middle of the asphalt fire that might have been the remains of the transmission and drive train. The vehicles parked in front and behind the van were severely damaged, smashed in as if they had taken hits from Thor’s hammer. I looked around for the bodies of pedestrians or winos — didn’t see any, which was a miracle.
The bomb was detonated by either a timer or radio device. I assumed that whoever had blown up the van probably didn’t know Willie and I weren’t in it. They didn’t care about the van; they wanted us dead.
The windows of the ground floor of the hotel were missing, blown to bits and fired as shrapnel into the hotel by the blast. Across the street a jewelry store and drugstore had lost their windows, and indeed, smoke was coming out of them. Burning debris must have been thrown in there by the blast.
As I watched, security people began running out of the hotel, milling around with drawn weapons. A police cruiser roared up and screeched to a stop — in the distance I could hear a wailing siren. And onlookers were beginning to gather. Gawkers arrived in twos and threes, wandered up and stood staring at the smoking, stinking fire and rubble, a scene made all the more ghoulish by the Hashing lights of the police cruiser’s beacon.
There was a body, ripped up by flying debris. The onlookers pointed it out to the police.
Then someone found the remnants of a second person.
The hell of it was that I had a pretty good idea who had planted the bomb. I wondered if he was the button pusher or if he left that chore to someone else. Or did he just use a clock? If he were real smart he would be two states away when the thing blew. Then again, people who plant bombs often have this sick desire to be around when the thing goes off so they can watch the fire and the firemen, see the blood and gore, smell it, count the bodies …
I thought he might want to be close by.
But where was he?
About that time the gas tank in the truck that had been parked in front of the van ignited. Perhaps the burning asphalt got to it.
The first fire truck roared up, then another; police vehicles came from all directions. Extinguishing the fires in the street was the firefighters’ first priority, so that they would have room to attack the blazes taking hold in nearby buildings.
How much explosives had that guy used?
The sidewalks were filling up with onlookers as the firefighters fought the fires in the drug and jewelry stores, police investigators and paramedics examined the corpses, and investigators poked and prodded at the remains of our van. The police quickly rigged yellow crime scene tape. A uniformed female cop pushed me and a bunch of other folks back as the tape went up in front of us. She was a slip of a thing, her hat cocked at an angle. She looked like a sausage in her bulletproof vest, complete with belt, holster, gun, spare ammo, mace, and radio. I don’t know how she walked.
I knew it was time to leave when the first television crew turned on their lights and got their reporter on the air.
That’s when something jabbed me in the back and a familiar voice said softly, “I didn’t think you’d be in that van when it popped. Told them that, but they said to blow it anyway. I think the bugs you planted pissed him off.”
The lady cop immediately in front of me had her back to me and was oblivious to my situation.
If I tried to elbow the pistol out of my back as I turned, more than likely he would put one in my kidney.
He grabbed my upper left arm and jabbed the pistol barrel deeper into my back, then whispered in my ear. “I owe you for sticking that gun in my face, Carmellini. Just wanted you to see it coming. Adios, motherfucker.”
I had run out of time and options. I spun left, trying with my left elbow to sweep the gun aside, while I gathered up the female cop with my right arm.
A tremendous force hit me in the lower back, nearly dropping me. The sound of the shot came simultaneously with the impact — and for that reason didn’t really register.
Somehow I stayed on my feet and kept turning.
Joe Billy Dunn’s second shot hit the cop in the lower abdomen — I heard her grunt as the bulletproof vest absorbed the bullet’s energy.
I pushed her forward into Dunn. His muffled third shot went off point-blank against the vest. Squeezing the trigger had been a reaction, probably, not intentional.
She collapsed at his feet. As he turned to run, trying to create space between us, the crowd impeded his progress. I leaped over the cop at him… too late. I sprawled on the sidewalk.
He ran as the crowd parted.
The cop sprawled and groaning, the noise, flashing lights and stench, screaming, running people… that was the way hell was going to be when I got there, probably in the very near future.
The only bright spots in this mess were that the right side of my lower back was numb, and I could still make my legs work, so the bullet hadn’t hit my spine.
I scrambled up and ran after Joe Billy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Joe Billy Dunn ran, so I chased him. It never occurred to me to wonder why he was running away. He had tried to kill me, had even put a bullet in my back — although I didn’t know if he knew that — and if he hadn’t run I’d have taken his pistol away from him and killed him with my bare hands. Maybe it’s my overdeveloped male ego, too much testosterone shrinking the brain, but I thought getting away from me was the natural thing for him to do.
Of course, the other possibility was that he didn’t want to stand around shooting me until twenty cops in bulletproof vests got their pistols out and used him for their monthly target qualification. If his first point-blank shot had killed me, he could have turned and walked away and no one would have noticed his face. That was probably his plan; it didn’t work out because he got to talking when he should have been shooting. I had absolutely no intention of making that mistake myself. Shoot first and talk later — I learned that from Jake Grafton.
Whatever his reason, Joe Billy ran like a deer.
I wasn’t running like a deer, believe me. Not with a bullet in my back. I put my hand back there and pulled it away wet. A glance was enough. I was leaking blood at a fair rate. And I was beginning to hurt. Really hurt. I thought maybe the bullet had nicked a rib or something, because I got a stab of pain with every breath, and it got worse with every passing second. I ran like an old woman in tight shoes.
I didn’t think he’d run far. When he got away from the crowd and the cops around the obliterated van, I figured he’d turn around and wait for me. To finish the job of killing me. I didn’t figure he’d be doing much talking this time.
1 had him in sight ahead of me when he dived down a subway entrance.
That was where it would happen.
I stopped at a fire hydrant, put my right foot up on it, and pulled the Smith & Wesson snub-nose.38 from the ankle holster. Just lifting my foot made my back scream.
I crossed the street and went down the entrance there. Went down very carefully.
These subway entrances join up at the bottom of the first flight of stairs … if I picked the right entrance to descend.
I had. Joe Billy wasn’t in sight.
I kept going down, easing around corners. Got to the turnstiles and looked for my man Dunn. He wasn’t in sight. No one was.
Of course, being an ex-Boy Scout who is always prepared, I didn’t have a MetroCard. I had to heist myself over a turnstile, which cost me some pain. There was a surveillance camera pointed at the turnstiles; I gave the unseen watcher the finger.
I went slowly down another Bight of stairs and got my first look at the platform. Not a soul in sight, not even a mugger or gangbanger. Everyone in town must have gone to bed after the president’s stirring speech.
Dunn would be to my right or left, waiting to plug me again when I came out of this stairway. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and leaned against the left wall.
