I gave the dog room. Getting dog-bit sets a bad precedent for the week.
The third bench began to take shape as I approached. A man was sitting on it.
Two more steps and I could see him fairly well. His head was down, with his chin on his chest. He was totally relaxed, as if he were asleep.
Another step closer. It was Eide Masmoudi. He didn’t stir as I approached.
“Hey,” I said.
He didn’t move.
I froze. Ran my eyes around. Listened.
So where was Radwan?
Another two steps… I could see Eide better. His eyes were open.
I stepped off the pavement, walked up behind him. That’s when I saw the two red spots behind Eide’s right ear, about two inches apart. Two small-caliber bullets in the brain.
Tom — Eide Masmoudi — was extremely dead.
As I stood there trying to process what I was seeing, I felt a cool breeze on my cheek. The wind was picking up. There was more light — the sun was above the horizon and illuminating this mess.
Eide hadn’t been shot sitting here. Someone had arranged his body on this bench. That struck me as unusual. Most killers, I thought, did their thing and got the hell out of Dodge.
This killer had lingered. He had taken the time to arrange the body so at first glance Eide appeared to be sleeping. Why?
The cool wind on my cheek was clearing the fog. Visibility was rapidly improving. I could see trees, stark black things without leaves, and rocks … bushes, and the second bench. Empty.
The killer didn’t want anyone calling the bobbies immediately because he was still here! That realization hit me like a hammer, and I ducked down behind the bench.
As I did so I heard a pffft of something passing by my head. I knew what that was, by God — a subsonic bullet.
I jerked the pistol from my pocket and ran toward two big rocks that I could see twenty feet behind the bench. Dove through the air and landed behind them as something spanged the rock and went zinging away.
I tried to glue myself to the back of the biggest boulder.
So the killer was still here and he wanted big dumb me. Lovely. Just fucking lovely!
I had no idea where he was. I found out real quick, though. The next shot came from ahead of me — I saw the muzzle flash, just a small wink — and the bullet hit me in the left shoulder. A stab of pain went through me.
I crawled around the rock as fast as I could go. At least two more shots whacked into the rock, maybe three, before I managed to get the stone between me and the shooter.
I worked my left arm and hand. Nothing broken, but my shirt was getting cold and wet from blood and the wound stung like hell.
I figured he was using a small-caliber auto pistol with a big silencer, the same weapon he had used on Eide. Without sights, the weapon would be impossible to shoot accurately at any distance. He had managed to do a number on me with it, though.
I still had my Springfield in my right hand, and it had sights. And a three-inch barrel. Perfect for shooting someone ten feet away, but not quite what the doctor ordered for a Sunday morning shoot-out in the park.
At least I knew where he was. Or where he fired from. No doubt he was moving.
I got my feet under me and went running out to my right, away from the rock toward a set of trees that would allow me to work back to his shooting position.
I felt something tug at my coat as I ran.
Got a glimpse of him just before I got to the trees, so I snapped off an unaimed shot just to keep him honest — and to alert any police who might be strolling though the park on Sunday morning.
The fog was lifting, but there was still some, so the report didn’t sound all that loud. Sort of a loud pop.
I didn’t stop behind the trees, but tried to keep them between him and me as I closed on him.
I had the pistol in both hands now, and I wanted to shoot. Caught a flash of him running the other way — he wasn’t waiting for the cops— so I cut loose. Fired three times.
After the last shot I didn’t see him, so I ran in that direction. If he was lying on the ground waiting, he was going to get a free shot at me, but unless he drilled me between the eyes, I was going to kill him with this 9 mm.
He wasn’t on the ground as I came thundering up. I looked all over, the pistol ready in my hands as if I were Jack Bauer, but he had disappeared. Made a tactical retreat, I suspected, running like a rabbit. But which way?
Not a soul did I see, any way I looked. What I saw was short dead grass and naked black trees and stick bushes and some rocks and paved paths — sidewalks — in every direction. Here and there a bench for better days. The sun was a faint ball in a skuzzy gray sky, hanging in the trees. Visibility up to maybe a half mile, a chill wind taking the sweat right off my brow … and my shoulder hurt like hell. I guess I relaxed a little.
So the punch in the chest when the bullet hit almost took me off my feet.
There was a ditch maybe seventy or eighty feet ahead, and the shooter was in it. I got a glimpse of a head sticking up, and maybe a smidgen of the pistol. Then another round sailed by my cheek and I realized that I was going to have to find cover or die.
Scared the hell outta that guy, so I did.
I ran toward the nearest tree and got behind it. Damn thing was pretty skinny, but it seemed to cover the essentials.
A bullet had thumped me in the chest, so I wondered how badly I was hit. I reached inside my coat, found the sore place.. and my cell phone. I pulled it from my shirt pocket. It was ruined. A bullet had smacked it and was stuck in the thing, with just the base sticking out. Looked like maybe.22 caliber. I dropped the phone back in my pocket. Checked the sore place with my fingers, didn’t feel blood.
I inched one eye around the tree and looked for my would-be killer. Didn’t see him. I scanned the grass where the ditch should be. He had gone in one direction or the other, but I didn’t know which.
He was certainly a ballsy bastard — I’ll give him that. He was whanging away with a silenced.22, trying to wound me just enough that he could safely approach and deliver the coup de grace, as he did to Eide Masmoudi.
I wondered if the guy was Abu Qasim. Or that killer Marisa had warned me about, Khadr.
So what did he expect me to do? Stay hidden and call the police? I would if I had a phone; he didn’t know he put it out of action, though.
I didn’t figure he would stay around long. I looked right and left, waited for him to come out of the ditch or creek, whatever it was.
Just when I was ready to give up and charge his last position, I saw a dark shape run up the bank to my left, maybe a hundred yards away, onto a paved sidewalk. He galloped off into the trees.
I was tempted to go after him but didn’t. All he had to do was duck behind a tree and wait for me to get within range.
I put my pistol in my pocket and headed back for the bench where Eide had started his eternal sleep. My shoulder hurt with every step, and my chest ached.
When I got there a female police officer was checking the corpse, ensuring he was dead. The radio in her hand was squawking continuously, a stream of unintelligible noise. An older man with a big dog straining on a leash was watching her.
When the bobby glanced at me I said, “The guy who did it to this guy is gone. How about calling an ambulance for me?”
“What’s wrong with you?” she said sharply, frowning at my criminal mug.
“He got one in me. It’s bleeding and hurts like hell. And have your dispatcher call MI-5.”
The dog barked at me. Barked and snarled and barked some more. Lunged forward on his leash.
The cop was on her radio, so I asked the guy who was holding the hound back, “Did you see anything?”
“I arrived just a moment ago. Out for a stroll to exercise old Jack.”
“Then get the fuck outta here,” I said nastily.
A wounded look crossed his face, but he left, dragging the dog.
