Memory Man

“Submarines?” said Leopold contemptuously. “Austria doesn’t have a navy.”

“No, but Russia does. Which is where you went to live when you were nineteen. You were kicked out of the Russian navy for stealing from your fellow sailors. It took me the longest time to pin down your accent. Because it’s a blend. Austrian, Russian, with an overlay of English.” He glanced sideways at Leopold. “Ist good, Herr Leopold? You said it at the bar. And you said it again just a minute ago. Maybe you didn’t even realize?”

Leopold struck him on the side of the head with the gun.

Decker slumped over.

Now his leg and his head were hurting like a bitch. His tolerance for pain was greater than most. You didn’t play football for as long as he had without being able to take pain. But a bullet to the head would not be painful. He would just be dead.

He looked up at Wyatt, who was looking at Leopold. Decker couldn’t see Leopold’s face, so he didn’t know where he was looking. But the gun was now pressed against his temple.

“You see the lump on his neck, Belinda? I think the guy is terminal and doesn’t give a shit what he does. He’s also a druggie. And needs money for that. And I think he likes to make other people do things. I think he’s a con man who likes to take people who are in desperate circumstances and screw with them. And if he makes millions in the process, like he did with you, so much the better.”

“Sebastian?” said Wyatt weakly.

That was not what Decker wanted to hear. That was not going to cut it.

“He’s full of shit,” said Leopold.

That was also not going to cut it.

Decker barked, “You killed all those people, Belinda. But there were gaps. Nearly twenty years go by and then you kidnap Giles Evers. Then you come and kill my family. Who was next? Your parents? Chris Sizemore? Then a gap. Then Mansfield. And then Nora Lafferty.”

“And now you,” snarled Leopold.

“Why the gaps, Belinda? Why come after me twenty years later? Was it him? Was it this guy? ‘Justice Denied’? Is that why all that time went by before you started killing? From the moment I said it twenty years ago I know you remembered that I wanted to be a cop. I recalled the stu

“Why would I do that?” said Leopold. “This was her revenge, not mine. She had to make it right. She came to me!”

“So it was her idea to make herself look like a big man with guns blazing, mowing down defenseless kids.” He looked at Wyatt. “Are you telling me that’s what you wanted, Belinda? Seducing a vulnerable young woman like Debbie Watson and then blowing her head off? You came up with that? She was almost your age when you were raped. She was just a scared kid with a screwed-up home life. Like you had! She wanted to have a better life. And you seduced her. Made her fall in love with you to such an extent that she called you Jesus, her savior. And then you just killed her? Like she was nothing? Like she didn’t matter? Like you didn’t matter? Like when people who you thought would protect you did just the opposite? Is that your idea of revenge, Belinda? Because I’m not buying it. That’s not you. I don’t care how much you changed. You haven’t changed that much!”

Wyatt said nothing. But Decker took it as a positive sign that Wyatt was not looking at him. She was staring at Leopold.

She rose from the crate. “Did you take my parents’ money?”

“Why would I? Do you see me rolling in cash?”

Decker was not going to lose control of the situation. He barked out, “He does it for kicks, Belinda. He likes to manipulate. He must have loved what you did at the school. It was choreographed, like a play. And maybe he has the money socked away in a bank somewhere. But he killed his family, so why would he have founded ‘Justice Denied’? The only justice denied with Leopold was his getting away with murdering his family.”

Wyatt said, “Is this true?”

Decker expected more denials. He did not get them.

“Yes,” said Leopold emphatically. “Do you feel better?”

He swiveled the gun away from Decker’s head. At the same moment Decker launched himself sideways, pushing off mostly with his good leg and taking the chair with him.

The gun fired.

Chapter

64

DECKER CATAPULTED HEADLONG into Leopold, finally delivering the hit on the field during the kickoff denied to him for two decades. It felt good.

Leopold fell sideways with the brutal impact. Decker was sure the man had never been hit that hard in his life. Those who only watched pro football from the safety of their stadium seats or big-screen TVs could never imagine the devastating power of enormous men ru

Decker landed directly on top of Leopold, his full weight coming to rest on the much smaller man who was half his weight. A few seconds later Decker smelled the stench. He had hit Leopold so hard that the man’s bowels had involuntarily released.

Leopold kicked at him. Then he tried to raise the gun to fire at him, but Decker, just as he had with Bogart, brought his weight down on top of the man and felt all the air leave him. His wide, heavy shoulder jammed down on Leopold’s right arm, forcing it to remain straight out.

Leopold was trying with all his might to turn the gun back toward Decker so that he could fire, but the angle was impossible. With the barrel pointed that way, his finger couldn’t reach the trigger. The weapon was useless. Which meant that it was man versus man here. And with the difference in size, there would only be one possible outcome.

Leopold seemed to understand this, because he smashed his knee against Decker’s wound. Decker screamed in agony. But he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth and, little by little, managed to straighten his legs out from the sitting position he had been forced into by the chair and duct tape. He felt the tape lengthening, though it did not break. But inch-by-inch Decker pushed and stretched and pushed some more until he was finally flattened out and his three-hundred-and-fifty-plus pounds were lying directly on the much smaller man.

Leopold’s breathing was ragged now. His body lurched up, trying to throw Decker off. But it was like an elephant on his chest.

And then Decker started to do something he never would have with Bogart, because he had never intended to end the life of the FBI agent. He very much intended to end the life of this man. Without the duct tape holding him back, he would already have killed Leopold. But he still would, he just needed to be patient.

So he began to inch his right shoulder in a new direction, a small measure at a time, while his other shoulder and upper arm remained jammed down on the limb holding the gun, keeping his opponent, in effect, weaponless.

The Smith and Wesson was not going to kill again.

Leopold kept kicking and pushing and bucking but the space for him to operate was now severely limited and growing ever smaller. Decker kept his eyes closed but the tears were ru