There was only the one car, and it contained seating for only two. Levine unlimbered his .38 S&W Police Special from its holster on his right hip and moved forward, stepping cautiously on the weedy leaf-covered ground. Yellow and orange leaves fluttered down, sometimes singly or when the breeze lifted they dropped in platoons, infiltrating their way to the ground.
Beyond the Mercedes muddy ground sloped down to an old wooden dock. Tied beside it, very close to shore, was the Bobby’s Dream. Revolver in hand, eyes on the boat, Levine approached and, as he passed the Mercedes, a big-shouldered man in dark topcoat and hat came up out of the boat onto the dock, his arms full of boxes and packages, a couple of which Levine recognized; things he had brought to Banadando himself. He stopped, arm out, revolver aimed, and quietly said, “Just keep coming this way.”
The man stopped, staring at Levine, his expression one of total amazement. Then, in a blindingly swift move, he flung the boxes away and his right hand stabbed within his topcoat.
Levine did not want to kill, but he did want to stop the man. He fired, aiming high on the man’s torso on the right side, wanting to knock him down, knock him out of play, but still leave the breath of life in him. But the man was ducking, bobbing, just as Levine fired; when he jolted back, his own pistol flying out of his clothes and arcing away to fall into the water, Levine had no idea where he’d been hit. He went down hard, the sound a solid thud on the wooden boards of the dock, and he didn’t move.
A sudden burst of pistol fire flared from the boat and Levine flung himself backward, putting the low bulk of the Mercedes between himself and the gunman. The firing stopped, and Levine sat on the leafy ground, revolver in his right hand, left hand pressed to his chest, mouth stretched wide. The constriction...
Hand cupped to ear. He counted beats, and after the fourth came the skip. Not too bad, not so bad as a little while ago in the car.
To his right, where he was sitting, were the hood and bumper and left front tire of the Mercedes, and out at an angle beyond them were the dock and the boat and the unmoving man Levine had shot. To his left, pressing against his arm, was the narrow graceful trunk of a birch tree. Levine sagged briefly against the tree, then pulled himself up onto his knees and looked cautiously over the hood.
Immediately the pistol cracked over there, and a fluttering of branches took place somewhere behind Levine, who ducked back down. When nothing else happened, he called, “Banadando!”
“He don’t feel like talking!” yelled a voice.
“Send him out here!”
“He don’t feel like walking either!”
So he was dead already, which would give the man on the boat nothing to lose by holding out. Still, Levine called, “Come out of there with your hands up!”
“I’ll tell him when he comes in!”
“You won’t get away!”
“Yeah? Where’s your army?”
“On its way,” Levine called, but the constriction closed his throat again, chopping off the last word. Get here soon, he prayed.
The man on the boat swore loudly and fired twice in Levine’s direction. Headlight glass shattered, and Levine couldn’t help flinching away, his entire body clenching at each shot. “I’m comin’ right through you!” yelled the voice.
“Come right ahead,” Levine yelled. But he didn’t yell it, he hoarsely coughed it. The tightness in his throat was making his head ache, was putting metal bands around his head just above his eyes. He couldn’t pass out, he had to hold this fellow here. Bracing himself between the Mercedes and the tree trunk, he extended his arm forward onto the hood, where the revolver would be visible to the man in the boat. Hold him there. Hold him, no matter what.
Another shot pinged off the car’s body; merely frustration and rage, but it made Levine wince. His free hand went to his ear, he sat looking at a leaf that had fallen into his lap.
Beat, beat, beat—
Skip.
Beat, beat—
Skip.
Beat, beat—
Skip.
Beat—
The Suffolk County cops were all over the dock, the boat, the foreshore. Boxes of Banadando’s evidence were being carried to the cars. The gunman from the boat had already been taken away in handcuffs, and now they were waiting for the ambulance and the hearse.
Crawley stood with the Medical Examiner, who straightened and said, “He’d been dead at least a quarter hour when you got here.”
“Yeah, I thought. And this one?”
They left Abe Levine’s body and walked over to the wounded man on the dock, still unconscious but wrapped now in blankets from the police cars. “He’ll live,” the M.E. said.
“The wrong ones die,” Crawley said.
“Everybody dies,” the M.E. said. “It’s a thing I’ve noticed.”
Crawley turned and looked back at his partner. Abe was braced between the car and the tree, arm out straight, revolver just visible to the boat. He had died that way, his heart stopping forever but his body not moving. Sirens sounded, approaching.
“How do you like that,” Crawley said. “He was dead, and he finished the job anyway. His corpse held that punk covered until we could get here.”
“Maybe they’ll give him a medal,” the M.E. said, and grinned, showing uneven teeth. “A posthumous medal. The first legit posthumous medal ever, for performance above and beyond the call of death.”
The hearse and ambulance were arriving. Crawley looked at the M.E. and pointed at Abe. “No plastic body bag,” he said. “He gets a blanket.”