‘If I answered your first question, you’d probably guess the second.’
‘If you’re after money, you’ve come to the wrong place. You’d be better off…’
‘I’m not here for money.’
‘That’s good, son, because I’m old and haven’t worked in years, I don’t have much to get by on.’
‘Save it,’ said the man. ‘You’re wasting your time trying to make conversation. I know what you’re trying to do: humanise yourself in my eyes, making me think twice about doing you harm. You’re wasting the few breaths you have left.’
Andrew was thinking clearer now and studied his surroundings for a way out of this. He didn’t like what the man had just said, it sounded like he had only one agenda. No way was Andrew going to sit on his ass and offer his would-be killer an easy ride. He thought of his wife upstairs and knew that she’d be next, but not if he did enough to alert her to the danger, and slowed the bastard down. He looked for something to use as a weapon.
‘Don’t even think about it.’
Andrew returned his gaze to the man. He’d stepped inside the room and was looming over Andrew. The gun was held steadily, the barrel aimed directly at Andrew’s face. ‘I want you to know why I’m here, why I’m about to kill you. It’d be a shame if I had to put a bullet through your skull before I showed you this.’
From his jacket pocket the man took out a cellphone. He’d readied it beforehand, and he held out the glowing screen so that Andrew could see the photograph on it. Andrew screwed up his eyes to help focus the picture and saw that in fact it was a photograph taken from one much older. The image was of a man in uniform, sepia in colour. It was many decades since Andrew had seen that face but he recognised it and knew who this man might be.
‘Who is it?’ Andrew tried, but he knew the man saw through the lie.
‘You don’t remember? Well that’s a shame, because he’s waiting to greet you in hell.’
The man’s voice had risen in pitch and volume, and Andrew knew that the rest of his life could be counted in seconds. He coiled himself, ready to call out, to fight back, to do something.
Andrew squirmed round so that he was partly side-on to the man. To anyone uninitiated into violence it might seem that the old man was frightened and trying to make himself a smaller target. ‘You do know what he did?’
‘Oh, so you’re admitting that you know him now?’ The man put the phone away and from his pocket took out a long tubular object. Andrew recognised it as a sound suppressor. It was both a bad and good sign. It meant that the man was not a first time killer and had come prepared, but also that he did not want to raise an alarm by firing indiscriminately.
‘He deserved everything he got,’ Andrew said.
‘No one deserved that!’ The man screwed the suppressor on to the barrel of his gun with a few practised twists. He did it blindly, but couldn’t resist the natural reaction to glance at it once, to make sure he’d secured it correctly. It was only a brief second of inattention, but Andrew took advantage of it.
From his side-on position he could chamber his left leg, and he shot it out, aiming with his bare heel at the man’s shin. Better that he aim for the knee, but he didn’t have the range. His heel struck bone, at the same time as he swung his other foot to hook behind the man’s ankle. Andrew scissored his legs. An untrained man would have been upended, giving Andrew time to swarm on top of him and to snatch away the gun. Unfortunately this man had come with violence in mind, and though he was briefly off balance, he was agile enough that he was able to disengage his trapped leg and to hop aside… bringing round the gun.
‘No!’
Andrew’s yell wasn’t out of fear of the bullet destined for him.
A slight figure had appeared as a shadow behind the man, one arm raised in the air. With all of her strength his wife brought down a plant pot she’d lifted off a hallway dresser. The man had somehow felt her presence behind him and was already turning. The plant pot struck him on the shoulder, but it was nothing to the man. He continued his turn and swung with the barrel of the gun, striking the woman across the side of her skull. She hit the floor quicker than the falling plant pot, which shattered in a way that Andrew feared her skull had. The man gave one disdainful look at the woman before turning his attention back to Andrew.
He took a step back. Andrew had come up from the floor much faster than a man of his age should have been able to.
‘Bastard!’ Andrew came at him with animal ferocity, throwing two solid punches at the man’s chest, but both fell short. ‘If you’ve killed her I’ll—’
The man shot him: three rapid bullets to the chest.
Andrew staggered at each impact.
‘This time you’ll do nothing,’ the man sneered.
Andrew collapsed to the floor, jammed in the doorway. He didn’t look at the man now, but at his wife. She lay on her side, her head cradled under one arm. He could barely see the rise and fall of her shoulder as it rode each breath.
‘Please,’ he moaned. ‘Take me, but don’t harm my wife.’
The man snorted.
‘Why not? It’s your lying wife’s fault it came to this.’
He shot Andrew again, this time in the head.
Chapter 2
It was misty in San Francisco.
The mist was nothing unusual, because it was a regular occurrence in the Bay area. Something to do with the humidity coming in from the Pacific and meeting the cool air sweeping out from the US landmass, or vice versa. Whatever the phenomenon, it had coalesced into low-lying clouds. Today it had formed out on the water, a huge embankment that had followed the shorelines, obscuring from view the world famous Golden Gate Bridge before pushing in to shroud Alcatraz and on to similarly veil the Bay Bridge. Above the mist I could still make out the tallest points of the Bay Bridge, against the backdrop of a starry sky. The thrum of traffic over the bridge was muted, a background accompaniment only. On the Embarcadero traffic was light, and none of the famous cable cars was in sight. Pedestrians were few as well, but there were street people camped out next to a large fountain that looked as if it had been erected using the leftover concrete from an overpass. Most of the street people were tucked under sleeping bags, shopping trolleys piled with their belongings forming windbreaks behind them. One of the homeless guys was an early riser like me, and he was rooting through some boxes outside a pizza shop. He had shuffled past a minute earlier without noticing me, which went a long way to prove my disguise was working.
I was wearing a thick parka jacket picked up from a military surplus store, plus jeans and a pair of boots that looked like they’d seen a thousand miles, and a wool cap pulled down around my ears. I’d gone unshaven for three days. To complete my disguise I’d rooted around in an open Dumpster and allowed the stink to permeate my clothing. I was sure that no one but another hobo would come within ten feet of me from choice.
It was very early, an hour or two before dawn, but I wasn’t feeling it. I’d only flown in from Florida two days before, and my body clock swore it was actually midmorning. I was wide awake and intent on the job at hand. I saw the man I’d been waiting for immediately.
He was a large man. Maybe a shade over six feet, but big in other ways: big shoulders, big arms, big chest and waist. He was also big in the local criminal underworld, but still a few rungs from the top. He was dressed for purpose in a windcheater jacket: not a defence against the chill but to conceal the gun holstered beneath his left armpit. His name was Sean Chaney, a strong arm of the resident criminal fraternity. He looked half-asleep, which suited me fine.
As he moved by, I fell into step a dozen yards behind him. He didn’t glance at me, and wouldn’t be concerned if he did. All the homeless people here knew who he was, what he did for a living, and didn’t hassle him for change. He walked alongside the Hyatt, a huge structure of tiered rooms and balconies to make the best of the view across the bay. The Embarcadero Centre was on our right; a three storied shopping mall that spanned several blocks of the city. Apart from security lighting all of the shops remained in darkness and there was no one else around. My boots scuffed the ground, and to me sounded like cannon fire, but Chaney seemed oblivious and carried on to the corner of the hotel where he took a left. Coming round the corner after him, I saw him check his watch and his pace picked up.