Jeffery Deaver - Manhattan Is My Beat

All a waste. She couldn't believe it. The danger, the risk, Pretty Boy… all a waste.

"Goddamn," she whispered harshly.

Only, wait… The letter.

She opened the letter again. It was addressed to Symington and at this address. So what was he doing with Vincent Spinello's passport?

But as she looked at the passport again, the condensed, grim little picture, there was no doubt. Spinello was the man she'd seen at Robert Kelly's apartment. Who was he?

She dug to the bottom of the folder and found out. What made it so heavy was something that was wrapped in a piece of newspaper-a pistol. With it was a small box of cheap cardboard, flecked brown-green. The box, too, was heavy. On the side was printing in what she thought was German. She could make out only one word. Teflon.

Oh, God…

Symington-or Spinello-was the man who'd killed Robert Kelly. He and Pretty Boy had found the Union Bank robbery money. They'd stolen it and killed him! And the loot was in the closet!

Rune dropped to her knees and looked at the padlock on the closet. Leaned close, squinting. Pulled it, rattled the solid lock.

Then she froze. At the sound of a door opening then closing.

Was it the front or the back door? She couldn't tell. But she knew one thing. It was either Pretty Boy or Symington. And she knew something else: they both wanted her dead.

Rune gave one last tug at the closet door. It didn't move a millimeter.

Footsteps inside now. Nearby. If he finds me here, he'll kill me! She stuffed the accordion envelope into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.

A creak of floorboards No, no…

She thought they were in the front of the apartment. In the living room, which wasn't visible from where she was. She could probably get out the back without being seen. She glanced into the corridor fast, then ducked back into the bedroom. Yep, it was empty.

Rune took a breath and ran from the bedroom.

She slammed right into Victor Symington's chest.

He gasped in terror, stepped back, the ugly hat falling from his head. In reflex he lunged out and slugged her hard in the stomach, doubling her over. "Oh, God," she wheezed. A huge pain shot through her chest and jaw. Rune tried to scream but her voice was only a whisper. She dropped to the floor, unable to breathe.

Symington, furious, grabbed her by the hair and spun her around. Dropped to his knees. His hands smelled of garlic and tobacco. He began to search her roughly.

"Are you with them?" he gasped. "Who the fuck are you?"

She couldn't answer.

"You are, aren't you? You're working for them!" He lifted his fist. Rune lifted an arm over her face.

"Who?" she managed to ask.

He asked, "How did you…"

He stopped speaking. Struggling to catch her breath, Rune looked up. Symington was staring at the doorway. Someone stood there. Pretty Boy? Rune blinked, rolled to her knees.

No… Thank you, thank you, thank you… It was his daughter, Emily.

Rune was so grateful to see the woman that it wasn't until a second later that she wondered: How'd Emily find the place? Had she followed me here?

Wait, something is wrong.

Symington let go of Rune, backed up.

Emily said, "How did we find you, you were going to ask? Haarte has some good contacts."

Haart? Rune wondered. "Who's Heart?" she asked.

"Oh, no, it's Haarte?" Symington whispered. Then he nodded hopelessly. "I should've guessed."

"What's going on?" Rune demanded.

Symington was looking at Emily with an imploring expression on his face. "Please…"

Emily didn't respond.

He continued. "Would it do any good to say I have a lot of money?"

"The money!" Rune said. "He killed Mr. Kelly and stole his money!"

Both Symington and Emily ignored her.

"Is there anything I can do?" Symington pleaded.

"No," Emily said. And took a pistol from her pocket. She shot him in the chest.

The way he fell is what saved Rune.

The gun was small but the impact knocked Symington backward and he slammed into the pole of the floor lamp, which fell against the bathroom door, sending a shower of glass into the hallway.

Emily danced out of the way of the splinters, which gave Rune a chance to sprint into the bedroom. But the woman recovered fast. She fired the gun again and Rune heard a terrible stereo sound of noises: the blasts of the gun behind her, the crash of the bullets slamming into the plaster wall inches from her head.

Then-with another punch of breathtaking pain- she dove through the bedroom window.

Hands covering her face, shards of glass flying around her, trailing the window shade, she rolled onto more sad evergreens and dropped onto the grass, coming to rest against one of the plaster dwarfs. Panting, she lay on the lawn. The smell of dirt and damp grass enveloped her. She could hear birds squabbling in the trees overhead.

And then the air around her exploded. A dwarfs face disintegrated into white splinters and dust. On the street, fifty feet away, Rune caught a glimpse of a man with shotgun. She couldn't see his face but she knew it was Pretty Boy-Heart probably, the one Symington mentioned. Or Heart's partner. He and Emily were working together… She didn't know who they were exactly or why they wanted to kill Symington but she didn't pause to consider those questions. She rolled under another plant, then scrabbled to her feet. Clutching her purse, she sprinted into the backyard. Then clambered over the chain-link fence.

And then she ran.

Behind her, from Symington's yard, came a shout. A second shotgun blast. She heard the hiss of something over her head. It missed and she turned, down an alley. Kept running.

Running until her vision blurred. Running until her chest ignited and she couldn't breathe another ounce of air.

Finally, miles away it seemed, Rune stopped, gasping. She doubled over. Sure she was going to be sick. But she spit into the grass a few times and remained motionless until the nausea and pain went away. She trotted another block but pulled up with a cramp in her side. She slipped into another backyard-behind a house with boarded-up windows. She crawled into a nest of grass between a smiling Bambi and another set of the Seven Dwarfs, then lay her head on her purse, thinking she'd rest for ten, fifteen minutes.

When she opened her eyes a huge garbage truck was making its mournful, behemoth sounds five feet away from her. And it was dawn.

They'd be watching for her.

Maybe at the Midtown Tunnel, maybe at a subway stop. Emily and Pretty Boy. And not just them. A dozen others. She saw them all now-Them with a capital T. Walking down the streets of Brooklyn on this clear, cool spring morning. Faces glancing at her, knowing that she was a witness. Knowing that she and her friends were about to die-to be laid out like Robert Kelly, like Victor Symington.

They were all after her.

She was hitching her way back to Manhattan, back to the Side. She'd thumbed a ride with a delivery van, the driver a wild-eyed Puerto Rican with a wispy goatee who swore at the traffic with incredible passion and made it to the Brooklyn Bridge, a drive that should have taken three-fourths of an hour at this time of day, in fifteen minutes.

He apologized profusely that he couldn't take her into Manhattan itself.

And then she ran once more.

Over the wooden walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge, back into the city, which was just starting to come to life. Traffic hissed beneath her; the muted horns of the taxis sounded like animals lowing. She paused halfway across to rest, leaning against the railing. The young professionals walked past-wearing running shoes with their suits and dresses-on their way to Wall Street from Brooklyn Heights.