Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

76

All bloody fucking hell had broken loose upstairs from the sound of it, and Dwyer ran for the stairs. Had that big fucker managed to stand and trade shots with Rickie?

Dwyer had popped the safe with the combination Lowell Gantcher had generously volunteered and then saw, with much disgust, what it contained. He’d ripped up the lousy traveler’s checks right in front of Gantcher’s eyes, while they were still open, though the paring knife was already lodged in his liver. It was a German make, a Wusthof, a damn good high-carbon steel, laser-edged blade that did its work efficiently. Gantcher had gone crying softly, something mumbled about a wife and kids through half-chewed duct tape, not much fight left in him, but nothing too unmanly.

Now Dwyer charged the door leading to the kitchen, the Ceska drawn, and rammed his way through. Behr was on a knee, hit and bleeding badly but not dead, and currently stuffing shells into a revolver. Other bodies were visible on the floor in the corners of his eyes as Dwyer lined up his shot: Rickie twisted in a heap and another fellow on his back, weakly pulling a small-framed concealed carry auto from an ankle holster. Dwyer redirected his sights to the armed man, who in turn fell back and fired, peppering the doorframe around Dwyer’s head.

Dwyer had a poor angle but zeroed in on the man’s skull and squeezed just as Behr hurtled into him from across the room. His shot flew high and wide and Dwyer gave up the gun, letting it clatter away in order to grab Behr under the shoulders and whipsaw him into the kitchen island. Behr crashed into it with a thud, but rolled and faced Dwyer and they locked eyes. Before any physical movement, whether it’s conscious or subconscious, the intent forms in the brain, and if one is sensitive or experienced enough, one can see it in the opponent’s eyes. Most of the time it’s infinitely subtle, but what Dwyer saw in Behr’s right now, despite his being half bled, was the intent to kill him. Dwyer imagined the same message was flashing like neon in his own.

He charged Behr, dropping for a double leg, which the larger man somehow stuffed by sprawling. Dwyer felt a hard elbow thump into the back of his skull and he dove down toward unconsciousness, but managed to fight through it and stand and wedge a forearm beneath Behr’s throat as he put him into a guillotine choke. Behr pumped his legs and found a reserve that Dwyer hadn’t banked on. He stood up through the choke, snaking his arms around Dwyer’s lower legs and churned forward. They left the kitchen, careening through a doorway into a butler’s pantry, where they both hit the ground in a crash and clatter of cabinetry, dishes, and serving implements.

They faced each other, panting, for a split second, the gamy physical stink of death coming off them in waves. On their elbows and bellies atop broken glass, shattered and pebbled, it was all between them now, the few-foot expanse that was survival or death. This was Dwyer’s terrain. His eyes cut around the space for something sharp or edged or heavy. He saw Behr’s do the same. Nothing suitable.

With grunts and the pop of glass ground to dust underfoot they ran at each other and locked up and Dwyer got his hands around Behr’s neck in a double collar tie. He yanked, then flung his hips back for a snap down, a technique that always left his opponents on their faces, spitting teeth. But this one didn’t go. He merely doubled over some. The wound, Dwyer thought, as he drove down and felt Behr’s clavicle there, shot apart and jagged, under his forearm. He’d broken countless healthy men with the move, and he pushed with all the leverage his stout body possessed. But this one wouldn’t break. Then, with a guttural bellow, Behr caught him around the waist, lifted him off the ground and high into the air before dumping him with a vicious body slam that caved in his rib cage. He felt the air squeeze out of him and black pain flood in. The effort of it caused Behr to drop to his knees. Dwyer looked up and saw that the other wounded man had twisted his way into view of the doorframe, a smeared blood trail behind him, and had managed to roll and was attempting to work himself into a modified Creedmoor shooting position, his gun across the outside of his calf. Dwyer summoned the last strength he’d trained into himself over decades to gain his feet and run straight through the glass door of the pantry. He kept waiting for shots to sound and bite into him as he hit the ground outside and clambered for the cover of the side of the house, but they didn’t come …

77

Behr tried to give chase, but found his legs wouldn’t respond anymore and he stumbled down to his knees again. Back in the kitchen he scrabbled around on the floor for the Bulldog and the shells he’d dropped when he made his tackle, but he was weak, uncoordinated, and light-headed and he hadn’t fitted a single one into its chamber before Dwyer was out of sight. Decker lay there, his gun still up, but there was no one left to line up on. Behr crawled for the kitchen phone, yanking it down and putting it to his ear, only to find it dead.

He made his way, on hands and knees, toward Decker, grabbing a wadded-up dishtowel from the floor on his way. Behr reached him and pressed the linen hard onto the wound, which was a wickedly clean seven-inch laceration that went clear down to the bone and ran the length of his jaw, and was still gouting blood. Another inch lower and it would have been his jugular and an early good night.

That’s when a low-grade explosion erupted outside and a compressed whump rocked the kitchen. A kind of smile creased Decker’s face. His teeth shone bright white against the dark blood around his mouth for a moment.

“Mud cutter,” he said, “made it myself,” his back sinking against the floor in something resembling satisfaction. Behr understood he’d set off some kind of booby trap near the back door on his way in.

The two of them lay there breathing raggedly for a moment. Behr dialed 911 on his cell phone and pressed Send over and over. The last thing he saw was a signal bar flicker into place and then his head dropped and blackness came.