Grim nod. He was getting unsteadily to his feet. She gave him a tight grin and went to the door. Pushed it open a crack and peered out. The teardrop she’d taxi-trailed from the hotel was still there on the other side of the deserted, dilapidated street. The injured third man fumbled at its door, got it open. No time. She ran through and took up her firing stance again on the sidewalk. A thousand memories from the streets and back alleys of Queens and Manhattan, eleven years of pursuits and arrests—it pulsed through her, anchored her, steadied her hands.
“Police officer! Put your hands on your head, get down on the ground!”
He seemed to kneel at the opened door of the car. She trod closer.
“I said get your hands—”
He spun, yanked a weapon clear from somewhere. Came up firing. She shot back. Clutch of three—saw him punched back on the teardrop’s high-sheen flank, but knew at the same time she’d gone too high. Felt something kick her in the left shoulder, staggered with it and fell back against the wall of the bar. One leg shot out from under her, she flailed not to go all the way down. She braced herself on the wall, saw him reel off the car, leave smears of blood on the shiny bodywork of the teardrop, stagger and collapse inside the vehicle. She fought to get upright again, watched him lean out to haul the door closed after him, knew she was going to be too late. She threw up the Beretta one-handed and snapped off a shot. The three-slug burst was too powerful to hold down; the bullets pinged off the teardrop, nowhere near. The door hinged and snapped shut with a clunk she heard clear across the street. The engine whined into instant life. She stumbled forward, tried to straighten up, tried against the numbness in her shoulder to get a clean bead on the teardrop as it took off.
Three times, she came down on the trigger. Nine shots, solid pulsing kick each time into the wounded shoulder from the two-handed firing stance she held. The teardrop slewed side to side, then straightened up, reached a corner and took it at speed, disappeared from view on a screech of abused tires. She let her arms drop, blew out a disgusted breath, and just stood there for a moment.
“Fuck it,” she said finally. Her voice sounded loud in the suddenly silent street. “Two out of three, anyone got a problem with that?”
Apparently no one did.
She walked back to the bar, pushed open the door, and leaned there in the doorway, surveying the mess. Marsalis had gotten himself upright in the midst of it, had the revolver in his hand. He jolted as she came in, then just stood there looking at her. A faint smile twitched at her lips.
“I take it there’s no one back there in the restroom.”
“You take it right.”
“Good. I’m tired.” She put the Beretta away in its shoulder holster, wincing a little at the pain the movement caused her.
“You okay?”
She looked down at her left shoulder, where the slug had torn through. Blood leaked slowly down the arm of her ruined jacket. The numbness was fading out now to a solid, thumping ache. She flexed her left hand, lifted it and grimaced a little at the pain.
“Yeah, he tagged me. Flesh wound. I’ll live.”
“You want me to take a look at it?”
“No, I don’t fucking want you to take a look at it.” She hesitated, gestured what might have been apology. Her voice softened. “RimSec are on their way. It’ll wait.”
“I heard the car. Did he get away?”
She grimaced. “Yeah. Hit him a couple of times, but not enough to put him down. Thirteens, huh.”
“Yeah, we’re tough motherfuckers you know.”
And then the breath seemed to come out of Marsalis as if he’d been punctured. He went to the bar, got behind it, and laid the revolver carefully down on the scarred wood.
“Thank Christ that’s over,” he said feelingly. “You need a drink.”
“No, I don’t need a fucking drink. He got away.”
Marsalis turned to survey the piled assortment of bottles behind him. His eyes found her in the mirror.
“Yeah, but look on the bright side. We’re neither of us dead, which is a big fucking improvement on what I was expecting ten minutes ago.”
She shivered a little. Shook it off. Marsalis picked out a bottle from the multitude and a couple of shot glasses from below the bar. He set the glasses up on the bartop and drizzled amber-colored liquor into them.
“Look, humor me. Least I owe you for saving my life back there is a couple of stolen whiskeys. And you look like you could use them.”
“Oh hey, thanks a lot. I save your fucking life, you tell me I look like shit?”
He made a wobbling plane of his hand, tilted it back and forth. “Bit pale, let’s say.”
“Fuck you.” She picked up the glass.
He matched her, clinked the glasses together very gently. Said very quietly, “I owe you, Sevgi.”
She sipped and swallowed. “Call it quits for the skaters. You don’t owe me a thing.”
“Oh but I do. Those guys in New York were trying to kill me as well as you. That was self-defense. This is different. Cheers.”
They both drained their glasses. Sevgi leaned on the bar opposite him and felt the warmth work its way down into her belly. He lifted the bottle, querying. She shook her head.
“Like I said, RimSec should be here any minute,” she said. “I called them back around the time your friends made their entrance. Would have stormed in a little earlier but I was hoping for some backup.”
“Well.” He looked at his hands and she saw they were trembling a little. It did something to the pit of her stomach to see that. He looked up again, grinned. “Pretty good timing anyway. How the hell did you wind up here?”
“I saw you walk out of the hotel. I was just arriving.” She nodded at the corpses on the floor between them. “Saw the teardrop with these guys pull out and go after your taxi. Took me a few seconds to flag one down myself. Then when I got down here, I saw them sit outside the bar and wait. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, what you’d be doing all the way out of town like this, if these guys were with you or not. Only called it in when I heard shots and then headed on over. Which reminds me, what the fuck were you doing down here?”
He looked away from her, into a corner. “Just looking for a fight.”
“Yeah? Looks like you found a good one.”
He said nothing.
“So who were they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You called him something.” A sudden cop sharpness spiked in her mind, ruined the moment with its objections. “Back when he went for the gun. I heard you. On-something.”
“Onbekend, yeah. It’s his name. He introduced himself while he was getting ready to kill me.” Marsalis frowned to himself. “He was a thirteen.”
“He told you that?”
“It came up in the conversation, yeah.”
She shivered again. “Bit of a coincidence.”
“Isn’t it. Speaking of which, what were you doing back at the hotel watching me?”
“Oh yeah. That.” She nodded, let the satisfaction of being right warm her into a faint smile of her own. “Came to tell you. NYPD tracked down the third skater and brought him in. He says their target was Ortiz all along. Not you.”
Marsalis blinked. “Ortiz?”
“Yeah. Seems you and me just got caught in the crossfire. Sort of puts Norton in the clear, doesn’t it. Paranoia aside, I mean.”
“Are you sure about this? I mean, did NYPD check if—”
“Marsalis, just fucking drop it.” Her weariness seemed to be building. Or maybe the whiskey had been a bad idea. Either way, her eyes were starting to ache. “Better yet, just think about apologizing, if you know how that’s done. You were fucking wrong. End of fucking story.”
“Don’t gloat, Ertekin. It’s not attractive, remember.”
And she had to laugh then, even through the crushing weight of the tiredness. In the distance, she heard a RimSec siren approaching.
“And I’m not looking to get laid,” she said.
“Yeah, you are.”
She chuckled. “No, I’m fucking not.”
“You are.”
“Am fucking not, you—”