Dead Aim

CHAPTER 15

Markham sat in the back row of the theater, staring at the movie without comprehension. It was as though he were not in Los Angeles but on an airplane, watching the movie without headphones. The actress who was on the screen eighty percent of the time was one who had been in many movies he had seen, and in this one she had already shown the camera all of the expressions her face would make. She and the lead actor had moved more quickly and abruptly at the beginning, but now they often lingered in the same frame for a while, so he assumed they’d discovered the reason why they had been put in this story together.

Markham was clutching the pager in his hand, so that when the signal came there would be no doubt that he would feel the vibration. His mouth was dry and he was sweating, although he had just finished a big cup of cold cola and other people in the air-conditioned theater were wearing jackets. His was on his lap.

He had approved Parish’s plan to split the hunting party this way. If Markham, Coleman, and Parish, all of them tall, noticeable men, were simply loitering on the street, someone might wonder why and would certainly remember them. But this way, Markham was invisible in the dark theater, and Coleman was in a coffee shop around the corner and down the street with his face hidden behind a newspaper. Parish was in a car with tinted windows driving around within a few blocks of here.

The only one in view of the target would be the tracker, Debbie, whom Parish had hired in the three years since Markham’s last visit to the camp. He had tried to be friendly when Parish had introduced her, but his approach had elicited a particular kind of smirk that he’d decided meant she was an angry lesbian. It was all right, he supposed. Parish had assured him that she and Emily, the scout, were good at what they did, and their competence was far more important to him tonight than any interest they might have shown in him.

He knew that Debbie was undoubtedly with the target now, and that Emily was near here, probably in the restaurant or the street outside, making sure the scene was secure. When she saw the target and the tracker arrive, she would make the three calls. He corrected himself. She would make the calls if, after they arrived, it was safe. Parish had assured him of that, and repeating it to himself made him feel better. The scout had been there long before anyone else. She would already have studied the entrances and exits and every person there to be sure there was no threat, and she would make sure everything stayed that way.

He jumped as the pager in his hand began to vibrate. He had tested it before he had come, but now it didn’t feel like a machine: it felt alive. He barely kept himself from throwing it. He sat up straight and looked at the display in the little window on top. He hoped it would be a line of dashes, the sign that he had accidentally triggered it, but he could see 6543210, the number she’d told him to expect. It was real. She was calling them in.

He put the pager, very deliberately, into his pocket before he stood up. He had to get each stage of this out of the way in its turn. He moved to the aisle and out into the lobby. The lights made him blink and the strong, greasy popcorn smell nauseated him, but he made his way through quickly enough, and as soon as he was out of the splash of light the marquee threw onto the sidewalk, he felt stronger and more purposeful again. He didn’t like Los Angeles, but these warm summer nights made walking easy and quick.

He walked with brisk, powerful strides and took deep breaths to force extra oxygen into his lungs, and it made him feel even better. As he came around a corner to a darker street, he ventured to touch the pistol hidden under his jacket at the back of his belt. He began to prepare himself by visualizing what was going to happen. As he did, he tensed each muscle he would use. He would arrive, and all of the others would be in position in view of the target. The target had been patiently stalked for days, and tonight, lured into a small, almost windowless restaurant on a side street. Markham would walk in, take a safe position a distance away, and pull out the gun to fire. The target might see the movement in time to duck or crouch, but it would do no good.

The thought made Markham walk faster. As he approached the restaurant, he could see without being seen, as though he were a ghost materializing out of the darkness. There were Parish and Emily, the scout, outside the front door, and there was Marshall Coleman strolling toward them from the opposite direction.

He stepped up to Parish, who said quietly, “It’s a go.” Markham moved to the front door, and heard Parish behind him repeating to Coleman, “It’s a go.” Markham opened the door and held it so Coleman could go first, then slipped in behind him.

Markham could see the target instantly, because Debbie was at the table with her. The target’s face had the round, pushed-in look of the lower classes, with a short, characterless nose and small, darting eyes.

Coleman was already reaching into his coat, covering his motion with the newspaper he carried, and Markham hesitated in confusion: had he missed some signal, not known of some change in the plan?

Markham saw Debbie stand up and heard her say, “I’m going to the ladies’ room,” looking down to fiddle in her purse. That distracted the target for only a fraction of a second. All of the unexpected motion seemed to alarm her. She was on her feet instantly, and she made the one move Markham had not imagined in advance. She backed up toward the narrow corridor, retreating toward the rest rooms ahead of Debbie, so that Debbie would be between her and the shooters. Suddenly she was staring past Debbie at Markham and Coleman and reaching into her purse.

Debbie’s left hand jerked up and efficiently swatted the target’s hand away from the purse, while Debbie’s right hand stopped in front of the target’s face. Then Debbie whirled to the right, away from the target, and went low.

Markham saw that the target’s face had suddenly become wet. The target winced and blinked and ducked down, her mouth open and gasping, and clapped her hands to her eyes: pepper spray. The target was in agony. She rocked from side to side, tried to turn and make her way blindly down the hall toward the parking lot.

Markham quickly pulled out his pistol and fired without aiming, trying to catch up with Coleman, and the restaurant sounds were obliterated by the noise. Which shot cut flesh first scarcely mattered, because Parish had taught them not to fire once and wait. Coleman and Markham each fired rapidly four times, watching the target’s body jump and buckle. When she was on the floor, Markham stepped forward. The target was dead, but Markham had been taught that the coup de grace was the professional way, so he aimed at the target’s forehead and fired once more.

He stepped back, because there was a blood rivulet heading along a crack in the floor toward his left shoe. As he looked up, he could see that Debbie had made it down the corridor to the back door. She opened it and slipped out.

He jumped when he heard the next shot, and involuntarily glanced down at his gun. The scout, Emily, had stepped inside. She was shooting the bartender and the waitress, then the two customers at the bar, then the one at the table. He had forgotten that the scout’s responsibility was the place, choosing the spot and keeping it safe. She looked down at each of the bodies, then moved out the way Debbie had gone.

Markham turned on his heel and stepped toward the front door. He felt numb, slow and clumsy. The sudden silence left a ringing in his ears that seemed to rise and fall with his heartbeat. He saw Parish standing just inside the doorway, and held a picture of him as he stepped past him out into the night. Once again it was Parish, the instructor, looming silently on the periphery, watching everything with concentration and coldly evaluating it. His face was unreadable. As Markham turned on the sidewalk to look back, he saw Parish step calmly out the door after him.

Markham saw Coleman a block ahead of him, and he felt his pace increase in a canine eagerness to catch up. He had to keep himself from bounding up the street or calling out to him. They had done it. The hunt had been successful. They were outside now, the target was dead, and there were no living witnesses. He shivered briefly with residual fear, almost a physical memory of how he had felt. Now that his fear was only a memory, it was pleasant, titillating. He and Coleman had done it, gone up against an armed adversary, who had actually tried to shoot first. They had bet their lives, taken their chances, and won.

The feeling was better than the first time he had gone hang gliding, better than rock climbing. He had killed an armed enemy in a gun battle. After all, he was pretty sure that his first round had been the one that had done the trick. It was a shame that he couldn’t tell anyone about it, at least not for a lot of years. And there was no trophy for this kind of hunting. The rewards were all internal. Now that the target was dead, he wished that the target had been a man, not a woman. But that made little difference, really: Markham would have been just as dead if the target had fired first. He knew that no matter how long he lived, he would never forget the name: Lydia Marks.