Minotaur

13

Chapel crawled to the edge of the counter. Beyond he could see some chairs and a table. No sign of Stephen. He risked poking his head out just a little further.

Two gunshots in quick succession dug up long runnels through the linoleum tile Chapel crouched on. He jumped back as quickly as he could, knowing if he was going to be hit there was no way he could move fast enough. He pushed his back up against the island and sat down on the floor, trying to avoid the steadily growing puddle of the cook’s blood. Strands of uncooked pasta floated in the red pool.

Jesus, he thought. He’d really managed to compromise things in a hurry. He couldn’t have been free for more than ten minutes. And now a woman was dead… he hadn’t even brought a weapon to Favorov’s house. His mission had been purely about talking to the man, finding out a vital piece of information.

Now he was a prisoner in the house, pinned down by gunfire. Even if there was some way he could overpower Stephen, everyone in the mansion had surely heard the gunshots. There would be plenty more servants coming for Chapel, not to mention Favorov himself.

The poor cook hadn’t asked for any of this. He glanced over at her body, lying in a heap a few feet away. Immediately he wished he hadn’t looked. He closed his eyes for a second and just waited, waited for Stephen to come around the side of the island and shoot him. But no—that wasn’t good enough. He was Jim Chapel, damn it, and he didn’t just give up.

“Stephen,” he called out. “Stephen, will you listen?”

“What the fuck do you want?”

At least he’d gotten the name right. It had been either Stephen or Michael and he’d chosen correctly. When his odds were one in two, it seemed he still had a little luck. “Stephen, I want to talk about how this ends.”

“It ends with you having a big hole in your fucking face if you make a move right now.”

“Got it,” Chapel called back. “That’s how it ends for me, sure. So I’m going to stay right here and just talk. Is that all right?”

Chapel expected a gunshot in response. Instead he just got silence.

“Your boss wants me alive,” Chapel tried. “If you kill me—”

“Shit, I’m already fired,” Stephen said. It sounded like he might start sobbing soon. Clearly he hadn’t thought any of this through. “The boss doesn’t like people who fail him. And I’ve already failed him—you got away. Shit! Fired.” He chuckled.

“Something funny?”

“I know who he is, man. I know what he used to be. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t strangle me with my own tie.”

“He’s a pretty dangerous guy, yeah,” Chapel agreed. “I’m a lot nicer. I can protect you.”

“Yeah, right. After I just took four shots at you.”

Five, Chapel thought. He’d been counting. Judging by the sounds of the gunshots, Stephen had a revolver. Which meant, most likely, he only had one shot left.

Assuming he hadn’t brought any reloads with him. And that he only had the one weapon. And that Chapel had, indeed, counted correctly. He’d been under stress when he was adding up shots.

Chapel needed another way out of this. “I can be very forgiving,” he said. “Listen, Stephen, you can still walk away.” Not very far, though. As soon as the cops caught up with him Stephen would be looking at a manslaughter charge, at the very least, for what he’d done to the cook. But Chapel didn’t figure it would help him if he said that out loud. “Is there a door in this room, leading outside?”

“There is.”

“You can just walk right through it. I won’t follow you, I promise.”

Another chuckle.

“No, seriously. You’ve got the gun, Stephen. I’m helpless here. Totally defenseless. You walk away and I’d be an idiot to chase you.”

Stephen was silent for a long time. “Stand up,” he said, finally. “Show me your hands.”

“Come on, Stephen, I’d be a real idiot to—”

“Do it or I’ll shoot you in the goddamn heart!”

Chapel slowly rose to his feet, just poking his head over the counter. Expecting the top of his skull to be blown off. He lifted his hands. His artificial hand first.

He saw Stephen standing not three feet away. The snub-nosed barrel of a big, nasty revolver was pointing right at Chapel’s chest. Stephen must have had some training, he realized, in how to shoot. He knew to go for center mass, rather than trying to shoot Chapel in the head.

“Okay,” Chapel said. “I did what you asked. Now—”

You couldn’t dodge a bullet. No human being was fast enough. Not at that range, certainly. So when Stephen fired his sixth and final shot, Chapel had nowhere to go.