soon as I raised my head. I’d be dead before I knew what hit me.
I hugged the side of the planter, trying to remember what McLaughlin had told me about the nature of laser rifles. Silent. Invisible beam. Flat trajectory. Almost infinite range … but big and clumsy, about the size of a rocket launcher. That meant whoever was using it would have to remain fixed in one place. And there was something else …
A couple of well-dressed women, probably trial lawyers returning from lunch down the street, appeared from around the corner of the Government Center building. They were still chatting it up as they began to cross Carondelet, until they saw Beryl Hinckley’s body lying on the opposite sidewalk.
They froze in the middle of the street, gazing in confused shock at the corpse, then one of them looked around and spotted me. Before I could say anything, she screamed bloody murder, then turned and ran back the way she had come. The other one stared at me in gap-mouthed fear for another second, then she followed her friend as they fled back around the corner.
Great. Just what I needed right now: they’d call the police and report a homicidal maniac hanging around the courthouse plaza. I closed my eyes and knocked my head against the side of the urn. In another minute this place would be surrounded by cops who’d …
That was it. McLaughlin had told me that it took sixty seconds for the laser to recharge itself. Assuming he hadn’t been lying to me, I had some lead time before the killer could squeeze the trigger again.
This was of little comfort to me. At least a minute had gone by already, between the instant Beryl had been shot and this moment in time. But if the killer still had me in his direct line of fire, then he should have picked me off by now. Sure, maybe he had seen where I had taken cover-but so long as I had the planter between us, then he couldn’t skrag me as well.
Not yet, at least. I couldn’t remain here much longer. Sooner or later, I’d have to get to my feet.
Okay, okay. She couldn’t have been shot from a window in either the courthouse or Government Center; those buildings were on either side of me, and anyone standing in the windows would be able to see me. The jail had few windows of which to speak, and it was the most unlikely place for a sniper to be hiding. I ruled out the high-rise apartment complex behind the courthouse; the angle of fire was all wrong.
This still left at least another four or five buildings on the other side of Central Avenue. If I could only figure out which one was the-
There was a commotion from the courthouse entrance. I glanced over my shoulder to see a half-dozen people hesitantly emerging from the glass double doors: lawyers, clients, court witnesses, and clerks, all staring at me. A uniformed cop was right behind them; one of the onlookers pointed my way and the cop drew his gun, but instead of taking matters into his own hands he quickly urged the rubberneckers back into the building before he took cover within the entranceway. From what little I could make of him, I could see him pull out his beltphone, snap it open, and hold it close to his face.
The Clayton cop shop was located only a few blocks away. I now had the option of holding out until the law arrived. It was a tempting thought-surrender peacefully and allow myself to be taken into custody, then prove my innocence in my own sweet time-but that still meant I would have to emerge from hiding. The sniper could take me out while I was surrounded by a SWAT team. Even if they doped out how and why I had suddenly fallen down with a self-cauterized hole in my head, it wouldn’t mean shit so far as I was concerned.
Fuck it. I had to pinpoint the sniper myself … but now I had an idea.
Still crouching low behind the planter, I pulled Joker out of my jacket pocket, flipped it open, and switched to verbal mode. “Joker, log on,” I said.
“Gimme a street map of the Clayton district.” I glanced over my shoulder again at the courthouse cop; he was still laying low, waiting for his backup to arrive. “Display a three-block radius surrounding the intersection of South Central and Carondelet.”
I could hear sirens approaching from the distance. I forced the sound from my mind. “Okay. Now … uh, overlay a 3-D graphic of all buildings within this perimeter, and make it snappy.”
“Forget snappy,” I said impatiently. “Just do it.”
Computer-animated buildings sprang from the gridwork of streets. Now the map resembled an aerial photo of this part of Clayton, including the courthouse plaza itself. “Very good,” I said. “Logon graphics-edit. I’m giving you a new coordinate for the map. I want you to add it to your memory.”
I touched the miniature trackball and gently moved the cursor across the screen until it was approximately above the spot in the courtyard where Hinckley’s body lay. When I removed my finger, the cursor vanished and a tiny
So far, so good, but the sirens were getting closer now. I looked over my shoulder again but couldn’t see the cop who had been hiding in the doorway. I took a deep breath, then went on. “Okay … now display lines between this coordinate and … ah …”
Shit. All of a sudden, I was stumped by my own ingenuity. How could I ask Joker to show me the probable line-of-sight trajectory between Hinckley and the sniper? I already knew what would happen if I phrased the question the wrong way; lines would radiate in all directions from the coordinate I had registered on the map.
But how could I explain the problem to a literal-minded computer?
Yeah. Fat chance … but it was better than nothing. I would have to dumb-fuck my way through this. “Given that the coordinate I just designated is five-point-five feet tall …” I said slowly.
Joker’s voice was maddeningly calm. Here I was, trying to think through a complex problem to save my life, and it wanted to deliver e-mail to me. I winced and swore under my breath. “This is not a good time, Joker.”
What the …?
“Gimme the message!” I snapped.
The screen bisected into two parts; the map remained intact on the upper half, although reduced by fifty percent, while the lower half displayed a message bar:
›Laser beam fired from 1010 South Central Avenue, floor five‹
At the same moment, a red line traced itself from the coordinate I had registered on the map to the condemned five-story office building directly across the corner from the courthouse.
I stared at the screen. How the hell could …?
“Freeze, mister!” a voice yelled. “Get your hands in sight!”
The courthouse cop I had spotted earlier was standing directly behind me. His feet were spread wide apart, his service revolver clasped between both hands and pointed at the back of my head. He had snuck up on me while I was paying attention to Joker.
“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to calm him down. “I don’t have a gun, see?” I held up Joker in my right hand, keeping my left hand where he could see it. “Look, it’s not a gun, all right?”
The cop wasn’t impressed. “Yes sir, I can see what it is,” he said evenly. “I want you to put it down on the ground, stand up and put your hands behind your head. Now, sir.”
I carefully placed Joker on the concrete and wrapped my hands around the back of my head, but I didn’t stand up. “Officer,” I said as calmly as I could, “the woman over there was shot from the top floor of that building.” I nodded toward the condemned building across Central from Government Center. “I had nothing to do with it,
