The need to vent the deep brooding futility in some tangible way, to rid himself of the pressure building in heavy waves within the shell of him, was almost overpowering.

He thought: What’s happening to me? Why can’t I get straight with myself any more?

He dragged air into his lungs in open-mouthed suckings, and the paroxysm of coughing subsided. The impression of crushing entrapment retreated with it, and he felt a little better, a little more in control. His hand trembled only slightly when he raised it to wipe away the fresh sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Phyllis, you bitch, he thought.

And then he wondered if Perrins would let him have a beer. Christ, he needed one; his throat was so dry it was abrasively sore. Well, why wouldn’t Perrins let him have one? He was working for wages, wasn’t he? If he couldn’t get one gratis, then let the bastard take it out of his salary.

Lennox drew a shuddering breath and moved slowly to the set of stairs. He climbed them, working the rough edge of his tongue over his lips, and pushed the trap door up; its hinges were new, oiled, silent. Once in the storeroom, he lowered the trap, stepped around the cartons toward the door leading into the café—a soft-moving man by nature, creating no sound on his rubber-soled shoes.

He heard Perrins’ voice just before he reached the door. “Listen,” it said, “don’t you understand? For Christ’s sake!”