There was somebody down there, though.
Had I been followed? I didn’t know. But if I’d picked up a tail back at the restaurant, and hadn’t noticed it until now, I was losing my touch.
Across from me the girl was saying, “...I don’t care. I just can’t go through with it any more. I’m a nervous wreck as it is. I...”
I was beginning to want to sneak a look over the edge at what was happening down there. That wouldn’t have been smart. The dim light shining through her window, across the narrow alley, was just enough to pick out my face for the benefit of anyone below me looking up. I cursed myself for leaving Wilhelmina at home, but managed to salvage one pat on the back from the reassuring presence of Hugo, his razor-sharp length safe in its scabbard on my forearm, under my shirt.
There was more than one person down there. There was...
I forgot what Vicki was saying for a moment. There was a sharp intake of breath down below and then a strangled gasp. I sneaked a look over the edge. There was a dim light coming from one of the windows: somebody with a flashlight down in one of the rooms, flashing its flickering beam around the room.
I slipped Hugo out of his sheath and wormed my way over the edge of the little balcony, letting myself down slowly to the next balcony. One floor down, I could hear somebody grunt, low and guttural; he was lugging something across the room. I took a deep breath and eased myself over the edge again. I let myself down staying in the shadows as much as possible and finally my feet touched the stone wall of the balcony.
I faltered just once. It was enough to save me. There was a short phfft from the door, and a 7mm bullet, silenced, whizzed past my face. If I hadn’t slipped — well, there are times when it doesn’t pay to be perfect.
I hit the floor and rolled. The guy with the gun was crouched in the door opening, and, fool that he was, still had the flashlight on, waist high, in the hand that wasn’t holding the gun.
I came out of the roll full of bounce and didn’t give him time to react. If I’d known who it was — if I’d thought about it — I think I’d have cut him up then sat there watching while he slowly bled to death. I put my little friend Hugo up between two ribs and gave him a vicious shove, right into heart muscle. It took all the strength I had, but Hugo went in all the way until the hilt stopped on a rib. The guy went straight down. Dead.
I stepped aside, grabbed his flashlight, and took a look at him. I shoved his corpse out of the way, and shone the flash around the room. It picked out approximately what I’d expected to find, once I’d found my bearings. The muscleman, Constantin, was lying on the floor, his chest a mass of red. I guessed I must have missed the sound of the silencer that first time, under the other sounds of the evening; the only time those things make much in the way of noise is when they’re aimed right at you. I let the flash play over his body and found something else I’d expected to find. The loosened clothing; the splash of dark blood on his belly...
I shone the light once again on the face of the man I’d killed. What a fluke, I was thinking. Poor stupid Constantin had tailed me, just wanting to put a dent in my nose for doing what looked like stealing his girl. Somehow he’d gotten between me and the much deadlier tail I’d picked up on the way down here, and had been mistaken for me.
Wouldn’t he have looked at Constantin’s face, and seen it wasn’t me? Wouldn’t... I looked at the man’s face, hard and brutal even in death. No; maybe not. Not with a crazy like Zvy. Well, it was the last time he’d apply that little tattoo of his to anybody, the miserable bastard.
I flipped off the flash. “There’s one of the bastards, Fred,” I said under my breath. Maybe I’d have said more, maybe not. The next interruption made it all academic anyhow.
“Leon, look out! You...”
The words were Vicki’s, and they came from that upstairs window across the way. That was all she had a chance to get out; the rest was buried under the roar of a large and powerful handgun. Once. Twice. Then silence.
Chapter Nineteen
That was it for the moment. I flicked the flash at Zvy’s body and picked out the shape of his gun with the silencer on it. I bent — cursing the ribs, which were giving me fits — and picked it up; then I snuffed the flash and jammed it in a back pocket.
There was another gunshot up there — but this time from a smaller weapon. A Saturday Night Special, for all I could tell. They go pop, while the big guns make your ears ring.
I’d recognized that first pair of shots, though. At least I thought I did. There is only one gun louder, or more powerful, than the .357 Magnum, and that was the .44. This hadn’t been any .44. It hadn’t made me flinch and the .44 is the only one that makes me flinch. No, 357 was it, and I’d bet a Webley-Vickers...
Shimon was out there in the night. Stalking Vicki and her boyfriend. Or me?
Well, it didn’t matter, I decided. I didn’t care who he’d been chasing. Now the tables were going to be turned. I was going to wind up chasing him. And this time, I was going to catch him. And bum him. I caught myself grinning in the dark.
The little gun went pop again.
I slipped forward and stuck my head out the window; I counted to five and moved out on the balcony.
There was no sign of life up there.
I shoved the gun in a pocket and headed back toward the door. If he tried to come down via the nest of balconies, the way I’d gone up, they’d see him and pot him; now I knew one or the other of them — Vicki or whoever Leon was — was alive, and armed. Okay. That meant he’d have another way out, and it’d likely be the way he’d taken to get inside the building. The way Zvy had taken when he’d come in and surprised Constantin. I headed for the main staircase of the old building.
When I cracked the door, paused, and finally stepped out into the stairwell, though, there wasn’t a sound to be heard.
I decided to force the issue.
I pulled the gun back out again and tiptoed cautiously up one flight. Then I paused at the landing and listened for sounds. Nothing. Even more cautiously than before, I headed up again.
At the top of the stairs I stepped back and kicked in the door... and almost got shot for my pains. The little gun across the way went pop again and a slug sang its way past my head into the wall. I hit the floor fast — and wished I hadn’t.
“Hey,” I said. “Vicki. It’s me. Harry Archer. The guy with the gun is gone.”
“Harry?” The voice was nervous, tentative. “What are you doing here?”
“I... I got jealous and followed you.” I’d explain later. “The man up here — the one with the pistol — he’s gone. I checked everything out.”
“Harry... can I trust you?”
“You’d better. Anyhow, you’d better do something quickly, shoot me or trust me. The cops’ll be here in a matter of minutes.”
“Could you come up? I mean... there’s someone wounded here. I...”
“Hang on a second.” The balconies were so close together that high up that the housewives could have had regular conversations over hanging out the wash. I got up, painfully, went out to the balcony, tensed up, and jumped across.
As I did, the rail on my balcony — some sort of stucco stuff — gave way underfoot. The broken pieces went clattering down into the alley. I hit the next rail hard, hung on with both hands and it held. I climbed up, aching and cursing.
They were in darkness inside. I pulled the curtains and as Vicki flipped the light on — a single overhead bulb, and a dim one at that — I pulled a piece of beaverboard off what had been a rotting closet and laid it over the window opening.