Without a word, Memo drove away.
Sergio looked at Felix with curiosity. “Then you really aren’t a cop…”
“You’ll soon see who I am. Open that door.”
“Only the head man can open it, from inside. It’s an electronic gadget. I have to call over the intercom.”
“All right. Listen, Sergio, remember that your chief isn’t going to protect you. He’s leaving you on the hook with the Mustang and the snow.”
Sergio’s dilated pupils danced. “What’s happened, big talker? Now it’s two against one, right?”
Sergio pressed a button, three short and one long. Over the intercom a voice said, “Come in.”
The rolling steel door began to rise electronically.
Sergio hesitated an instant, then shouted, “No, chief, don’t open it, they’ve got us!”
Felix rolled beneath the security door and fired three shots. He wasted two bullets; at the first shot, the small blond youth twisted his lips for the last time and fell face forward onto the wet pavement. The third bullet hit the silently closing steel door.
Felix got to his feet in the darkness of the storeroom and started toward the door that communicated with the sales area of the supermarket, guided by the glow of fluorescent lights beyond it.
Before he reached it, the lights were extinguished. Silently, he entered the vast, dark, reverberating cavern. His first thought was that this hangar ought to smell of food, but there was only an overpowering stench of antiseptic. The silence was deafening. Every step, every movement, was amplified in the echoing emptiness. Felix heard his own footsteps and then a distant cough.
He groped his way along high shelves; he touched tin cans and jars and then he shouted, “The game’s up, do you hear me?”
The echo resounded in liquid ripples, like waves on a pond after a pebble strikes the water.
“The police have the Mustang. The fat woman gave me the delivery. Sergio is dead outside. The game’s up, you hear?”
The answer was an uncannily accurate bullet that burst a bottle next to Felix’s head. He heard breaking glass and then smelled whiskey. He crouched down and, still bent over, crept forward, his face almost touching his knees. He moved like a cat, but he told himself this was a battle between bats, a battle in which all the odds were against him. His enemy knew the terrain, he owned this supermarket. Felix collided with an obstacle, tumbling a pyramid of tin cans; the crash of metal was drowned out by a burst of bullets directed at the precise site of the mishap. Felix threw himself to the floor behind a protecting row of shelves.
“Keep talking,” a voice said. “You’ll never leave here alive.”
Felix tried to locate the point from which the voice was originating. It came from a higher level, and he remembered that sometimes the offices in a supermarket are on a second level, from which employees can observe the customers. He removed his shoes. Scattering everything in his path, he ran behind a row of shelves between himself and the trajectory of the bullets — right to left, from a higher to a lower point, and always straight ahead. His rival’s advantage was also his limitation. He was hunting from a besieged tower.
“You laid your plans carefully. You registered under an assumed name. You could always say that you were meeting a lover. Actually, it didn’t matter if someone saw you. You had the best alibi in the world. You were with your wife. You went together to the Suites de Génova. No one asks questions in a place like that. Tourists and lovers make up the clientele.”
Again he was silent, as he ran to a different location. The buckle of his raincoat struck against a shopping cart; he fell to his knees as shots rang above his head. He crawled to the end of the row of carts and took off his raincoat; he draped it over the handle of the cart and gave it a push with his foot. A rain of bullets followed the cart as it careened down an aisle; it struck a display and the barrage was repeated. Felix flattened himself against a sheltering shelf.
“Your wife had challenged you. Why didn’t you go to a hotel like lovers, to make it more exciting? But she wanted to add spice to the broth. She said it wasn’t enough simply to go to a hotel. Even then, you didn’t turn her on. You were furious. She admitted that only when you were jealous were you slightly more attractive. But since you were constantly jealous, even that device was wearing thin. You proposed a new challenge. You asked her to find some way to make you more jealous than ever the night you planned to be at the hotel. She laughed and accepted the challenge. She told you that the night you went to the hotel she would sleep with me before she came to you. She even gave you the number of the room of our assignation, 301. She asked you to reserve a room on the same floor, as close as possible to 301. With luck, you might be able to hear our moans of pleasure.”
“You know Mary,” the voice said. “Keep imagining.”
“Sure, Abie,” Felix replied, moving silently along the rows of shelves, being careful to avoid brushing the crinkly cellophane bags with his shoulder. “Mary chose that room for our supposed date because she knew Sara Klein was staying there. You found that out, too, and fell into your wife’s trap. She wanted you to know it, so you’d think the challenge was real, so you’d have doubts. Was I taking advantage of my friendship with Sara to use her room for a rendezvous with your wife? Why not?”
Again he ran to a new location, nearer the steps to the upper level. Abie taunted, “Do you know who told Mary that Sara was staying at the Suites?”
Felix again sought protection against some shelves, and said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m married to a Jew. I know the tribal customs. It’s a tight little community. Everyone knows everything about everyone.”
“I know,” snorted Abie. “Do I know.”
“But you didn’t know who you were going to kill, your wife or me, or both of us. Your mind was running along two rails, one calculating, the other emotional. Yours and Mary’s challenges were like a game of ping-pong. She challenged you, saying that she would sleep with me right under your nose. You returned the challenge with a question: What time did she plan to deceive you? Laughing at you, she set an exact time. Exactly twelve o’clock midnight, the witching hour for Cinderella, something like that, it’s her style, right?”
The roar from the upper level was that of a wounded bull. For the first time, Felix fired in the direction of Abie’s voice; it was time to let him know that he was armed.
“You prepared your diversions for precisely twelve-thirty. Sergio and his friends with their mariachis would stop before the hotel and sing the serenade. The nun would come by to ask for charity. The police interrupted the serenade and ordered Sergio to keep moving. But you had achieved what you desired. The concierge would remember the two unusual happenings, and the police would pursue two false trails. You were protected. Memo’s plates were on the Mustang. Apparently, the police didn’t take down the number. A serenade’s a normal event; just a prank that interrupts traffic. Sergio slipped the policeman the usual bribe, and didn’t even get a ticket. No trace of the Mustang. And you were sure of your people. Memo thought it was a joke, and since no one bothered him, he forgot about it. Sergio was your slave, your drug runner, an addict himself. He never asked questions, he did as he was told. Perfect. Your allies were in the dark, and only you knew what you planned to do.”
“And the nun?” The voice laughed. “Do you know who the nun is?”
“No, but you’re going to tell me, Abie.”
“I might, yes, since you won’t be leaving here alive.”