The Killing Kind

27

The pressure of the barrel against Purkhiser’s temple lessened but didn’t disappear. Purkhiser opened one eye-cautious, wary. The woman’s words were flint against the last small measure of steel in his heart, sparking hope. She stood just off the right-hand corner of the stage, gun drawn. Given her suit, her expression, and the way she held her gun, she was law. She looked the type to shoot if called upon to do so. She looked as if she wouldn’t likely miss.

Leon saw that in her, too, but where Purkhiser found cause for hope, Leonwood found only irritation.

“Bitch, can’t you see I’m working?” He turned to face her, his automatic still pressed to Purkhiser’s head. His free hand inched toward the.25 at the small of his back.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Thompson said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Leonwood laughed, and drew the.25 on her. Thompson flinched but didn’t fire-she couldn’t risk Leonwood clenching when the bullet hit and killing Purkhiser. “Or what,” he said. “You’ll shoot? I ain’t some fucking moron- I know the only leverage I got is this poor bastard right here, and the fact you know I’ll paint the wall with his brain if you try to pop me. So how ’bout we cut the shit?”

“Leon,” Thompson said, her voice as measured as she could manage. “You don’t want to do this. No one else has to die today. Let’s talk this through.”

“Lady, maybe you ain’t been keeping score, but what I done today no talking’s gonna fix.” He glanced toward the entrance of the banquet hall, where armored SWAT slinked like living shadows toward the stage. “Hey, you wanna tell your buddies to pull back? That is, unless you’d prefer being carried outta here.”

Thompson frowned. “Uh, Garfield-I’m assuming you heard that, right?”

“Loud and clear,” rang her earpiece. “And I wish I had better news for you, but our snipers haven’t set up yet- they were waiting for the entry team to clear a line.”

“Right,” she said. Shit. She hoped they had a shot-that they could end this standoff from afar. “Tell our boys to pull back, then.”

Garfield gave the order. The shadows receded. Leon-wood watched them go, though the barrel of his.25 never faltered-it remained trained on the bridge of Thompson’s nose.

When the SWAT team had exited the hall, Leonwood nodded almost imperceptibly, and said to Thompson, “The door.” She gave the order, and it swung closed. “Good,” he said. “Now lower your weapon.”

“You think I’m nuts?”

“Listen, bitch, the only way you’re walking out of here is if you put down your fucking weapon. Me and Eric here-”

“Eddie,” Purkhiser muttered weakly, only to squeal under the renewed pressure from Leonwood’s suppressed barrel.

“As I was saying, me and Eric here are going through that door-which, by the way, you’re gonna have unlocked for me.” He waited a second, staring at the light on the proximity card-reader, which glared red. “Uh, now?”

“Unlock the stage door,” said Thompson through gritted teeth. The light went green.

“Good,” said Leonwood. “Now, what’s gonna happen is, you’re gonna put down your gun. If you don’t, I shoot you both. You and me and Eric are going for a little walk. Unless I’m mistaken-and I’m not-past the kitchens, there’s a loading dock. I want a car waiting for us-keys in, engine running. Your people lock us in, I shoot you both. I see any more coppers, I shoot you both. If the car’s fucked with in any way, I shoot you both. You get me?”

“Yeah,” Thompson said. “I get you.”

“Good. Now be a doll and put down your fucking gun.”

Reluctantly, Thompson complied. She didn’t have much choice. Her best play was to keep him moving, keep him talking, get him out into the open so her people could find their shot.

“Good girl,” he cooed. “Only, you wanna know a secret?”

“What’s that?”

Leonwood pulled the trigger on the MP5K. A report like a firecracker, and every muscle in Purkhiser’s prostrate form contracted at once, then slackened. Blood and brain misted across the heavy backstage door.

As the life left Purkhiser’s body, Leonwood swung his miniature assault rifle toward Thompson, now unarmed. When Leonwood had pulled the trigger, she’d nearly gone for her gun, but his pistol-and his gaze-never left her. And now it was too late.

“I know full well you ain’t gonna let me walk outta here-and I sure as hell ain’t going back to prison. Which means, like it or not, neither of us are ever gonna leave this room.”

“Well,” said Hendricks, emerging from the balloons to the left of the stage, “you’re half right.”

By the time he’d spoken the words, the ceramic knife had already left Hendricks’s hands. Leonwood wheeled toward him, as Hendricks knew he would. Hendricks’s throw was true: the point of the knife caught Leonwood in the Adam’s apple, driving hilt-deep before Leonwood could so much as blink.

Hendricks had hoped to sever Leonwood’s spine. Hoped, but didn’t count on it. That shot would have been one in a million-slipping between or driving through his vertebrae-and Hendricks wasn’t quite that lucky. Spewing blood as he fell backward from the force of the blow, Leonwood raised both the MP5K and the.25 at Hendricks and squeezed off a few rounds. Hendricks didn’t even flinch. He knew Leonwood’s shots would go wide.

Thompson didn’t know what to think. She hit the deck, face to floor. As she fell she saw the stranger mount the stage with ease and close the gap between him and Leon-wood in three quick strides.

When Leonwood slammed into the stage, he dropped his weapons and grasped weakly at the knife jutting from his throat, blood surging between his fingers. Hendricks crouched over him and watched the light in his eyes die.

“Happy travels, Leon. Maybe we’ll meet again in hell.”

The whole encounter had taken maybe twenty seconds. Thompson listened, still as death, where she lay. She feared if she moved, she might make herself a target. But when she heard Leonwood’s assailant rise and turn to flee, she scrambled over to her gun, which lay to her left. She snatched it off the floor and rolled, meaning to draw down on the new man-the new threat.

But by the time she did, the man was gone.