David Jackson - Pariah

Bruno is also clearly puzzled. His arms come up and his fingers grapple comically with thin air as though he’s operating some complex invisible machinery. By the time he works out that he should be reaching for his gun, it’s too late. Sonny Rocca is already on him, his gun arm outstretched, his silenced weapon making phut-phut sounds as it spits. Bruno stares uncomprehendingly while his chest is drilled. When anger finally appears on his face, it is there for the fleetest of moments before being obliterated by a salvo of bullets that take out his teeth, then his nose, and then his right eye. Bruno stiffens, leans back like a toppling domino, and crashes to the floor with the force of a felled elephant.

Doyle is already on his feet. His hand dives automatically under his coat, finds itself clawing at the empty leather of his holster. He starts moving toward Rocca, no thought yet as to what he might do when he gets there. Rocca whirls on him, aims his gun at Doyle’s face.

‘Back!’

Doyle brings his hands up, takes a step in reverse. He watches as Rocca moves calmly back to Bartok, now clutching at his neck, trying in vain to plug the hole there as he coughs and splutters.

No, thinks Doyle. Don’t.

Rocca observes his boss for a second or two, not a hint of compassion on his face. It’s like he’s studying the behavior of an amoeba under a microscope.

Please don’t.

With casual ease, Rocca raises the dark semi-automatic again, and Doyle can only look on helplessly as bullet after bullet smashes into Bartok’s head and face. Even when Bartok’s body slides lifeless from his chair and lies crumpled on the wooden floor, Rocca stands over him and continues with the steady eradication of his ex-employer’s features.

I have one chance, Doyle thinks. And it will come only if Sonny Rocca hates his former boss badly enough.

So he watches and waits, listening to the muffled explosions, the clatter of empty cartridges hitting the floor, thinking that the destruction seems to be going on forever.

And then it happens. The slide on Rocca’s gun jerks back and stays there, announcing that its work is done: there are no more bullets to be fired.

Doyle makes his move. He believes it’s the fastest he’s ever shifted. His high-school sprinting instructor would have been proud of him.

He manages to cover all of one yard.

Rocca is ready for him. His other hand, which Doyle hadn’t even noticed dipping into his pocket, now comes up and points at Doyle. And it’s not empty.

The soles of Doyle’s shoes squeal as he applies his brakes. For the umpteenth time, he mentally slaps himself for agreeing to surrender his Glock. He thinks, finally, that he’s learned his lesson. Certainly he’ll never do it again.

Because now, for the first time in his life, he’s staring into the business end of his own gun.

‘Back!’ Rocca says again. He twitches the gun muzzle to one side. ‘Back in the chair.’

Doyle takes a few steps backwards, his eyes never leaving Rocca’s.

‘Why, Sonny?’ he asks. ‘What the fuck’s this about?’

Rocca doesn’t answer. He swaps his guns over, putting the loaded Glock into his right hand. Then he steps over Bartok’s

corpse, edges around the desk, the Glock aimed squarely at

Doyle’s forehead. He comes to a halt. Continues to point the gun.

He stands like that for several seconds, as if allowing Doyle the

opportunity to say a final prayer.

‘I was beginning to like you, Mr Doyle,’ Rocca says. ‘So long.’ Doyle senses the change in Rocca. He realizes that Rocca has

just made his decision. He sees the whiteness of Rocca’s knuckle

as he tightens his trigger finger.

Doyle closes his eyes and thinks of Rachel and Amy.

When Doyle opens his eyes again, Rocca has disappeared from in front of him.

He twists in his chair and sees that Rocca is now standing at the door.

‘Sonny. .’ Doyle says.

‘I got no instructions to kill you, Mr Doyle,’ Rocca says. ‘Quite the opposite, in fact.’

There is a trash basket next to the door. Rocca holds the empty, silenced gun over the basket and allows it to drop in. His left hand now free, he reaches into his inside breast pocket and pulls out an envelope. A white one. There is typing on the front, and even though Doyle can’t read it from here he knows that it will be addressed to him.

‘A message for you,’ Rocca says, and lets the envelope float down to join the gun.

‘You’re not thinking this through, Sonny. They’ll hunt you down. You know that, don’t you?’

‘We’ll see. Goodbye, Mr Doyle.’ He reaches for the door handle behind him.

‘Sonny! The name. You know who it is, don’t you? Please, this was my last chance. Give me the name.’

Doyle hears the desperation in his own voice, but he doesn’t care. Right now he thinks he’d get down on his knees and beg if it’d get him the name.

Rocca hesitates. ‘I’d like to help you, Mr Doyle. Really I would.’

But he’s not going to, Doyle realizes.

In one smooth motion, Rocca drops the Glock into the trash basket, swings open the door, and leaves. Doyle jumps from his chair, but even before he’s anywhere near the door he hears a key turning in the lock.

He grabs the handle and tries turning it. Realizes that he’s well and truly imprisoned.

‘Shit!’

He reaches into the basket, removes his Glock and the envelope. He stuffs the unopened envelope into his pocket, points his gun at the door-locking mechanism. .

What the fuck? he thinks. What am I going to do? Blast the door open, and then what? With all those human tanks out there, I won’t even get down the first flight of steps before someone blasts me out of my shoes.

Shit!

He lowers his gun and begins to pace the office. He glances at the mutilated figures of Bruno and Kurt, leaking their bodily fluids all over the polished floor. He can still smell the acrid odor of gunpowder in the air.

Why the fuck couldn’t you speak a little faster, Kurt?

It makes sense now. Sonny in his big heavy overcoat to hide his armory. His gloves to avoid putting fingerprints on the gun he used for the hit. And let’s not forget his demeanor. His cheerfulness tonight. His little speech about red-letter days, the start of a new life. He wasn’t talking about me, Doyle realizes now; he was talking about himself.

Doyle moves back to the door. How the hell am I going to do this?

He knows he can’t stay here for much longer. Any second now, someone could come through that door. Maybe even Lucas Bartok, and my, won’t he be in a good mood when he sees what happened here? How am I going to explain that one? Me locked in a room with his dead brother and his dead bodyguard, and oh yes, that murder weapon in the trashcan — that’s nothing to do with me. How long is Lucas or one of his heavies going to stand there and listen while I try to wriggle my way out of that one?

Fuck!

He paces again. Takes another look at Bartok. He had the name, goddamnit! He was on the verge of giving it to me. The only man walking this earth who. .

Well, that’s not quite true. Sonny Rocca knows the name, doesn’t he? Sonny Rocca, who is probably right now heading for a flight to Rio if he has any brains, knows who the sonofabitch is.

Doyle leaps over Bartok and stands at the window behind his desk. Straight ahead is the uniform blackness of a featureless wall. Below, he can just make out the dimly lit alley in which they parked.

Doyle holsters his gun and flips off the catch on the window, which looks old and covered in a million layers of paint. Please let this open, he thinks.

He manages to force the window up an inch, then slips his hands through the gap. The ice-cold air from outside almost freezes his hands to the frame as he strains to pull the window upwards. Eventually, he raises it by about a foot or so — just enough, he hopes, to squeeze through.