“What do we do?”
“I go in,” Decker said. “You stay out here until I call you.”
“But I—”
“Wait here!”
The door was flapping back and forth from the force of the shotgun blast. Decker put his foot out to stop it, then slipped into the room, keeping low.
He looked right and then left, then moved farther in and checked the bedroom.
She wasn’t there, and neither was anybody else. He lowered the shotgun, aware that his heart was beating extra fast. A drop of perspiration dripped from the end of his nose and landed on the toe of his boot.
“Billy!”
“What happened?” Rosewood asked, coming in, .32 in hand, shaking.
“She’s not here.”
“That’s wasn’t one of your choices,” Rosewood said.
“I know,” Decker said, “and neither was that.” He pointed to the bed.
“What?”
“That.”
Rosewood looked closer and saw a note on the pillow. Decker went to the bed and picked up the note. It said,
DECKER,
CENTRAL PARK. MIDNIGHT.
ARMAND COLES
“He’s got her,” Rosewood said.
“Yes.”
“Midnight—that’s in fifteen minutes,” Rosewood said.
“I know,” Decker said. “His timing is perfect.”
“What are you gonna do?”
Decker crumpled the note in his hand and said, “I’m going to be there.”
Chapter Thirty-four
“The note doesn’t say where in Central Park,” Rose-wood said on the way. Decker was sitting on top of the cab with him instead of inside.
“I’ll just have to walk until he finds me.”
“With that big bulls-eye on your back?”
“There’s no other way.”
Rosewood drove Decker to the Central Park South entrance of the park.
“Why here?” Decker asked.
“It’s the closest to where we were,” Rosewood said. “First entrance we’d come to.”
“It’s as good as any,” Decker said. He dropped down to the ground and looked up at Rosewood. “Get lost, Billy.”
“Sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“He’s answering
“Yeah, but—”
“Thanks for everything, Billy,” Decker said. “Now get lost.”
Decker waited until Rosewood’s cab had turned down Eighth Avenue. Then he turned and walked into the park.
Inside the park, Armand Coles waited. Decker’s driver had taken him to the Bucket of Blood. That meant he knew the city. When Decker told him Central Park, Coles figured the driver would take him to the nearest entrance.
Now he watched Decker walk into the park and followed him a way—Decker on the path, Coles through the trees and brush. It would be easy to pick Decker off from here, but that wouldn’t be accepting the challenge.
Would it?
Decker heard Coles.
Armand Coles had been born and raised in the city. He knew nothing about moving silently through the brush. He was making more noise than a herd of five-year-old Indian boys.
Decker knew that challenging the man, bruising his pride, would work.
He would have him.
Suddenly, Decker was gone!
Just like that, as the path curved out of Coles’s view for a second, the man vanished.
Coles backtracked and tried to find him again, but it was no use. Had he changed his mind and run back out of the park? No, Coles thought, he would have heard him running.
“Damn it, Decker, where are you?” Coles yelled.
“Right here, Coles,” Decker said from behind him.
Coles froze.
“How—?”
“You should learn how to move through brush, Coles,” Decker said. “You picked the one place to meet in this city where you’d be at a disadvantage instead of me.”
“You son of a bitch,” Coles said. “You challenged me.”
“And you lost,” Decker said. He pressed the shotgun into the small of Coles’s back and said, “Just stand still.” He patted the man down and removed a Colt .45 from a shoulder rig.
“Isn’t this a little uncomfortable?”
“I usually carry something small.”
“This was for my benefit?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess I should be flattered,” Decker said. He moved back three steps and replaced the shotgun inside his coat and then switched the .45 to his right hand. “I should be, but I’m not.”
“Oh, and why is that?”
“Because I’m a little tired, a lot beat up and very angry and—” He stepped forward and brought the butt of the .45 down hard on the point of Coles’s shoulder.
“Oh, Jesus!” Coles shouted. Decker lifted his foot and drove the heel into the back of Coles’s left knee. The man staggered and went down, holding his shoulder.
“Where’s the girl?”
“Listen, Decker—”
Decker grabbed Coles’s left fist, twisted it behind him and brought the .45 down on it hard. The sound of the arm breaking was sharp and loud, and Coles screamed.
“Where’s the girl?”
“Jesus, my elbow—”
Decker grabbed the broken arm and pulled it back. Coles screamed again.
“You’ve got one broken arm, Coles,” Decker said. “You want to try for two?”
“I don’t know—”
Decker put the .45 next to Coles’s left ear and fired it. Coles screamed.
“Jesus, I’m deaf!”
