Firebreak

8

Behind the silver wall, the building was immediately a warehouse, long and broad, concrete-floored, pallets of boxes stacked nearly to the fluorescents hanging in garish white lines from the ten-foot ceiling. The space was full of the echoing sound of machinery, motors, some nearer, some farther off, all too loud for normal conversation.

Meany turned right, Arthur following, then Parker, then the other two. They walked past long wide aisles made by the stacks of boxes, with workmen and fork-lifts visible some distance away. At the last aisle, Meany turned left, and partway along there the stacks on the right were replaced by a concrete block interior wall, spotted with gray metal doors and square windows of plate glass.

They went past the first door and window, through which Parker saw four people seated at desks, working on computers. The second door and window led to a room with fax, copier, and storage, empty right now, and Meany opened the third door, into what had to be his office, functional but roomy.

Meany went in first, then Arthur, then Parker, who stepped to his left. As the bandaged guy came in, Parker took out the Beretta, stuck it against the guy's ear, and fired. The sound was like a cough from a lion's cage.

Before the body could fall, Parker stepped in to clasp it around the chest with his left arm, while his right hand dropped the Beretta on the floor and went to that hip holster the guy had reached for earlier. He came out with a snub-nosed .32, thumb finding the safety, and stepped back, holding the body close, as the others all turned to gape at him. Meany, disbelieving, cried, "What did you do?"

Parker said, "Arthur, get their guns. Stay out of the line of fire."

Arthur, understanding he didn't have the luxury of time to be shocked right now, gave a spastic nod and said, "Right. Will do." His voice trembled, but he moved.

Parker shut the door with his shoulder and leaned against it, the body held against his chest, the .32 showing around the dead man's side. He watched Meany, knowing the other guy wouldn't move without instructions, and Meany watched him, with growing anger, his face reddening. He didn't react when Arthur patted him down, removing a pistol from beneath the well-tailored jacket, but kept staring at Parker.

Parker said, "Put the guns on the desk."

Arthur did, one pistol from each of them, and then Parker let the body fall, stepping away from it, saying, "Meany, put your hands on your head."

"Or what?" Meany's voice was strangled, his throat choked with rage.

"Or I gut-shoot you," Parker said, "and you live long enough to answer questions." He aimed the .32 just below Meany's belt buckle.

'You come in here," Meany said, furious about it, but putting his hands up, lacing his fingers atop his head, "you pull this against three of us, in the middle of our operation! How are you gonna get out of here?"

"That isn't your problem," Parker told him. "How you get out of here, that's your problem." Turning to the other one, he said, "Face down on the floor, over there, away from that chair. Clasp your hands at the back of your neck. Spread your feet apart. Farther." When the guy had obeyed orders, Parker said, "Arthur, use one of those guns. Just hold it on that guy down there. Don't shoot him unless he moves."

Arthur tried to pick up the gun as though it were something he did all the time. He moved Meany's telephone so he could rest his hand on it, pistol pointing at the man on the floor.

Parker said to Meany, "Brock and Rosenstein had a private grudge against me. You people dealt yourself in."

"You killed a valuable asset of ours," Meany said.

Parker nodded. He said, "How many assets you want to lose before you start to mind your own business?"

Meany couldn't believe it. "You're threatening us?"

"I'm nothing to do with you," Parker told him, "unless you push yourself into my face. Then I come here, and you start to lose assets."

Meany shook his head. "How long before you run out your string?"

"You think I'm here out of luck?" Parker stepped over to the man on the floor, went on one knee beside him, said, "Move your hands under your chin."

The guy did so, and Parker laid the tip of the barrel against the side of his neck toward the rear, gun parallel to the floor. Meany watched him, blinking, not knowing what was supposed to happen now.

Parker looked up at him, the gun held steady. He said, 'You got a good health plan, here at Cosmopolitan?"

"What?" Meany was too bewildered now to remember to be outraged.

Parker said, "If I shoot this guy across the back of the neck here, just here, it doesn't kill him. All it does is break his spinal cord, leave him paralyzed the rest of his life. You people gonna support him, another forty, fifty years, in that wheelchair?"

"Jesus Christ," Meany said. The man on the floor was trembling, body rattling against the wood.

Parker stood. "But why do it to him? He's just a soldier. I do it to you, that means you're alive, you can tell

your pals at Cosmopolitan how I can be rough on assets. Face down on the floor." "You can't—Jesus—" "Down. Or do I put out your knee first?" Meany stared over at Arthur, as though for help, then squinted again at Parker. "Let's talk," he said.