Mister X

78

When they exited the elevator, Quinn led them only a few feet down the hall to 5-D. The apartment had windows facing the street. Windows that he thought offered the SWAT snipers maybe too much opportunity. If everything went right, there would soon be a lot of people in the apartment.

If everything went right, no shots would be fired.

But if anything went wrong…

He stood off to the side of the door and knocked.

"Coming in, Chrissie!"

There was no sound from inside, but he was sure she'd heard him. At least heard the knock.

He reached over, rotated the knob, and pushed on the door.

It was unlocked and swung open wide.

He breathed in deeply, knowing it might be his last breath, then stepped into the doorway.

Edward Keller was standing awkwardly with his arms at his sides, leaning slightly to his right with his knee braced against the arm of a pale green easy chair for balance. He was a medium-sized man, wearing gray pants and a white shirt, red tie. The tie was loosened. The shirt was plastered to his body with perspiration so the pink of his flesh showed through. What was left of Keller's thinning dark hair was mussed, as if he'd been raking his fingers through it. His eyes were red-rimmed from the sting of the rivulets of sweat that were tracking down his face. It was an ordinary face, made stiff as a mask by terror.

He didn't look at all mean or dangerous now.

That was because his daughter, Chrissie, stood calmly ten feet away from him, holding a twelve-gauge shotgun trained on his midsection.

Keller stared with slack-jawed fear at Quinn and the others who filed in behind him. Something was going to happen here, and soon. He didn't know what, but it scared the hell out of him.

Scared Quinn, too.

A shotgun. Just what we need. She must have brought it with her from Ohio.

Quinn sensed the others spreading out behind him. They knew the shotgun, which looked like a semiautomatic, would, if fired wildly over and over, turn the apartment into a bloody death trap.

He turned his attention to Chrissie. She seemed calm, almost in a trance. Speeding along tracks leading to a train wreck and unable and unwilling to stop. The shotgun rested light and easy in her hands. She'd grown up in a small town in bird-hunting country. Quinn hoped she was familiar with guns and wouldn't go crazy with the thing.

Keller broke the silence by stammering, "Please get her to stop pointing that shotgun at me."

"It wouldn't hurt you to drop the barrel a few inches, dear," Quinn said to Chrissie.

There was no change in her posture or expression. The gun remained steady. Quinn noticed she was standing in one of the few areas of the room where there was no chance of a sniper's shot from outside hitting her. She'd thought this out. Her eyes darted to Quinn, back to her father.

"It would be better for all concerned," Quinn said calmly, "if you lowered the gun and we talked."

He was suddenly aware that Pearl had unobtrusively removed her handgun from its holster and was holding it down and slightly behind her right thigh, where Chrissie wouldn't see it.

Jesus! Yancy!

Shouldn't have let Pearl come up here…

Quinn pushed Pearl from his thoughts and smiled at Chrissie, moving a few feet to his right so she could see him in her peripheral vision while looking at her father. Keller was trembling now. There was a spreading urine stain on the front of his gray pants.

"What is it you want?" Quinn asked Chrissie.

Her answer was spat from behind clenched teeth. "Justice."

"Then we're on the same page," Quinn said. "So let's talk about this and see if we can arrive at justice."

"I don't want to talk."

Quinn saw Keller stiffen as she spoke, asking himself the same question Quinn was asking: Then why did she let these people come up here?

And suddenly he knew why.

The shotgun roared, and Keller's body leaped backward and spun, spewing blood as it fell.

Chrissie brought around the long barrel of the shotgun, drawing a bead on Quinn, then Erin, Quinn, then Erin. Erin began to scream.

"He's dead, Chrissie!" Quinn said, almost screaming himself so he could be heard with Erin making all that noise.

Erin had figured it out, too. Chrissie had known she would come into the apartment, and Chrissie knew why Erin would come. Even though hers had been a sin of omission, Erin wanted Chrissie's silence as much as Ed Keller had. She wanted to make sure of that silence.

Or maybe Erin would have settled for simple forgiveness.

But forgiveness was out of the question now.

Quinn tried again to make himself heard. "You can stop it now, Chrissie! Stop!"

"Kill her!" Erin shrieked. "Shoot her, goddamn it! Shoot her!"

The shotgun barrel stopped moving where it was aimed at a point precisely between Quinn, who was the hunter and authority figure who'd come for Chrissie perhaps in the way her father had, and Erin, her mother. It didn't waver. But Quinn knew that it would soon move a foot or so one way or the other. Chrissie was making her choice.

"Don't do it, dear…"

"Shoot her, goddamn it! Shoot her!" Erin shrieked again.

Quinn heard Fedderman's nine-millimeter bark beside him. The bullet struck Chrissie in the side and jerked her half around so she staggered back a few steps. The shotgun barrel flew upward, and a round exploded into the ceiling, bringing down a shower of plaster or drywall powder.

Now she was lowering the gun, her finger still on the trigger. It would take a second for the long barrel to swing around.

Quinn's old police special revolver was out of its holster and blasting away. He'd known he had no choice and had acted automatically.

A halo of red mist appeared around Chrissie's head. Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed.

The silence was complete for several seconds. Then Quinn's ears began to ring.

He looked at Fedderman, then at Pearl. They both seemed all right. Erin was slumped on the floor, the side of her head pressed to the wall. Quinn went to her, bent low, and looked into her wide, uncomprehending eyes.

"Are you hit?" His own voice, coming from far away. He screamed it again but could still barely hear himself. "Are you hit?"

She shook her head no and then said something. He read her lips: My baby was going to kill me.

Quinn straightened up and glanced at where the winner of the Tri-State Triple Monkey Squared Super Jackpot lay dead with the lower half of her face missing. He went to Pearl. She was still holding her Glock at her side, pointed at the floor. He gently removed the heavy gun from her hand and checked the breech, then the clip.

The gun hadn't been fired.

He gave the Glock back to her and then gripped her shoulders and smiled down at her.

"Damned thing jammed," she said.

He wondered if it had.

She looked away.

He kissed her forehead, and she smiled back at him.

Not much of a smile, but something.