in.
“Get lost, Billy,” Tally said.
“Nice to see you, too, Lieutenant,” Billy said, getting up and walking toward the door. “Tomorrow morning, Decker?”
“See you then, Billy.”
Rosewood left and closed the door behind him.
“You lost my men today.”
“Did I? I’ll help you find them.”
“You know what I mean!”
“Tally, I can’t be responsible if your men weren’t able to keep up with me.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Tally said, waving a hand. “We managed to pick you up again later.”
“You did?”
“What were you doing at the Bucket of Blood?”
“Having a drink with some friends?”
“Sure,” Tally said. “Those are the kind of friends you make when you’ve only been in New York for a few days, right?”
“How did you know I was there?”
“I have a couple of men watching the place. They saw you.”
“Why did you have someone watching the place?” Decker asked. He wondered how Tally had found out about Armand Coles.
“I always have a couple of men watching that place, Decker.”
From everything Rosewood had told Decker about the Bucket of Blood, that made sense.
“What were you looking for there?” Tally asked. “Or should I ask who?”
“Billy told me about the place. I was curious.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Tally said, walking around the room. He reached for the straight-backed chair where Decker had hung his coat. He picked up the coat.
“My men were right.”
“About what?”
“About your jacket hanging pretty heavy,” Tally said, hefting the coat in his left hand. With his right he held it open. “Very heavy, I see.”
“I felt I needed to carry around a little more firepower.”
“Yes, well, if you’re going to visit places like the Bucket of Blood, I agree.” Tally replaced the coat.
“Decker, I can’t protect you if you’re going to run away from me.”
“If I have your men around me, Tally, no one’s ever going to make a move,” Decker said. “I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life in New York.”
Tally walked toward the door and said, “If you keep playing it your own way, you just might end up doing that—spending the rest of your very
When Linda Hamilton left the hospital to go home, she didn’t notice the man who was following her. She was thinking about Decker and whether he would ask her to leave New York with him.
The man followed her all the way home. Then, as she was fitting her key into the lock of the front door of her building, he closed the distance between them and stepped into the doorway behind her.
“Wha—?” she said, alarmed.
“Take it easy,” the man said. “Go ahead, open the door.”
“Who are you?”
“Quiet,” he said. After she opened the door, he said, “Let’s go upstairs.”
They went up, and she opened the door to her apartment.
“Inside,” he said, pushing her. “Light a lamp.”
She did as she was told.
“Oh, I can see what Decker sees in you, Miss Hamilton,” the man said. “You’ve very beautiful.”
“What now?” she asked, standing awkwardly in the center of the room.
“Now,” he said, “we wait.”
Chapter Thirty-three
In the morning, Decker had breakfast with Rosewood.
“They’re following us again,” Rosewood said when they were seated in that small, nameless cafe Decker had come to like so well.
“I know.”
“What did Tally say last night?”
“That he didn’t want me to get killed.”
“That’s nice of him,” Rosewood said. “Do we lose them again?”
“I don’t know yet,” Decker said. “Why don’t we do a little sightseeing today?”
“Why not?” Rosewood said. “You’re paying the freight.”
“Let’s go…”
The day went by uneventfully. They went to Central Park and walked; they went to museums and walked; they went to different neighborhoods that Rose-wood thought Decker might find interesting—and walked.
“You’ve been walking around all day with a target painted on your back, and nobody’s so much as looked at it twice. How many more days do you think you can do this?”
“I don’t know.”
“
Decker smiled.
“Wait here. You can drive us to dinner.”
When Decker went into the hospital to get Linda for dinner, he found out she hadn’t come to work that night.
“Did she send word why?”
“No,” the nurse at the desk said. “And that’s not like her, at all.”
“No, it isn’t,” Decker said.
He hurried out to Rosewood’s cab.
“Where is she?” Rosewood asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Decker said. “Let’s get to her apartment.”
“You don’t think—?”
“Let’s just get there!”
They reached Linda’s building in record time, and Decker was out of the cab before it had stopped moving.
“Decker!” Rosewood shouted. He was afraid Decker would charge into Linda’s apartment without caution. Rosewood had come to like Decker, and he didn’t want to see him killed. He pulled the .32 out of his pocket and charged into the building after him.
Decker broke the lock on the front door getting in, and when he got to the second floor, he pulled the shotgun out and blew the lock off Linda’s door.
“Decker!” Rosewood said, coming up behind him.
Decker held his finger to his lips and motioned for Rosewood to flatten himself against the wall.
“Either she’s inside dead, or there’s somebody inside waiting,” Decker whispered.
