“When do you want it done?” Coles asked.
“I told Razor as soon as possible. Will you know where to find him?”
“I’ll find him,” Coles said. “If he’s too slow, I’ll kill him, and then Dover.”
As Coles stood up, Ready said, “I don’t care how it works, as long as Dover ends up dead.”
“Oh, he will,” Armand Coles said. “He will.”
Chapter Eighteen
“What are you doing in New York?” Linda asked.
“I told you before,” Decker said. “I’m on vacation.”
“Do you really expect me to believe that?”
He looked at her across the dinner table. They were dining in the same restaurant, at a more reasonable dinner hour. Linda was dressed more appropriately, in a lovely blue gown that left her shoulders bare. Decker felt almost inadequate in one of his new suits. He wished now he’d spent more of the Tyrone’s money on clothes.
“Why not?”
She took a moment to put a piece of expertly prepared shrimp into her mouth.
“Most men who are on vacation would not react so…nonchalantly to being shot, the way you have. How is your shoulder, by the way?”
“It hurts a little…when I exert myself.”
“Oh,” she said, “next time you should let me do all the work.”
He smiled and said, “Next time.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Are you going to tell me what you do that makes people want to shoot you?”
He stared at her for a few seconds and then said, “All right, I’ll tell you.”
“Good,” she said, eating another piece of shrimp, “I’m all ears.”
“No,” he said, looking at her admiringly, “you are not.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
He took a moment to eat a piece of steak. It was not as fine as some he’d had in the West—or in San Francisco—but it was very good.
“I told you the other night. I’m a bounty hunter. I hunt people.”
“I’m not sure I understood you then,” she said, putting her fork down. “You hunt them for…for money?”
“Everybody has to make a living,” he said. “I hope you won’t hold that against me.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you…kill them when you catch them?”
“I don’t set out to,” he said, “but some of them don’t want to go peacefully.”
“And then you kill them?”
“Your dinner is getting cold.”
She looked down at her dinner and then back at him.
“That’s what I am, Linda,” he said. “A bounty hunter.”
“And that’s what you’re doing in New York?” she said. “Hunting a man?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s worth five thousand dollars.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“No,” Decker said after a moment, “he had a friend of mine killed. Shot in the back.”
“Ah,” she said, as if she suddenly understood.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“What?”
“Don’t think that you understand me so easily,” he said. “Don’t romanticize what I do. What I do I usually do for money and for no other reason.”
“I see.”
“I’m sorry if that disappoints you.”
“It doesn’t,” she said, picking up her fork, “because I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t.”
“No,” she said, spearing a piece of shrimp, “not for a minute. When you’re ready to tell me the whole story, I’ll listen.”
“You’re so sure there is more to the story?”
“Oh, yes,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I think I know you.”
“After such a short time?” he said. “I wish I could say I know you so well.”
“You will,” she said. “You will.”
Later, when they were together in her bed, he told her the whole story of how he had almost been hanged for a killing he didn’t commit and how he decided to become a bounty hunter after that.
She listened quietly and intently and then hugged him to her when he was done.
“They almost hung you for nothing?” she asked, horror in her voice.
“Yes.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yes, it was,” he said. “I was very young.”
“I knew there was more to the story.”
“Just a little.”
“A little that explains a lot,” she said, putting her head on his chest. He felt her tears wetting his skin.
He hugged her tightly to him, amazed that he’d wanted to tell her the rest of his story to her. As she fell asleep, he wondered if he wasn’t losing sight of the real reason he’d come to New York.
He wasn’t sure he cared.
Chapter Nineteen
Decker didn’t hear the window open, but he heard a step on the windowsill. Linda was dead weight on his chest, and by the time he’d struggled out from beneath her, it was too late.
The man was on him, and a fist crashed into his face. He fell off the bed, reaching for the gun on the night table, but the man was there ahead of him and snatched it away.
“What’s wrong—?” Linda said, coming awake.
“Quiet!” the man snapped. “Put on some light, girl!”
“Decker—”
“Do as he says,” Decker said from the floor.
She leaned over and lighted the lamp on the night table on her side. In the yellow light that bathed the room, her naked body looked golden.
Decker looked at the man and saw him looking at Linda, licking his lips. Before he could react, however, the man had moved to Linda’s side of the bed and had taken hold of her by the hair.
“She’s a beauty, huh?” the man asked.
Decker, still sitting on the floor, didn’t reply. The gun the man had taken from the table was not in his hand. Instead, he had a straight razor held against her throat. Her eyes were wide and fixed on Decker, but he could see that she had not panicked.
“I said she’s a beauty, ain’t she?” the man said again. Obviously he wanted an answer.
