James Patterson - Truth or Die

Big enough, though. I certainly wasn’t complaining.

He pushed himself up, standing quickly, if not a little wobbly. “The gun!” he barked, pointing.

I hadn’t seen it go flying, but there it was, matte black against the terra cotta of the Roman bricks around the fountain. It was closer to me than to him. As for the gun’s original owner, he was somewhere in between and staring right at it.

Then at me.

Then right back at the gun.

It was up for grabs.

I sprang from the bench into a headfirst dive while my camera, launched from my lap, shattered to pieces. Scooping up the gun, I whipped my arm and locked both elbows, and dammit if the view wasn’t so much better from this angle.

“Stay down!” I yelled, jabbing the barrel of his Beretta M9 straight at his chest. With its fifteen-round staggered box magazine, he and I both knew I could remind him over and over who had the upper hand.

Yeah, I knew guns. I knew them well. Ever since my high school days at Valley Forge Military Academy. I shot them, cleaned them, took them apart and put them back together again. Even once while naked, blindfolded, and being blasted by a power washer during the school’s version of Hell Week.

I hated guns.

“Call nine-one-one,” I said with a quick glance at the guy who’d saved my life. Man, did he look young. He was practically a kid. Hell, he was a kid. He was also way ahead of me, his cell already in hand.

“On it,” he said.

I could hear him perfectly amid the hush that had fallen over the terrace and the fountain. Never had so many New Yorkers been so quiet all at once. I could feel them, though, as they began peeking out from whatever they were ducking behind, at least those who didn’t have the camera lenses from their cell phones trained on me. I was about to trend mightily on YouTube.

All the while, I kept my eyes fixed on the man on the ground, hoping he wouldn’t even blink until the police arrived. Turned out, his gun wasn’t the only thing that had gone flying when he was tackled. Gone, too, were his sunglasses. Good thing.

If he’d still had them on, I would never have known about his partner.

It wasn’t much of a poker face. In fact, if anything, I could’ve sworn he cracked the slightest of smiles the second he glanced over my shoulder.

Following his eyes, I quickly turned to see the only person in the crowd who was actually running toward us — a second guy in great shape sporting short-cropped hair and apparently the de rigueur wardrobe among the assassin set. Dark suit, white shirt, open collar... and a semiautomatic handgun.

So much for my having the upper hand.

He was racing down the farther of the two massive staircases that connected Bethesda Terrace to the Seventy-Second Street Cross Drive. Fifty yards away and gaining. Fast. He might as well have been Moses, the way people were parting for him. Wielding a deadly weapon has a funny way of doing that.

“C’mon, let’s go!” said the kid.

The kid.

The way he’d said it, as if there weren’t even a decision, it all clicked. He was Claire’s source. He was the one at the Lucinda. He was what this was all about — even though I still had no idea what this was really all about. Except that this was him. The kid.

“C’mon,” he repeated. “Let’s go!”

He took off, hurdling the concrete bench where I’d been sitting. He was sprinting across the lawn, heading for the cover of the trees lining the Lake. I didn’t need any more prompting to follow him, but it came anyway with the crack of a single shot splitting the air. People and pigeons were scattering all over again.

I might have been the only other one with a gun, but the bullet wasn’t intended for me. Assassin #2 was aiming for the kid and nearly got him, the divot of grass flying up a mere foot to his left as he ran. There was a better-than-good chance the guy wasn’t going to miss twice... unless I did something.

Hopping over the concrete bench, I didn’t run right away. Instead, I spun around, crouched, and let go with a few rounds. Then a few more. Not at him, though.

You still smiling, buddy?

The guy on the ground had seemed all too pleased to stay there and watch me sweat, but as I sprayed a circle of bullets around him, he was quick to find the fetal position. Even quicker was his partner, who got the message. From a full sprint he stopped on a dime, lowering the gun to his side.

I was about to tell him to lay it on the ground and back away. Problem was, I didn’t have much of a plan from there. I was just buying time, and only a few extra seconds at that. As soon as he stepped back, I was taking off, and then we’d see how fast we both could run.

That was when I glanced up and saw her.

There she was, the Angel of the Waters , perched high in the air and watching. Now she was looking out for me, and her plan was a hell of a lot better.

I jerked my head at the fountain. I didn’t need to explain. In fact, I didn’t say another word. All I did was keep aiming where I was aiming.

Maybe I have it in me to shoot your asshole partner, or maybe I don’t. But do you really want to take the chance?

My two would-be killers exchanged glances, the one on the ground nodding somewhat helplessly at the one with the gun. He nodded back. Then — plop! — he tossed it into the fountain.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three...

I was waiting until the count was ten, long enough for the barrel to fill with water. Would it still fire? Sure. But first he’d have to fish it out and shake it dry, and even then the compression would be off. And as for me?

Eight Mississippi, nine Mississippi, ten...

I was off and running.

Sprinting for my life across the open stretch of grass, I could feel my lungs on fire. Only when I reached the trees did I look back for the first time, relieved as hell to see they weren’t chasing after me.

Still, I kept running. Fear of the unknown, partly, and the rest hoping I could find the kid. But he was nowhere to be found. Until, that is, I felt the quick vibration of my phone again. It was another text from him.

Last 4 of ur SS#

I knew right away what he was doing — making sure it was really me who had my phone. He obviously hadn’t hung around to see how things played out back at the fountain. Couldn’t blame him. But I also couldn’t figure out how he would know my Social Security number. Just add that to the litany of questions I had for him.

I texted back the last four digits, and within seconds he responded with a location where we should meet. Finally, I was going to get some answers.

Careful what you wish for...

I didn’t look around the street before opening the door to the Oak Tavern on Seventy-Fourth off Broadway, but I knew he was watching me from behind some stoop or parked car, or more accurately, watching to see if anyone was following me. The kid wasn’t dumb. That was why he was still alive. That was why we were both still alive.

So this guy walks into a bar with a Beretta M9 tucked under his shirt...

Most New Yorkers can tell you that last call in the city is 4 a.m. Far fewer of them can tell the flip side — first call, the time at which a bar can legally start serving. It’s 8 a.m. I knew it only as trivia.

For sure, the four guys scattered along the stools, who didn’t even bother to glance my way as I approached the bartender, knew it as a way of life.

“Double Johnnie Black, rocks,” I ordered.

The fact that I was having whiskey for breakfast didn’t seem nearly as relevant as my having just had a gun aimed at my head. Drinking to numb the pain of Claire’s death was one thing; drinking to settle an entire body of frayed nerves was another.