Danny Tops was suddenly angry. Worse, he smelled a rat.
"Now wait a fucking minute!" he growled, flinging open his door. He was halfway out of the car when the little guy reappeared, crouching beside the fender, a squat automatic pistol with silencer leveled in a two-handed grip.
The crew chief's mouth dropped open, and he felt his bowels loosening. After a split second he started to reach for his own weapon, and the little guy shot him, twice, calm as you please.
Pop-pop!
Danny Toppacardi sat down hard, the hot pain in his abdomen merging at once into icy cold and numbness from the armpits down. He couldn't reach his bolstered .38, or even change positions as he sat there. It was as if his voluntary muscles had suddenly ceased to function.
Off to his left, he heard cursing from Lou and Solly, followed at once by more popping noises and the sound of breaking glass. Beside him in the front seat, Lou Nova was jerking and writhing under the impact of high-velocity slugs. A strangled yelp, quickly extinguished, was all he heard from Solly Giuffre in the back seat.
Danny felt a warm wetness in his lap and looked down, seeking its source. He was surprised to find himself sitting in a swamp of blood, much of it his, and all mixed up in a mass of pulpy tissue that looked suspiciously like brain matter.
Jesus! Lou's brains?
The door sprang open beside him, and suddenly the little jogger had a pistol thrust in Danny's face, his free hand gripping the crew chief's shoulder tightly. His lips were moving quickly, but the sounds seemed somehow delayed on their way to Danny Toppacardi's ears.
"Where are they?" he heard at last. "Smalley and the girl, where'd they go?"
Danny's head lolled limply on his shoulder. He tried to answer, but the words came out sounding like "mmpf loggly." He felt something warm and wet overflowing his lips, coursing down his chin.
"Come on, dammit!" the little guy was shouting, shaking him roughly so that something rattled and snapped inside of him. "Where are they?"
Danny was staring past the florid, twisted face of his tormentor, toward the hazy screen of trees thirty yards off. He could almost imagine the lake beyond, a breeze making ripples on the surface of the water.
It would be nice to slip beneath that surface and just float away.
Somewhere behind Danny Tops and to his left, a deeper voice was coming through the fog, saying, "Come on, Pol. The lake."
Yeah, the lake, right.
And the two guys were sprinting away from the Lincoln, leaving Danny Toppacardi sitting there in a pool of blood. He watched them go, jogging across the emerald grass, their movements merging into slow motion as they reached the screen of undergrowth and plowed on through, fading from sight.
Danny Tops watched them disappear, wishing he could follow. When they were gone, he sat alone in the vehicle of death, watching the sunlight fade from gold to crimson, sinking slowly into midnight black.
20
Roger Smalley stood on the shore of Lake Phalen, looking out across the calm, unruffled water. As far as he could see in each direction, north and south, there was no sign of life. The strollers and boaters would not appear until later in the morning, and by then he would be gone, his business finished.
He turned his back on the water to face the five persons arrayed before him. To his left, Jack Fawcett stood close beside a nervous-looking Courtney Gilman. On the right, hulking Vince Cella kept a tight grip and wary eye on his two female captives.
"We don't have much time," Smalley said, breaking the silence. "Let's get this over with."
In one smooth motion, he drew the snub-nosed .38 revolver from under his jacket and took two quick steps toward Fawcett and his prisoner. Before the detective could grasp what was happening, Smalley raised his weapon and fired a single shot into Courtney Gilman's scrawny chest. The dying boy sprawled on the grass, twitching briefly, and then lay still.
Jack Fawcett was visibly stunned. His jaw worked silently for an instant before he found his voice.
"What the hell?" It was the best he could manage.
"It's simple," the commissioner told him. "You finally got a hot tip on that sex killer you've been tracking, and you rushed right over to make the collar. Unfortunately, you were too late to save his latest victims, but you were able to settle the score."
Smalley smiled coldly at Fawcett's vacant expression.
"You're a hero, Lieutenant," he finished happily.
The detective shook his head as if to clear it, forcing his words out one at a time.
"This is crazy... I mean, you can't get away with something like this."
Smalley kept the frozen smile in place.
"I'm not even here, Jack. And I assure you, we will get away with it. We have to."
Fawcett looked from his superior to the female captives and back again, the full import of Smalley's words finally coining through to him.
"You mean to kill them, too," he said numbly. It didn't sound like a question.
"What would you suggest, Jack?" Smalley asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Perhaps a press conference, for them to tell their story nationwide?"
Fawcett looked bewildered, thinking fast but coming up empty.
"There has to be another way."
Smalley lost his smile then, and his answering voice cracked across the intervening distance like a whiplash.
"Let's hear it, Lieutenant," he snapped. "You've got thirty seconds."
Jack Fawcett looked angry and confused. Roger Smalley could almost see the gears turning behind his eyes, and he knew from the man's expression that he had no alternative suggestions.
The lieutenant glanced down at the dead boy beside him and finally turned away, shaking his head disgustedly.
"I want no part of this," he said, his voice almost a whisper.
Smalley's brusque laughter was a bitter rebuke.
"Too late to weasel out, Jack," he sneered. "But don't worry, you won't have to dirty your hands."
The commissioner turned toward Vince Cella and the women, his gun held steady on a level with his waist. When next he spoke, he was addressing himself to the leering gunman.
"What we need here is a crime of passion," he said simply. "Are you up to it?"
Vince Cella grinned wickedly, glancing from one of his prisoners to the other.
"Mister," he drawled, "I'm always up."
Toni and Fran chose that moment to make their break in opposite directions, but the hardman held them easily in place. Making a split-second decision, he cut Toni's legs from under her with one sweep of his ankle, cuffing her hard across the back of the head as she fell. She hit the ground and lay still, barely conscious.
Vince Cella turned his full attention toward the lady cop, releasing his grip on her arm to tangle his fingers in her hair, pulling her close to him. With her arms pinned securely, she could only twist and kick out ineffectually at his shins. The big man easily avoided the blows, his free hand pawing at the front of her blouse.
"C'mon, momma," he leered, "it's party time."
Roger Smalley looked on dispassionately, loosely covering all three of them with the .38 in his hand. A smile very much like a grimace was locked onto his face.
Mack Bolan and Pol Blancanales heard the shot that killed Courtney Gilman. They were in visual contact with their targets by the time Vinnie Cella slammed Toni to the ground and turned on Fran Traynor.
With one thrust of his powerful arms, the gunman hurled her to the ground. He stood over her, legs wide apart, hands busy with the buckle of his belt.