Джеймс Паттерсон - The 13-Minute Murder

“Do you even try not to lure feds?” I said quietly.

I’d never seen him in person. For all I knew, he could be black or Asian or young or old. Or, worst-case scenario, not even in the car.

But after a few turns, the rear passenger window lowered an inch and out came an empty can of Red Bull, bouncing to the road behind him. Confirmed: he was in that vehicle. So I followed at a professional distance as his driver took him to the far end of the shipping yard.

I stopped my car behind a tall heap of loading pallets, the only place where I wouldn’t be detected by my prey. I was past the point of self-preservation. Every fifteen minutes, my mind would remind me that Maria was gone. I’d cry for a half minute, force myself to forget the thought, and clear my head.

A bloodbath? So be it. I’d already shot one person today. By tonight, why not make it two?

I got out of my sedan and quickly but casually walked toward the first empty doorway I could find, just in case the pilot of the red Escalade was eyeing me from a distance. I doubted it. Guys who install fake chrome aftermarket hubcaps generally don’t hire drivers who check mirrors.

I ducked into the shelter of the doorway, counted to ten Mississippi—pretending I was a delivery guy—then headed back to my car, glancing nonchalantly toward the Escalade about a half mile down the road. There it was. Unattended.

Knowing this was my one chance, I sprinted toward my goal. I covered about a half mile in five minutes. When I got close enough to see where they’d entered, I picked up the first rock I could find.

They’d gone into a small warehouse for berth 451. I channeled my inner Cy Young and flung a wild pitch up and over the two-story warehouse so that my rock would land, hopefully, on the far side, on a stack of hollow barrels. Or on something just as loud.

It hit a tin roof. Whaunk!

I entered.

Chapter 18

I had no idea what to expect inside. There could be thick Slavic dudes in turtleneck sweaters, itemizing a table full of weapons, with additional machine-guns aimed at me. There could be an unchained Rottweiler trained to attack. There could be a missile silo.

Once inside, I saw, happily, that only one inhabitant was visible: the rear end of a guy in overalls, heading away from me, out the back door. The rock had worked.

I didn’t catch sight of Byron, but I still didn’t actually know what Byron looked like. I was operating on pure instinct. He would be ugly; his guards would be uglier. That was my theory. Find the handsomest guy in the room—and shoot all his friends.

The first person to reemerge from the back hallway was the overalls guy, a 175-year-old man whose osteoporosis bent him clean over like the handle of a human umbrella.

“Can’t shoot someone like that,” I mumbled to myself.

The old fella looked up, glanced at me, glanced at the weapon in hand, and proceeded to do absolutely nothing different. He kept shuffling toward his corner of the room, where he picked up a broom and started sweeping. It was as if this place had been stormed by gun-toting enemies at least three times a week for the past decade.

I couldn’t hear much because there was static-ridden music blaring from his radio, the lyrics in what I could only guess was Croatian.

I put my gun back in my pocket. Maybe this would be more of a diplomatic mission than I had thought.

“Who’re you?” said an abrupt voice from behind my left shoulder.

This was trouble. I hadn’t turned around yet but my eleven years as a trained killer told me his intonation was trouble.

“Hey,” repeated the voice. “Who the hell are you?”

Showtime.

Chapter 19

I had no response to his question, and no idea if the voice behind me was from one lone guard approaching me from my flank or from one of several .

I’d failed to hear his footsteps—tsk, tsk—letting the radio drown them out. After a moment, I finally turned to face my hosts.

“Who am I?” I restated rhetorically—anything to throw them off guard for even a split second.

I was now facing two men.

“I’m…here,” I began, “because I was hoping to buy a…a…um…y’know.”

They could think I meant drugs or guns or girls. I was dressed like a middle-class American male, easily in the market for any of the above.

“Wrong place, buddy,” said the second guy.

“I need a gun,” I said. “I need one as soon as possible.”

He laughed. “As soon as possible?”

I could tell he was underestimating me. Good. Maybe he’d assume I was a loser seeking revenge on my cheating girlfriend.

“How much you pay?” he mused.

I needed him to move several feet to his left. I edged to my right so that he’d subconsciously counter. I’d enacted this geometry before, this knight’s move.

“Pay?” I said.

“How many thousand you gimme?” He laughed. “What you do with gun?”

“What I do with gun…would be something like… ” I let my sentence linger until just the right amount of time had elapsed, then quickly raised my revolver. “This.”

And fired four shots at the two men. Blam blam blam blam .

Shamefully trite, I know.

Blam . Plus an unplanned shot at an unseen third guy who’d been kneeling to pick up trash off the floor, who’d just now sat up to see what was happening.

It was a barrage in three cones of attack, each grouped around the upper torsos of my opponents. Itemized: I hit one aorta and two lungs. The first thug fell to the ground while the second fell to his knees, clutching a geyser of blood from his neck. The old man with the broom, still sweeping, who maybe was deaf now that I thought about it, didn’t flinch.

My intended victims all dropped as scripted, except for the third guy. The memorable performance was from the third guy.

First he stumbled to his feet, then backward through the open quay doors toward the lip of the dock, where he teetered on the edge. Then he futilely grabbed for the hull of the nearest trawler. This positioned him precariously over the water, balancing…balancing…until, ploosh, he fell in.

I trailed him all the way there, more out of curiosity than bloodlust. After a mutual moment of awe, he stopped splashing. He looked at me, then looked at what was on the dock, merely one lunge away from his hand.

I had my revolver up and ready. He was weighing his reaction time. He had to confirm that he was fast enough to scramble for his weapon before I could discharge mine. The not-so-trivial factor in this arithmetic was that I’d already fired all five shots of my five-shot cylinder. I was out. I was pointing an empty gun at him.

“Try it,” I said. Pure effrontery, pure bravado.

Could I sprint to his gun before he could arm himself with it and fire at me? Based on physics and standard NFL forty-yard dash times, no. He was too far from me. He’d win.

“I hit your buddy in the carotid artery from fifteen yards away.” I said this with a voice full of swagger. “You’re only five yards away. And much more predictable.” Could he know that my Smith & Wesson didn’t have the capacity for a sixth shot? Was he even counting? And while we’re at it, why, Michael, do you carry a gun that holds only five rounds? I pulled back the hammer for philharmonic emphasis. “Don’t make me sink you.”

He bobbed in the water for a few seconds without speaking. I could see the math taking place in his head—he was desperately weighing his probabilities. Everything, including that I might be out of ammo. Everything, including his gradual, eventual recognition of my face. He didn’t announce it yet but he soon knew exactly who I was.