Besides, jumping a man with a loaded gun is always a last resort maneuver. John didn’t like getting shot. He had tried it a couple of times and found it unpleasant at best.
“Nice penmanship. It shows you have an orderly personality. So you don’t know her, eh?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t know a woman. I said I didn’t have anyone here,” John said.
“And you don’t know where she’s gone.”
“Obviously.”
He didn’t answer. John could feel him moving closer, and the hair on his nape began to tingle. Guns at his back did that.
“What has she done with it?” he asked.
“Look, I’m just an employee here. Ms. Maxwell hired me to find out who was after her and nothing more. I don’t know anything about her or her business. That’s the truth.” Well, a half-truth, anyway.
“Why should I believe you?”
He didn’t sound like he particularly wanted to.
“Look, if I was working with her rather than just being a simple employee don’t you think she would have told me where she was going? I put her here for her own safety, and I just came back to find her gone.”
The guy was irritating, but he was also scary. John had no idea whether he’d shoot him just for the hell of it or let him go. Given a choice, he preferred the latter, but the tingling in his nape was getting worse.
“I suppose I could give you the benefit of the doubt. One shouldn’t leave too many bodies lying about. It attracts attention.”
What the hell was he talking about?
“All right,” he said, stepping closer. “I’ll let you live, but drop her case. You won’t be so lucky the next time I run into you.”
“Sure thing, anything you say.”
John didn’t have any trouble sounding relieved, but he had no intention of dropping the case.
He felt a double pinprick in his back and before he could move fire lanced through him. His muscles locked, snapping his mouth shut and arching his back like a fish floundering on the bottom of a boat. He lost control of his body but was unable to fall away from the electrodes jabbed into his back.
John didn’t know how long the Frenchman held the trigger of his shocker down, but it was too long.
***
When John came to, he was face down with his nose buried in the dingy brown carpet. Everything, absolutely everything hurt. It felt like he’d been exercising until the muscles locked up. He had pain in places he didn’t even think he had muscles. He tried to move, but his arms and legs didn’t want to respond. Trying again, he finally defeated inertia and pushed away from the floor.
The outside door was closed, and he was alone in the room. He staggered to the bathroom and leaned against the sink. The image in the mirror looked almost as bad as he felt. Blood still oozed from a nose that stood at a sharp angle to what he considered normal. The old scar glowed red against his face. Its glow echoed his mood. He gritted his teeth, took a firm grip on his nose, and yanked it straight.
The pain was sharp, but bearable, as fresh blood streamed down across his mustache. He ignored it.
The shocker was a nasty stun weapon. Its high frequency and high voltage shock locked the voluntary muscles in the body, but when the charge was spent, the muscles relax. Normally, they’d hurt for a couple of days, depending on the physical condition of the victim. In his case, he expected a day would be enough, but it was going to be one hell of a day.
His left nostril still seeped crimson. He yanked off a foot of toilet tissue, rolled it into a cylinder, and jammed it into his nostril, inflicting almost as much pain as straightening it had.
He picked up his overnighter from where he’d left it and started for the front door.
The note he’d written lay crumbled on the floor. He bent to retrieve it and then changed his mind. If Caitlin came back, she would have enough evidence that something was wrong when she saw the pool of blood his nose had left in the carpet. That should cause her to leave without stopping to look for a note. She’d get back in touch with him over the Web or back at The Gleaning Cube.
He went to the front door and looked out. There were a few people moving about the lot, but there was no sign of his assailant. Just as well, it’d be a few more hours before he was limber enough to handle a fight. He opened the door and walked stiffly to the rear of his car, unlocked the trunk, and tossed in his overnighter.
John bent and pulled back the carpet. Then he unlatched the hidden compartment in the floor and lifted out a small case. He closed the trunk, went around to the driver’s door, and got in.
He set the case on the seat next to him and keyed in the combination. Opening the lid revealed his handgun and holster. He took the gun out, checked that there was a round in the chamber and a full magazine, and then set it back down while he strapped on the shoulder holster. It was normally difficult in the front seat of a car, but with his stiff muscles, it took a few minutes. Finally, he got it on and slid the handgun home.
He didn’t usually pack the gun. Relying on a
