Urge to Kill

A bus was about to board, and another, nearby, was letting out passengers. According to the schedule Dunn had studied, the bus unloading was from Buffalo, New York. Thomas Rhodes had dipped into his duffel bag and changed clothes, then switched bags. He was now dressed in a hooded green nylon rain parka and carrying a backpack (another deliberately out-of-character affectation), and was about to board the bus soon to depart for Pittsburgh. Dunn figured Rhodes’s ticket was a transfer and would take him farther away than Pittsburgh—if it were used.

This was good. The crowd was starting to coalesce and queue up for the boarding area outside Gate 322.

Staying to one side, and then approaching at a three-quarter angle so Rhodes wouldn’t see him, Dunn walked directly toward the figure in the green parka. It was an obviously new coat, and though it was light and meant to protect only against rain, it was still too hot a garment for this kind of weather; Rhodes should have known better than that.

Or maybe the damned thing was made of Kevlar and bulletproof.

If you guess wrong…

Dunn almost smiled. Bulletproof or not, it wouldn’t save Rhodes from fate in the person of Jerry Dunn. Rhodes was the one animal, and Dunn the one hunter. For both men, nothing else existed in the universe.

Rhodes was on the outskirts of the people about to board, when the door opened.

Some had made it through the door and a small crowd was milling in the direction of the parked bus. Public address announcements no one on earth could understand floated and echoed in the warm air.

Dunn’s mouth was dry. Don’t let him get outside. Take him inside. Take him inside.

He was twenty feet from his quarry.

Fifteen.

If his wife and coworkers could see him now. Who of them would have guessed? Ol’ Jer…

Make it right, a first accurate shot, then hammer back and a second quick squeeze of the trigger to make sure. Then claim Rhodes’s gun for your trophy, stay calm, and walk fast from the scene.

Stay calm.

Closer, closer…

Six feet away.

The compact revolver came out of Dunn’s coat pocket. His arm was pointed rigidly straight ahead, at Rhodes’s right temple. He thumbed back the hammer. Rhodes seemed to sense Dunn’s presence and began to turn.

Three feet.

He’s turning! Squeeze! Squeeze!

Rhodes’s eye that Dunn could see began to widen.

There was a sound like two loud, sharp slaps, very close together.

Thomas Rhodes dropped like an electrically powered being whose plug had been yanked. As he fell, Dunn was already moving to kneel in unison with his dead quarry’s descent. Dropping with him in grotesque choreography, only alive and with a purpose. Slipping his own gun into a pocket, extending an arm.

Rhodes fell to his knees and flopped forward, his face making a nasty sound as it smacked nose first into concrete. Dunn was already reaching into Rhodes’s right pants pocket for his gun.

It wasn’t there. The pocket was empty.

Should have checked somehow. Made sure. Damn, damn, damn…

Dunn felt the outside of Rhodes’s left pants pocket.

No gun.

He clutched and squeezed at the oversized green parka’s pockets. A foul stench wafted up from Rhodes’s body. He’d been sweating heavily in the parka, or maybe his sphincter had let loose as he died.

Blood now. On Rhodes’s face. On the parka’s hood.

Damn, damn, damn…

Still no gun. But would he be able to feel it under the coat’s bunched and slippery material?

He wondered if the gun might be in a holster or tucked in Rhodes’s belt in the small of his back. He began to feel, probing the wadded coat frantically, digging with his fingers.

And became aware of people around him watching. Beginning to stir.

Dunn knew his time was up. The opportunity to procure Rhodes’s gun had passed.

He’d failed.

He stood up as planned and began walking swiftly away, feeling sweat trickling down his ribs. Down his forehead.

He walked faster, faster, and then began to run.

A man’s voice shouted behind him, but the PA system was yammering at the same time, so Dunn didn’t know what the man had yelled. He was aware of other people running now, but past him in the opposite direction to see what was going on.

Dimly he recalled passing one of the stairways leading down to the main level. He turned and ran in the same direction as so many others, blended with them for half a dozen strides until he reached the steps; then down he went as people continued to flash past on the periphery of his vision.