Damnation Street

29.

The man who called himself John Foy moved in to finish Bishop off. It gave him a sense of professional satisfaction. It was a job well done.

Bishop had been good. He was good when the shooting started anyway. Before that he was just a little hot-headed, a little careless, that's all. That's why it had been so easy to draw him in. The man who called himself John Foy had a small network of watchers and informants who fed him information in a number of elaborate ways. A coded message on an Internet news website had alerted him Sunday afternoon that one of these people had something for him. He made contact with the informant on a stolen cell phone and learned that Bishop had roughed up one of Adalian's thugs. In revenge, the thug had spread the word that Bishop was coming after the specialist. It was a good break. It gave him a chance to pay Weiss back for chasing him around outside the Super 8.

It also gave him a chance to try out the fat suit. It worked well. He'd augmented it with some foam, covered it with the Hawaiian shirt, made himself look like a real lard-ass to blend in with the tourists. And the way the Saracen sat invisible in the vest's pouch-that was perfect. No one could have seen it or felt it there.

In fact, the whole thing had given him fresh confidence after a period of self-doubt. The mistakes he'd been making recently had made him feel that maybe his luck was deserting him. This, though-this had gone off exactly as planned. He left a trail and Bishop followed it, simple, efficient. True, Bishop was no Weiss. He wasn't smart like Weiss, and he didn't have that way Weiss had of guessing what you'd do. But he was a real professional all the same, a specialist, just like Foy. And he never saw it coming. He never suspected a thing.

Still, he was good at the end. When the shooting started, he was very good. He must've seen Foy coming at the very last second. He had no time at all to react, but he made a close duel of it all the same. When he pulled the curtain open like that, the sun had pierced through the window directly into the specialist's eyes. It had blinded him just as Bishop leapt out of the way. The slugs from the Belgian 5.7 ripped Bishop's left side open at the midsection, but the man who called himself John Foy had been aiming for a center shot, his chest, his heart. The detective should've been dead by the time he hit the floor.

Instead, he sat slumped against the wall. His head hung limp on his chest. His eyes were open, staring at the carpet. His left hand lay motionless in his lap. His right hand lay open on the carpet, palm upward. His finger was still tangled in the trigger of his gun-a Kahr 9mm, a K9, the specialist noted. Not a bad little weapon for this sort of thing. He probably had another in his boot-or maybe a knife. But it didn't matter now. He was almost gone.

There was nothing left but to finish it, and he had to do it fast. The blasts from the Saracen had been loud in the small room. Usually people ignored these things, but there was always a chance some shit-for-brains Good Samaritan would decide to investigate or call the police.

For safety's sake, he tried to kick the K9 out of Bishop's hand, but it snagged on the detective's trigger finger. He covered Bishop with the Saracen, knelt down, worked the gun free, and tossed it behind him onto the bed. Aside from the rapid, shallow falling and rising of his chest, Bishop never moved. He was dying all right but not fast enough.

So, kneeling there, the man who called himself John Foy placed the barrel of the Saracen in the center of Bishop's forehead. Then he squeezed the trigger.