“Sure, sure,” said Benny, relaxing again. “You’ll be the first to know.”
As I left his office, I heard him mutter under his breath. I couldn’t be sure what he said but I knew what it sounded like. It sounded like Benny Low had just called me a killer like my father.
It had taken me most of the next day to locate Ollie’s current squeeze through some judicious questioning, and another fifty minutes that morning to determine if Ollie was with her through the simple expedient of calling the local Thai food joints and asking them if they had made any deliveries to the address in the last week.
Ollie was a Thai food freak and, like most skips, stuck to his habits even while on the run. People don’t change very much, which usually makes the dumb ones easy to find. They take out subscriptions to the same magazines, eat in the same places, drink the same beers, call the same women, sleep with the same men. After I threatened to call the health inspectors, an Oriental roach motel called the Bangkok Sun House confirmed deliveries to one Monica Mulrane at an address in Astoria, leading to coffee, the New York Times, and a phone call to wake Ollie up.
True to form and dim as a ten–watt bulb, Ollie opened the door of 2317 about four minutes after my call, stuck his head out, and then commenced an awkward, shambling run down the steps toward the sidewalk. He was an absurd figure, strands of hair slicked across his bald pate, the elasticated waistband of his tan pants stretched across a stomach of awesome size. Monica Mulrane must have loved him a whole lot to stay with him, because he didn’t have money and he sure as hell didn’t have looks. It was strange, but I kind of liked Fat Ollie Watts.
He had just set foot on the sidewalk when a jogger wearing a gray sweat suit with the hood pulled up appeared at the corner, ran up to Ollie, and pumped three shots into him from a silenced pistol. Ollie’s white shirt was suddenly polka–dotted with red and he folded to the ground. The jogger, left–handed, stood over him and shot him once more in the head.
Someone screamed and I saw a brunette, presumably the by now recently bereaved Monica Mulrane, pause at the door of her apartment block before she ran to the sidewalk to kneel beside Ollie, passing her hands over his bald, bloodied head and crying. The jogger was already backing off, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a fighter waiting for the bell. Then he stopped, returned, and fired a single shot into the top of the woman’s head. She folded over the body of Ollie Watts, her back shielding his head. Bystanders were already running for cover behind cars, into stores, and the cars on the street ground to a halt.
I was almost across the street, my Smith & Wesson in my hand, when the jogger ran. He kept his head down and moved fast, the gun still held in his left hand. Even though he wore black gloves, he hadn’t dropped the gun at the scene. Either the gun was distinctive or the shooter was dumb. I was banking on the second option.
I was gaining on him when a black Chevy Caprice with tinted windows screeched out from a side street and stood waiting for him. If I didn’t shoot, he was going to get away. If I did shoot, there would be hell to pay with the cops. I made my choice. He had almost reached the Chevy when I squeezed off two shots, one hitting the door of the car and the second tearing a bloody hole in the right arm of the jogger’s top. He spun, firing two wild shots in my direction as he did so, and I could see his eyes were wide and ultra–bright. The killer was wired.
As he turned toward the Chevy it sped away, the driver spooked by my shots, leaving Fat Ollie’s killer stranded. He fired off another shot, which shattered the window of the car to my left. I could hear people screaming and, in the distance, the wail of approaching sirens.
The jogger sprinted toward an alley, glancing over his shoulder at the sound of my shoes hammering on the road behind him. As I made the corner a bullet whined off the wall above me, peppering me with pieces of concrete. I looked up to see the jogger moving beyond the midpoint of the alley, staying close to the wall. If he got around the corner at the end, I would lose him in the crowds.
The gap at the end of the alley was, briefly, clear of people. I decided to risk the shot. The sun was behind me as I straightened, firing twice in quick succession. I was vaguely aware of people at either side of me scattering like pigeons from a stone as the jogger’s right shoulder arched back with the impact of one of my shots. I shouted at him to drop the piece but he turned awkwardly, his left hand bringing the gun up. Slightly off balance, I fired two more shots from around twenty feet. His left knee exploded as one of the hollow points connected, and he collapsed against the wall of the alley, his pistol skidding harmlessly away toward some trash cans and black bags.
