was getting his hearing back. Last night had been a resounding success.
He bought a newspaper and looked for the stories on firebombings, a subject so near and dear to his heart.
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11
Shooter Price came out of Kansas City Military Books in a dour mood.
Two mall rats had come bopping out of the store next to the bookshop and looked at him speculatively and giggled at each other. They were fourteen, tops, dressed like typical slut mall rats, and he could see them whisper and stare holes at his crotch, and as they went by he heard one of them say something that sounded like 'Where's Winston?' Whatever that meant.
He felt himself turn livid with bottled-up rage. Price was fuming. For a second, he wanted to go back and kick their asses, but the way that he felt an ass-kicking wouldn't do it. His 'primary' had been staying up late and moving and he was tired of all the bullshit and he could feel himself snapping and didn't care.
What the hell did he have? He didn't have anybody who gave a shit whether he lived or died. He tried to count his blessings:
In Fort Worth he had his cars and his library. The books were worth maybe half a million at a conservative estimate. But they'd taken him ten million dollars worth of effort to run down in dusty bookshops from Lee's Summit to London: the finest library of books about snipers extant.
Hell, his 490-horse twin turbo F-40 was probably worth as much as the books on today's market. He'd found a degenerate gambler in Nevada who'd lost big time at the poker table and he'd transferred four hundred K to the man's account for the F-40 and a twelve-cylinder cherry 'Redhead' with 430 miles on it, the latter Ferrari one that he'd driven a total of once, trading it off in a deal involving a ragtop XJ-S, a Silver Spirit, a Lamborghini Diablo, and a ton of cash. He had his parents' old Bentley Turbo R. All of these under Mylar in a private garage maintained by River Crest Executive Auto. Once a week, this kid ran a half a buck's worth of gas through each of 'em just to keep them ticking. For what? This is what his life amounted to at forty-one? It pissed him off so much he couldn't think straight. He was like a man about to plummet over Niagara Falls in a small canoe—he could feel himself being pulled over the edge yet he was powerless to fight the thing that was moving him forward. It had started with the guy in the tavern parking lot, this release thing with the rifle—scoping out random targets. He'd seen Big Petey return to the place across the river, alerted first by the OMEGASTAR System, and then eyeballing him briefly through the scope as he did his thing. When Shooter saw the flames he knew it was Chaingang's work, even though he wasn't sure he'd heard the blast.
What a feeling of power he'd suddenly had, as he heard the sirens wailing in the night. There were sirens all the time, but he imagined these were ones responding to whatever Chaingang had just done. He thought about sniping the ambulances or cop cars, whatever he saw with a red ball. Maybe taking out some firemen.
The first target he saw through the scope was a figure moving up some stairs in front of a tenement. He squeezed one off and part of her disappeared. He swung SAVANT in a dizzying arc and spotted a lone figure in a faraway lot, loading or off-loading something, and he shot him. Swung halfway back, ejected the second case and reloaded. A man talking to a woman in a doorway. A challenge. He took the man out. Snicked the casing out. Slid another big hard APEX(X) in and got the woman, too—he could see her screaming through a window of the store where she and the man had been. What a blast! Four down in—what?—forty-five seconds, tops. It was better than the best sex he could remember.
He parked in back of an obvious dumping area and took the case, moving in the direction of cover. It was hot and humid and he felt like shit. He found a good place and opened up the fitted case and took his baby out and put her together.
'
'The unit is controlled by the Eyepiece Focusing Collar, which is adjustable by manipulating collar in clockwise or counterclockwise rotation.' Light glinted off a man's glasses and Shooter blew him away.
'
'
'
Ejected the shell. Reloaded slowly. Hell, he could do this all day. What a fucking
Shooter pulled his face away from the scope. Took his darlin' down and put her away, jogging back to the car. He put her in the back seat and got in. It was hot inside. He hated these wheels, even with the top down. To Price it was just another disposable ride. He looked into the rearview mirror and was surprised to see that one of his eyes had a dark ring around it. His best girl had done up and given him a shiner.
That night, Chaingang was working, trying to run down his missing biker buddies from Steel Vengeance. Doing the kind of tracing that keeps you on the telephone as you sort trails and patterns. Price got antsy watching TV and took his lady out for some night air.
He saw a guy walking down the street. Watched him through the Laco without attaching it to the weapon. The guy walked funny. He definitely needed to die.
He nailed the center of the sighting hairs on the walking man's head. 'Parallax
Lieutenant John J. Llewelyn, of the Kansas City Metro Homicide Squad, skidded to a stop, killed the engine of his unmarked car, and got out of the vehicle leaving the door open.
There was tremendous glare from the flashing lights of other cop cars and an ambulance at the crime scene, and he shielded his eyes, a man always careful about protecting his vision, making mental notes of the salient aspects of what confronted him.
'Over here, John,' Detective Sergeant Marlin Morris said.
'Who's got the handle on this?'
'Leo and T.J.'
'Witnesses?' The Lieutenant and Sergeant went under a bright DO NOT CROSS tape.
'Lady over there.' Morris gestured in the direction of a woman in animated conversation with two of his men.
