“So what happened to Phaedra? Whoever was after her just caught up?”
“I don’t know.” She silently drummed slender freckled fingers on the bar. “The last time I talked to Phaedra was a week ago Monday. There was something she wasn’t telling me. She was very agitated. I offered to give her a thousand dollars so she could get out of the state, and she agreed. We were going to meet the next night, here. But she never showed up. Then I read about it in the Republic two days later.”
I asked her if she would go downtown and give a statement. I guaranteed she would be safe.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, and rose to go.
“Susan.” I stood. “If you’re in danger, let me help you.”
She looked back at me and adjusted the ball cap. “I’m good at taking care of myself, David. I’m not sure I’m ready to trust anybody else just yet. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I followed her out of the tavern into the brightness of the mall atrium. The kids were mostly gone, replaced by couples and clusters of young women in black miniskirts and men in tight jeans coming and going from the movie theater. Susan looked around the crowd, then walked over to the railing and surveyed the lower levels of the mall. Turning back to me, she said, “You have brothers and sisters, David?”
I said I didn’t.
“Hmm.” She thought about that. “Then you wouldn’t appreciate what-”
That second, I heard a woman scream and caught a flash of blue metal out of the corner of my eye. Susan’s eyes grew gigantic and she dropped to the floor as the glass wall behind her blew out. I felt shards of glass in my neck and face as I fell sideways and rolled. People flashed by, yelling and screaming.
I scanned the crowd and saw a muscular man-he couldn’t have been taller than five five-with dark hair, tank top, and a machine gun with a large silencer aimed at me. Julie had talked of a small muscular man following her. I grabbed for the Python as I saw a muzzle flash and heard an odd whack-whack-whack sound. Bullets ricocheted off the polished metal railings. The revolver slid out of its nylon holster, resting heavily in my hand.
“Down!” I said. “Get down!” People stared dumbly at me. “Police officer!” I rose slowly, the gun held in both hands, quickly scanning for the small muscular man. I caught sight of him maybe twenty-five feet away. He looked at me coolly and raised the machine gun. I couldn’t get a shot-too many people. “Get down on the floor, goddamn it!” I shouted, then aimed and pulled back, aimed again, no clean shot. “Down!” He had me. Shit.
But nothing happened.
He cursed and slapped the gun. A jam.
He turned and ran into the mall. I started after him.
“Stay here!” I commanded Susan Knightly, who was still on the floor. To an ashen-faced man crouched against a bench, I said, “Call nine one one.”
“Tell them a plainclothes officer is on the scene and in pursuit of a suspect.” Hopefully, the cops wouldn’t mistakenly shoot me.
“Hey, need some help?” A burly red-faced man showed me a revolver in his belt. I nearly shot him just out of reflex.
“No!” I said. “Put that thing away! Do not follow me!”
I ran after the small man. It was pure adrenaline. Past the atrium and the bars, the mall immediately became deserted. I could hear Peralta from eighteen years ago telling me to calm down, that calmness meant steady judgment-and a good aim. I ran past the glassed and gated stores, watching the guy tear down an escalator. Reaching the top, I proceeded cautiously, waiting for a burst of fire-but he was gone. I padded down the escalator in a crouch, the Python in a two-handed combat grip, my hands only shaking a little. I was alone on the lower level and caught my breath. My cheek was bleeding steadily now from the glass. He could have gone in any of a half dozen directions.
This is nuts, a voice in my head warned. Wait for the cops.
Except that he knew why Susan Knightly and I were targets.
I picked a direction and ran that way, hugging close to a wall, ready to meet my killer around every post or alcove. I went a hundred feet and stopped, listening. I could still hear screaming and shouting from the bar area. Maybe some sirens in the distance. A fan whining somewhere. Empty storefronts and mannequins. A fountain’s rush. My own breathing. A burning in my lungs.
Footsteps.
He bolted suddenly from a doorway, turned down an exit corridor, his steps echoing behind him.
“Deputy sheriff! Stop!” I yelled, close behind him now. “Stop!”
I raised the revolver and lined up the Colt’s twin sights. Right between the shoulder blades: Bye-bye, asshole.
I didn’t take the shot. He banged out the fire exit into the night.
I ran after him and had just reached the exit bar when a voice stopped me from behind.
“Drop your weapon! Drop your weapon! Do not move!”
I heard the chilling sound of a round being chambered in a semiautomatic pistol.
I froze. “I’m a deputy sheriff,” I called, still facing toward the exit door. I let the Python down easy. “The suspect just ran outside here.”
“Mister, I don’t know who the hell you are,” came a scared young voice. “But I want you facedown on the ground, hands spread straight out! Push your weapon away very slowly!”
“Let me show you my ID.”
“Mister, you are five seconds away from eternity.”
A big drop of sweat trickled down my spine. Or maybe it was blood.
I almost started to turn around and yell that the son of a bitch was getting away. But I thought better of it. I got facedown on the cold, dirty mall floor and pushed the Python gently away.
Chapter Eighteen
I sat in the back of a large, bright fire department ambulance as a fireman in a dark blue T-shirt picked glass out of my neck and cheek. It stung like hell. But the good news was that I was the only casualty of the gunfire. The air-conditioning was running, but I was sweating nonstop. Peralta-wearing a tux-and three Phoenix cops surrounded me, firing questions.
“What direction did he go in after exiting the mall?”
“What vehicle did he drive?”
“Did he have anyone else with him in the parking lot?”
“Ow.” I winced. “I’ve told you five times, I never got out the door after him because the officer behind me wouldn’t let me go.”
“He didn’t know who you were,” said a uniformed police captain who had a tuft of hair missing from his cop mustache.
“I tried to tell him,” I said.
“How do you know you and this unknown woman were the intended targets?” asked a Phoenix PD deputy chief, a slim, bloodless man wearing a gray herringbone suit that was wildly out of place in the heat. “Dressing like an easterner,” my grandfather would have called it.
“Well, he looked at me, chambered a round, and pointed the gun. And the first burst came right at the woman who was giving me information on a homicide case.”
“I don’t know,” the captain said skeptically.
“Mike, Susan Knightly was in touch with Phaedra just before she died.” Peralta raised his eyebrows, and I related Susan’s conversation. Then I told him about the break-in at my house-and the beating I’d gotten in the carport. He asked a couple of questions and made some notes. He handed back my Python.
The Phoenix cops weren’t impressed.
“What were you doing at the mall, Mapstone?” This from a slender detective in a Ralph Lauren shirt with sweat rings under the arms.
“I was going to the twelve-hour sale at Dillard’s,” I said. “How many times do we have to go over this? Are you out looking for the shooter? Where is Susan, Mike?”
He shook his head. “She was gone when the first units arrived.”