Hit List

55

They were settled at their table at P.J. Clarke’s when Stone asked, “Did you reload?”

Dino stared at him. “Why?”

“You had only four rounds the last time we talked about this.”

“I reloaded: I’ve got a full magazine in the weapon, one in the chamber and two loaded magazines in my shoulder holster. You?”

“Same here.”

“Why are we worrying about this?” Dino asked.

“Well, I just want to know we can handle him if he walks in here and starts shooting.”

“Why would he do that? He doesn’t know where we are.”

“Dino, didn’t you hear me tell the motorcycle guy to tell him we’re at Clarke’s?”

“Shit, I forgot about that. Why did you do that?”

“I couldn’t think of any other way to find him.”

“Then we’d better get out of here, before he shows up,” Dino said, hipping across the seats and standing.

“What about our steaks?” Stone asked.

“If he comes, how long will he take to get here?”

“He must be in the neighborhood. He found the Norton.”

Dino flagged down a waiter. “Keep our steaks warm,” he said, and headed for the back door. “Come on, Stone, we can’t have a gunfight at Clarke’s.”

They hurried out the back door and into the street, which turned out to be deserted.

“Nothing,” Dino said.

“He could be along any minute.”

“While our steaks either get cold or overcooked. How long should we give him?”

Stone looked down the street to the motorcycle showroom, and checked to be sure the Norton was no longer in the window. “Shouldn’t take him long,” Stone said. Then he perked up his ears. From down Third Avenue, seemingly from the far distance, came a howl. “Not long at all,” he said.

Dino heard it, too. “He just shifted gears. We need a defensive position.”

Stone looked across the street and saw a construction dumpster. “There.”

“Inside a dumpster? This is a good suit.”

“Behind the dumpster,” Stone said. “Come on.” He ran across the street, slammed the open lid of the dumpster shut, and stood behind it. “Okay, now we’ve got two sheets of steel between us and him, plus whatever’s in the dumpster.”

“I don’t think we can do better,” Dino said. “Careful we don’t put rounds through Clarke’s windows.”

The distant motorcycle was only a block away now, and shifting down. The machine, with a single rider, appeared, hopped up onto the curb outside Clarke’s, and the driver got off and peered through the window.

“Not yet,” Dino said, “wait until he’s got the brick wall behind him.”

“Is it enough?”

“It’s a very old building; they built with two stacks of bricks in those days — no brick veneer.”

The man surveyed the interior of the bar for another moment, then began walking toward the rear entrance.

“Hey, Sig!” Stone shouted. “Freeze! Show us your hands!”

Sig went for something inside his jacket and snapped off two quick rounds in the direction of the voice; Stone heard them strike the dumpster with a hollow thump. Stone returned the volley with two shots of his own, but Sig had reversed course and was now in front of the bar window again.

He leapt into the air and landed on the motorcycle; a push of a button brought it to life.

“Not yet!” Dino called. “The window.”

Then Sig moved away from the window, but not into the street. He drove up the sidewalk, while Stone and Dino poured rounds into the parked cars lined up in the gutter. In what seemed like a moment, he was turning down Second Avenue and could be heard accelerating.

“Shit!” Dino yelled. “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?” Stone asked.

“Yell at him to freeze!”

“Because I wasn’t looking to murder him. I gave him a chance to drop the weapon.”

“Yeah, and look what he did instead!” Dino yelled at him. “When you want to kill a guy, you don’t warn him — Don’t you know that?”

“Oh, you just shoot him in the head?”

“Yeah, and if you’d done that this would all be over,” Dino said.

“Well, I guess you’ve got a point,” Stone said, “but if there’d been a witness in a doorway or something you’d be doing time for it.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you would have just shot him, and a witness could have sent you away for a long time.”

“Tell you what, Stone,” Dino said. “Next time we get near him, give me the first shot and keep your mouth shut. I’ll deal with whatever a witness might say.”

“As you wish,” Stone said. “I’ll come visit you in Dannemora now and then.”

“Now,” Dino said, “I think we’d better get out of here, because someone has already called 911, and I don’t want to have to explain how all these cars got shot up.”

“Let’s go see how our steaks are doing,” Stone said, and they crossed the street and went into Clarke’s through the back door. The steaks were on their table, under lids, but they were still fairly hot.

Their waiter came over. “Hey, Dino, did you catch the gunfire outside?”

“What gunfire?” Dino asked innocently.

“Never mind,” the waiter replied, then went away.

Stone dug into his lukewarm steak. “It was a BMW, wasn’t it?”

“What? Sig’s motorcycle?”

“Yes. A black BMW?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re a big help. And Sig was dressed in all-black leather and a helmet, right?”

“I think so.”

“Then add those things to his description.”

“How do you know he won’t change everything?”

“I think he really loves the BMW, just from the way he rode it, and I think he thinks he looks really cool in black.”

“If you say so,” Dino replied. He made the call.