Дэвид Балдаччи - A Gambling Man [calibre]

“Don’t try to run,” said the little man. “It won’t matter and you’ll just embarrass yourself, mac.”

“I don’t remember asking you for your opinion,” said Archer. “And just so you know, the outer killing range on a sawed-off is about six feet. I’m double that.” He eyed the .45. “And in the dark, that revolver is bumping up against the wall of accuracy at ten feet.”

He took a long stride backward. “And now I’m at fifteen feet.”

“Son, don’t end your time looking like a fool,” said the little man somberly. “Have some self-respect and let’s get this over with nice and clean.”

Archer moved in a slow curve, and they curved with him.

Sawed-off, perhaps sensing a loss of control of the situation, took a few quick strides forward.

“Still not enough,” said Archer. “The buckshot will sting but it won’t kill.” He didn’t really believe this, but then he didn’t have to.

Now .45 moved forward, joining his twin along the line of attack. The little man, sensing the end coming, took a step back, burned off the remnants of his smoke, and dropped it to the dirt. The orange embers winked dead in the darkness like a miniature sun burrowing into the horizon.

“Now just hold still,” said .45, his voice surprisingly high-pitched for such a big larynx. He took aim with the revolver, but Archer could see his dominant arm shaking like a twig in a breeze; .45 clearly wanted to be big and tough but maybe he was just big.

Archer kept moving for two more strides, turning the men’s attention even more fully to him.

What they hadn’t foreseen was that his movements had put their backs to Callahan. They seemed to have forgotten all about the woman. That was about to change, but not exactly in the way Archer intended.

Callahan fired and her .38’s round hit Sawed-off in the right shoulder blade. He grunted once as the slug penetrated first skin, then tendon, then severed bone and plowed right through an intersection of blood vessels.

He groped around, pawing with his free hand at the entry wound, and screaming in pain. His hat came off and landed in the pool of blood now avalanching from him, for the shot had split a fat artery right in two. Snot blew out of his nose in his rage and fear and pain. He threw up whatever he’d last eaten and drunk, fouling the air. A urine stain emerged around his zipper as the shock of the round’s hitting him overcame his ability to hold this bodily function in check.

His fingers lost their strength, and the Remington hit the hard dirt. The impact with the ground must have sprung its filed-down hair triggers, because the twin barrels of the sawed-off boomed sideways and caught .45 at both ankles with hundreds of pebbles of angry buckshot at a distance of about seven inches, severing that part of his body as neat as a bone saw and miraculously leaving him upright. At that range, the sawed-off wasn’t a gun, it was a bomb.

The big man looked down and saw that his black wingtips, and the feet in them, were resting next to him, instead of under him. He was suddenly three inches shorter and standing on twin shattered bone tips, and his mind didn’t seem able to cope with this because he made no sound. He toppled sideways but fired his gun, maybe as a knee-jerk reaction.

He killed a eucalyptus tree next to Archer.

.45 commenced dying as he lay on the ground probably not knowing who or what had killed him. Archer watched as the man turned to him, his hemorrhaging eye an inch above the forest floor. The man blinked once, then shock took over. He convulsed once, then again, and the eye closed and the man died quick and silent.

Archer knew that pulling the trigger and killing a man was easy. What was hard was everything leading up to that point. And everything coming after it.

Archer turned to Sawed-off. He, too, had left this life in a dark, burgundy spread of blood that the dirt did not seem to want, because it lay on top of the ground like water in a pool.

“Don’t,” the voice barked out.

Archer turned to see Callahan now pointing her Smith & Wesson at the little man, who, dazed by the sudden elimination of his comrades, had pulled a .22 Derringer from his waistcoat and was pointing it around, though Archer could tell the fellow had no firm idea of an actual target.

“Don’t do it,” Callahan said. Her voice was assured, in command, with an ice-in-the-veins sort of rhythm. It was like a dagger needling your ribs before it went in for the kill.

Archer looked at her. Unlike .45, there wasn’t a twitch in her gun hand. The Smith & Wesson was held as sure and steady as a foot-round oak branch in still air. Callahan’s features looked like the mountain peaks they had passed, chiseled, foreboding, impenetrable. The last one got to Archer the most, confounding him.

The little man dropped the Derringer and backed away from it, his hands palm up in front of him, as though that would matter against the .38.

“Okay, okay,” he said, a line of sweat glistening around the whiskers above his lip. “Don’t do nothing crazy, lady.”

“You mean, kill you? Like you were going to kill us? So, who’s crazy?”

“Please, lady,” he moaned.

“Don’t please me,” she retorted. “It’s a little late for that.”

Archer said, “It’s over, Liberty. Just let him go.”

She spoke without looking at him. “And let him do what? Keep following us? Tell somebody else what happened? I killed a man, Archer.”

“In self-defense.”

“I shot him in the back.”

“I’m your witness to what happened.”

The little man said, “He’s talking sense. And all the fight’s gone right out of me. Wish I’d never come up here. I’ll take my money and go. You got my word, honest to God.”

“Too late to be talking about God,” snapped Callahan.

“Just wait a minute,” said Archer.

“You can’t trust guys like this, Archer. They say one thing and do another.” She took closer aim with her revolver. “And he confessed to killing Bobby H.”

Archer stepped forward, blocking her sight line. “Killing a man in self-defense is one thing. Shooting him in cold blood is something else. And I’m no saint, but I can’t be a party to that, so you might as well shoot me first.”

“I like you, Archer, but I’m not sure I like you that much.”

“Well, keep this in mind. We have more mountains to go over. You want to drive it alone? Go ahead.”

This did what apparently her conscience could not. She lowered her gun. “Pick up his piece and the shotgun and the revolver.”

Archer did as she asked, holding the trio of weapons so their barrels pointed to the dirt.

“Where’s your car?” Callahan asked the little man.

“Around the bend back there.”

“Show us.”

He led them around a curve in the road. It was a wonder they hadn’t heard the engine, but the wind up here was loud, funneled between the peaks.

It was a Chrysler sedan painted an ugly green with the biggest chrome bumper Archer had ever seen. It was large enough for him to take a nap on.

“You got a spare tire?” asked Callahan.

“Of course,” replied the man.

She shot out the Chrysler’s right front tire and the air hissed out as the rubber fell flat.

She lowered her gun, studied what she’d done, and said, “I still want to shoot him.”

“I know,” said Archer, drawing a sharp look from her. “But I say we get back in the car and keep going.”

“I’ll go along with that plan, for now.” She eyed the man, who looked like a fellow who thought he was still on death row. “You follow us, Archer won’t save you next time. You go back to where you came from and stay there. And you keep your mouth shut.” She lifted her .38 and took aim at a spot between his ball-bearing eyes.