Hardball

I tried working my way to the bank. An old tire and a shrub tripped me. I moved backward on my knees and one hand, keeping my gun in front of me. More shots, and then Dornick was spreading his troops in a triangle around me. Dornick shouted a command, and two guns fired in succession, one on either side.

I edged backward while he issued his orders, but the men in the triangle around me were all shining their lights into the brush where I’d landed. I was a fox in the hunt. They had light-finding, heat-seeking missiles, or some crap, that would take care of me.

“Where are the negatives, Vic?” Dornick called.

“My lawyer has them, George.”

“You never made it to your lawyer. We were there ahead of you.”

“I messengered them into town… The same time I sent Bobby Mallory his copies.”

Bobby’s name stopped him briefly, but Dornick only said, “We know you were on your way to Carter’s office. We were listening to that girl’s cellphone.”

“Girl’s cellphone? You mean the Reverend Karen Le

“Without the negatives, your report doesn’t mean shit,” Dornick said. “You tell me where they are, and I’ll let the drunk go.”

“It’s okay, Vic,” Elton quavered. “You don’t have to do nothing on my account.”

“What happened, Elton?” I called. “How’d they know you had Petra here?”

“Someone in the coffee place across from your office,” Dornick said. “They told us a homeless guy had gone off with the girl, and we started shaking all the winos and weirdos in Bucktown. And a guy like Elton doesn’t take a lot of shaking before he falls off the tree, isn’t that right, dirtbag?”

“I’m sorry, Vic. I know you saved my life and all and I wish you hadn’t, that’s the God’s truth. If you’da let me die, my little girl wouldn’t be in so much trouble. Your little girl, I mean. She’s a real nice gal, Vic. You can be proud of her. So don’t worry about me no more now, you hear? You don’t need to look after me no more, okay?”

Dornick ignored Elton’s quavery apology. “I want those negatives, Vic.”

He ordered his crew to come into the brambles after me. “Alive: I want to search her. I don’t want her dead… yet.”

The men crashed down the bank and into the thicket. I fired and hit one of them but missed the other two. And then they had me by the arms, and I was kicking, shooting, but the end was ordained at the begi

I stomped hard on his instep and kicked back at the kneecap of the man behind me. Both men cried out. They weren’t used to pain. I broke free, but Dornick grabbed me before I could start ru

“You watch too many old Nazi flicks, George.” I said. “That’s always what Erich von Stroheim does.”

He hit me again. “You’re not as smart as Tony always claimed you were. Where are the pictures?”

“Freeman has them.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Slap.

“I put them in a FedEx box on Armitage,” I said.

“Take the shack apart,” Dornick ordered. “She wouldn’t even leave them with a messenger from Cheviot. She sure didn’t put them in a box.”

I had shot one man; the second man was holding me. Dornick held a gun on Elton while the fourth man dismantled his home. Elton gave little cries of misery as the walls were peeled apart, plastic bags torn open, his nest of sleeping bags ripped apart. It took a good twenty minutes, but the black garbage bag was gone. Petra must have grabbed it on her way out, determined to save Peter’s hide.

Dornick was angry now. He held his gun on me, and I could see the red triangle of the laser sight in the dark toying with my chest, my head, figuring where best to shoot so as not to hit his lackey.

I went limp in the man’s arms, took a breath-the kind Gabriella always wanted, down, down to my tailbone, shutting my eyes: “Breathe, don’t think. Breathe, don’t think”-and began my mother’s signature aria, “Non mi dir, bell’idol mio” (Say not, my beloved).

Dornick’s gun sounded, and I flinched. I couldn’t help it, ruining Mozart’s fluid line, thinking instead of breathing. He’d missed.

“You goddammed asshole, you-”

The grip on my arms loosened. I broke free. I kicked hard against the kneecap, rolled to the ground, rolled toward Dornick. Elton had seized his legs. Dornick was flailing about, trying to get an angle where he could shoot Elton and not hit himself. He was stronger than the homeless man, but all that meant was that as he thrashed about he dragged Elton with him.

I gave a primitive yell, smashed my hand into his forearm, and seized the gun. A moment later, the embankment was awash in blue.

48

A POLICE LAUNCH HAD ARRIVED, BUT IT TOOK US ALL A few minutes to realize that. Two of Dornick’s banditti tried to run off, but the launch turned its spotlight on the shore. A couple of cops pulled out rifles and ordered the men to stop where they were. Dornick was doubled over on the ground, but he shouted for help:

“Officer down! Officer down!” he cried. “Get that bitch before she escapes. She grabbed my weapon.”

“He’s a liar,” Elton cried in a high-pitched gabble. “Vic, she was here with her girl. They were hiding from this man here. He’s a psycho. We seen plenty like him in Vietnam, rogue soldiers who start shooting their own men. He’da killed Vic if I hadn’t tackled him. And he broke my house in little pieces, just for nothing but to make me feel bad.”

“You look her up,” Dornick said. “She already murdered one cop this week. She’s out for revenge on the whole police force.”

Men in Kevlar vests jumped ashore. They covered all of us with their assault rifles and herded us onto the launch. I was shaking so badly, I almost fell into the river. The cops hoisted me over the side of the launch, and left me under guard while they went back for Dornick’s wounded thug.

Petra was sitting in the stern, wrapped in a gray police blanket. In some dim part of my exhausted mind, I felt relief at knowing she was safe. But mostly I wanted to lie down on the deck and sleep.

Once we were all on board, Dornick had the gall to try to pretend I had held him hostage-him and his three banditti-and forced them to the river, where I proposed shooting them, just as I had shot Larry Alito.

“That’s not true, Mr. Dornick.” Petra called out from the stern. “You know you tried to kill me and Vic. I don’t even know how she escaped, except I guess she’s more resourceful than you.”

That made me smile. The cops wouldn’t let me go over to Petra, so I blew her a kiss.

In the meantime, though, the river police had looked me up and found Bobby’s outstanding warrant on me. They cuffed me, and told me I had the right to remain silent, but as we rode downriver I kept repeating Bobby’s cellphone number and telling them to call Bobby before they booked me and left Dornick free to flee their jurisdiction. Petra’s insistence that it was Dornick who’d been threatening us made them decide to give me at least enough of the benefit of the doubt to call Bobby, who ordered them to bring all of us in.

At the Grand Avenue Landing station, they transferred us from the launch to a paddy wagon. It was one of the old beat-up ones, without springs or shocks. Dornick was beside himself with rage. Him, the head of Mountain Hawk Security, a twenty-year veteran, in the wagon with common criminals.