from its handle.
Pittman kept talking, nauseous from fear. “I have a friend waiting in a van parked in the area. It’s loaded with electronic equipment. She’s been recording everything we said. She’s also been rebroadcasting the conversation, directing it to the Fairfax police. Her signal is designed to block out normal police transmissions. For the last hour, the only thing the police station and all the police cars in Fairfax have been able to hear is our conversation. Mr. Gable, you just told several hundred police officers that you killed Duncan Kline, Jonathan Millgate, Burt Forsyth, and Father Dandridge. If I’d had time, I’d have gotten you to admit that you also killed your wife.”
“Webley!” Gable’s outrage made his aged voice amazingly strong.
“Jesus, he’s right. Here it is.” Webley looked pale as he held up a bullet-shaped object that was obviously intended for another purpose.
“Damn you!” Gable shouted at Pittman.
“I’ll wait in line, thanks.
“Kill him!” Gable roared toward Webley.
“But…”
“Do what I say!”
“Mr. Gable, there’s no point,” Webley said.
“Isn’t there? No one subjects me to ridicule.” Spittle erupted from Gable’s mouth. “He’s ruined my reputation.” Gable’s face assumed the color of a dirty sidewalk.
As Webley continued to hesitate, Gable stalked toward him, took the gun from his hand, aimed at Pittman…
“No!” Pittman screamed.
… and fired.
The bullet struck Pittman’s chest. He groaned in anguish as he felt its slamming impact. It lifted him off his feet at the same time that it jolted him backward. In excruciating pain, he struck the floor, cracking his head, graying out for a moment, regaining consciousness, struggling to breathe.
From where he lay, his chest heaving spastically, he watched in panic as Gable coughed, faltered, then lurched toward him.
Gable’s shriveled face towered above him. The pistol was aimed toward Pittman’s forehead.
Paralyzed from shock, Pittman couldn’t even scream in protest as Gable’s finger tightened on the trigger.
The roar of the gunshot made Pittman flinch. But it didn’t come from the pistol in Gable’s hand. Rather, it came from behind Pittman, from the direction of the wall-length window as glass shattered and gunshots kept roaring, Gable’s face bursting into crimson, his chest shuddering, obscene red flower patterns appearing on it. Five shots. Six. Gable lurched against a chair. The pistol fell from his hand, clattering onto the floor. A bullet struck his windpipe, blood gushing, and suddenly Gable no longer had the stature of a diplomat, but the gangly awkwardness of a corpse toppling onto the floor.
Through gaps in the window that had been shattered by gunshots, Pittman heard Denning shout in triumph.
Denning’s grotesquely manic face was framed by a jagged hole in the window. The old man’s skin seemed to have shrunk, clinging to his cheekbones, making his face like a grinning skull.
Hearing a noise from the other side of the room, Pittman twisted in pain and saw Webley stand from behind a chair, where he had taken cover. He raised the.45, aiming toward Denning.
The pistol that had fallen from Gable’s hand lay on the floor next to Pittman. Sweating, wanting to vomit, mustering resolve, Pittman reached, grasped the weapon, and fired repeatedly at Webley, too dazed to know if he was hitting his target, merely pulling the trigger again and again, jerking from the recoil, concentrating not to lose his grip on the pistol, and then the gun wouldn’t fire anymore, and it was too heavy to be held any longer anyhow, and Pittman dropped it, his chest seized by agonizing pain.
He waited for Webley to retaliate. No response. He listened for a sound from Webley’s direction. Nothing. He fought to raise himself, squinting past Gable’s corpse, still seeing no sign of Webley.
What difference does it make? Pittman thought. If I didn’t kill him, I’m finished.
But he had to know. He squirmed higher, clutching a chair, peering over it, seeing Webley lying motionless in a pool of blood.
Pittman’s painful elation lasted only a second as he heard a groan from beyond the shattered window. His chest protesting from the effort, he turned and saw Denning clutch his own chest. The old man’s elated grin had become a scowl. His eyes, which a moment ago had been bright with victory, were now dark with terror and bewilderment. He dropped his pistol. He sagged against the windowsill. He slumped from view.
By the time Pittman staggered to the window, Denning was already dead, collapsed in a flower garden, his eyes and mouth open, his arms and legs trembling, then no longer trembling, assuming a terrible stillness.
Pittman shook his head.
In the distance, he heard a siren. Another siren quickly joined it. The wails became louder, speeding nearer.
Bracing himself against a chair, Pittman peered down, fumbling to open his sport coat. The bullet that had struck his chest protruded partly from his sweater. When Gable had commented that the two garments were the reason Pittman reacted badly to the eighty-degree temperature in the room, Pittman had been afraid that Gable would become suspicious about the sweater. After all, the sweater was the reason Pittman had needed to contact someone else he had once interviewed before he came to the mansion to confront Gable.
The person he’d gone to see was a security expert. The sweater was a bullet-resistant vest whose state-of- the-art design made it look like ordinary clothing.
I’m the sum of all the people I ever interviewed, Pittman thought morosely as he stared again out the shattered window toward Denning’s corpse.
He turned away. The effort of breathing made him wince. The security expert had explained that the woven fibers of the bullet-resistant vest could stop most projectiles but that it offered no protection against the force of their impact. Bruises and injured ribs were sometimes unavoidable.
I believe it, Pittman thought, holding himself. I feel like I’ve been kicked by a horse.
The sirens, joined by others, sped nearer and louder.
Pittman staggered across the living room, passing Gable’s corpse, then Sloane’s, then Webley’s. The stench of cordite and death was cloying. He had to get outside. He had to breathe fresh air. He stumbled along the stone- floored hallway, his legs weak from the effects of fear. As he reached for the main door, he heard tires squealing on the paved driveway outside. He opened the door and lurched onto the terrace, breathing sweet, cool air. Policemen scrambled from cruisers. Weapons drawn, they didn’t bother slamming their car doors. They were too busy racing toward Pittman. He lifted his arms, not wanting them to think he was a threat. But then he saw Jill among them, racing even harder to reach him, shouting his name, and he knew that for now at least he didn’t have to be afraid. He held her, clinging to her, oblivious to the pressure against his injured chest. She was sobbing, and he held her tighter, never wanting to let her go.
“I love you. I was so afraid that I’d lose you,” she said.
“Not today.” Pittman kissed her. “Thank God, not today.”
EPILOGUE
Love is an act of faith, Pittman thought. People get sick and die, or they die in traffic accidents, or they eat food that hasn’t been properly cooked and they get salmonella and they die, or they fall from a ladder and break their necks, or they get tired of you and they don’t want to see you anymore and they don’t answer your phone calls, or they divorce you. There were so many ways to be tortured by love. Indeed, eventually all love, even the truest and most faithful, doomed the lover to agonizing loss-because of death. Love required so much optimism, so much trust in the future. A practical person might say that the possible immediate benefits did not compensate for the ultimate painful result. A cautious person might deny his or her feelings, closet the temptation to love, smother it, and go through life in a safe, emotionless vacuum. But not me, Pittman thought. If love requires faith, I’m a