As I closed on him I could see he was ashen faced, his mouth twisted in pain and his left hand gripping the air around his shattered knee without actually touching the wound. Yet his eyes were still bright and I thought I heard him giggle as he pushed himself from the wall and tried to hop away on his good leg. I was maybe fifteen feet from him when his giggles were drowned by the sound of brakes squealing in front of him. I looked up to see the black Chevy blocking the end of the alley, the window on its passenger side down, and then the darkness within was broken by a single muzzle flash.
Fat Ollie’s killer bucked and fell forward on the ground. He spasmed once and I could see a red stain spreading across the back of his top. There was a second shot, the back of his head blew a geyser of blood in the air and his face banged once on the filthy concrete of the alley. I was already making for the cover of the trash cans when a bullet whacked into the brickwork above my head, showering me with dust and literally boring a hole through the wall. Then the window of the Chevy rolled up and the car shot off to the east.
I ran to where the jogger lay. Blood flowed from the wounds in his body, creating a dark red shadow on the ground. The sirens were close now and I could see onlookers gathered in the sunlight, watching me as I stood over the body.
The patrol car pulled up minutes later. I already had my hands in the air and my gun on the ground before me, my permit beside it. Fat Ollie’s killer was lying at my feet, blood now pooled around his head and linked to the red tide that was congealing slowly in the alley’s central gutter. One patrolman kept me covered while his partner patted me down, with more force than was strictly necessary, against the wall. The cop patting me down was young, perhaps no more than twenty–three or twenty–four, and cocky as hell.
“Shit, we got Wyatt Earp here, Sam,” he said. “Shootin’ it out like it was High Noon.”
“Wyatt Earp wasn’t in High Noon,” I corrected him, as his partner checked my ID. The cop punched me hard in the kidneys in response and I fell to my knees. I heard more sirens nearby, including the telltale whine of an ambulance.
“You’re a funny guy, hotshot,” said the young cop. “Why’d you shoot him?”
“You weren’t around,” I replied, my teeth gritted in pain. “If you’d been here I’d have shot you instead.”
He was just about to cuff me when a voice I recognized said: “Put it away, Harley.” I looked over my shoulder at his partner, Sam Rees. I recognized him from my days on the force and he recognized me. I don’t think he liked what he saw.
“He used to be a cop. Leave him be.”
And then the three of us waited in silence until the others joined us.
Two more blue–and–whites arrived before a mud brown Nova dumped a figure in plain clothes on the curb. I looked up to see Walter Cole walking toward me. I hadn’t seen him in almost six months, not since his promotion to lieutenant. He was wearing a long brown leather coat, incongruous in the heat. “Ollie Watts?” he said, indicating the shooter with an inclination of his head. I nodded.
He left me alone for a time as he spoke with uniformed cops and detectives from the local precinct. I noticed that he was sweating heavily in his coat.
“You can come in my car,” he said when he eventually returned, eyeing the cop called Harley with ill–concealed distaste. He motioned some more detectives toward him and made some final comments in quiet, measured tones before waving me toward the Nova.
“Nice coat,” I said appreciatively as we walked to his car. “How many girls you got in your stable?”
Walter’s eyes glinted briefly. “Lee gave me this coat for my birthday. Why do you think I’m wearing it in this god–damned heat? You fire any shots?”
“A couple.”
“You do know that there are laws against discharging firearms in public places, don’t you?”
“I know that but I’m not sure about the guy dead on the ground back there. I’m not sure that the guy who shot him knows either. Maybe you could try a poster campaign.”
“Very funny. Now get in the car.”
I did as he said and we pulled away from the curb, the onlookers gaping curiously at us as we headed off through the crowded streets.