Matt Hilton - Cut and run

'Retirement's not all it's cracked up to be,' Bryce grunted. He sat down on the other bed.

'I take it that things weren't easy with the cops this time?' I said.

Walter grunted. 'There are complaints running all up and down the spout. The chief's threatening to take this all the way to the governor, to Congress if needs be. Do you think there's a chance you can keep things a little lower key in future?' He looked at me, Rink and Harvey in turn.

I spoke for the three of us. 'Not a chance, Walt.'

He shook his head, laughing softly. It had been a pointless request anyway. I wasn't the only one who had the feeling that things could get much worse. 'I can't blame you guys, I suppose. It wasn't you who went in and shot up that place with machine pistols. It took a lot of convincing the chief, though. He said they wouldn't have shot the damn place to pieces if you guys hadn't been in there in the first place.'

'He has a point,' I said.

'You probably saved a lot of people in there.'

'Doesn't make me feel any better.' People had died: a terrified guy under a table; the young girl hiding behind the cashier's desk, among others. Their deaths weighed heavily on my soul, regardless of how many others I might have saved. Seemed my life was destined to be filled with collateral damage; something that would never sit well with me.

Walter waved me down, then searched his pockets for his cigar. He thumbed the cigar into his mouth and sat staring into space.

'Haven't you anything else for us?' I asked.

'Only something very strange.'

I shared a glance with Rink.

Walter shook himself. 'There was another murder across town from where your gunfight took place. Someone was butchered with a knife.'

We were in a huge city with its fair share of crime. Knife crime wasn't so unfamiliar in Miami – just like anywhere else – but Walter was right: it was too much of a coincidence to be unrelated. Once again I wondered about what had become of Alisha Rickard.

'Elderly male,' Walter began, allaying my first fears. But his next words put me right back in the same place again. 'Knifed to death in the ladies' restroom. Rickard's fingerprints were at the scene.'

'What about his wife?'

'No sign. Only her shoes were found. It looks like she might've crawled out of a window.'

'She's running from him?' So, it seemed that Chisholm and his team had been involved in an extraction when Rickard had killed them. They'd come for the woman and found something much worse than they – and maybe even his wife – had ever anticipated.

'Looks that way. I've got someone over at Chisholm's office going through his records to see what we can find out.'

'Who's looking for the woman?'

'The police are. But at the moment they've more on their plate to worry about.'

I took out my SIG and ejected the depleted magazine. Fed in a full one and racked the slide.

'I'm going out.'

Walter looked at me. 'We have work to do here, Hunter.'

I was never that great a detective. Every man in the room was a far better investigator than me. Let them find out who Rickard really was, then point me in the right direction. That's where my special skills lay. I was more concerned with finding Alisha before her husband did.

'I'm going out,' I repeated.

This corner of Liberty City wasn't a safe place to hide for someone like Alisha Rickard. It was ironic that Rickard had originally found her in this neighbourhood, but since she'd been with him she'd undergone a major transformation. Now she simply did not fit. For one, her clothing and salon-perfect hairdo picked her out as someone no longer from these parts. Her designer purse, and the probable weight of cash or credit cards she carried within it, marked her as an easy target for any of a number of people willing to take it off her. Then there were the men who watched her with the eyes of pit bull terriers. They thought only two things about her: flesh for the taking or an obvious police set-up. Neither boded well for the young woman.

Except Rickard would not allow anyone to harm her.

She was his alone to hurt.

He'd ditched his car after retrieving his weapons, replaced it with an unremarkable Ford Taurus he'd hotwired, and taken up the hunt for his wayward wife. It was a decision that had come easy to his mind, even if it meant giving up his opportunity to finish Joe Hunter once and for all. When he'd seen Hunter at the diner he'd been momentarily confused: judging by the commotion, Hunter and his two friends had been involved in the gun battle that had torn the place apart. Yet – confused or not – he'd also seen his chance to blast Hunter to death. The only thing that had stopped him was his desire to finish things with Alisha first. The hit on Hunter was professional, about the money, but Alisha's betrayal had stung him where it really hurt: his ego. Hunter had been taken into custody by the cops arriving at the scene, but not in the manner befitting a suspected cop-killer. So had the big plan been a waste of time as he'd suspected? Rickard was optimistic enough to think that Hunter would be free within hours and another opening would present itself to take him out. So, straightening things with Alisha came first.

A quick check of the area behind the strip mall showed that Alisha had only one feasible escape route. He found the window where she'd crawled out of the restroom in a service alley that was blocked at one end by a large steel fence, beyond which construction of another building was taking place. The fence hadn't been breached. Even if there had been a way through, the land beyond was full of trenches and semi-erected foundations from which jutted steel wires: unwelcoming terrain for a barefoot young woman. She had to have left the alleyway the same way in which he'd entered. He backtracked, searched for dusty footprints on the pavement and saw a couple of fresh scuffs next to a public telephone kiosk. A quick glance inside the booth showed a prominently displayed notice advertising a local taxicab company. Rickard dropped quarters into the slot, hit the redial button and asked for a cab.

A few minutes later his driver arrived. Rickard made enquiries with the driver, money changed hands and Rickard knew where Alisha had headed to. He thanked the driver, then shot him in the nape of the neck. After taking back the cash he'd handed over, he quickly left the area, found the Taurus and took up the chase.

And now here he was in Liberty City, a suburb of Miami, watching from a distance as Alisha limped towards a house on a street where gangstas stood brazenly on a wooden porch watching for police spies. Alisha passed them with her head down, ignoring the remarks made by the men who added colour to their comments by way of actions. She knocked on the front door.

From his hiding place Rickard watched two men in baggy jeans, training shoes and white vests push in either side of her. Both men were fit and lithe and their muscular arms were covered in gang tattoos. One of them had a handgun jammed down the front of his jeans. The other held a pistol in his hand and he pushed it into Alisha's stomach. Rickard wasn't worried that the man was going to shoot; it was all just part of the macho bullshit these idiots enjoyed. He saw Alisha's chin come up and she must have said something harsh, because the gunman stepped away, raising his arms. The second man stopped pawing her at much the same instant. Rickard nodded to himself.

Rickard knew now why she'd come here. The return of the prodigal girlfriend.

Although he did not like to think that other men had been with her before him, he'd once made her tell him about her past boyfriends. She had resisted, but only until he'd twisted her hair and demanded to know the truth. She'd listed a couple of high-school boys who he had no interest in, then a guy who'd been more into computer games than he was into her. She'd mentioned in passing a man who'd picked her up in a bar who she dumped very quickly when it turned out he was a local cocaine supplier. Rickard had watched her as she'd talked about the young thug and she couldn't disguise the lie. Then she'd moved on to more recent men, one night stands who were up for having a hot girl on their arm but not for a meaningful relationship. The one that had stuck in his head was the only other person who could be described in the same bad-boy mould as he: the cocaine dealer from Liberty City. Rickard had considered paying this man a visit – putting him out of Alisha's thoughts for good – but hadn't got round to it yet.