The Good Guy

Tim realized that he was staring too intently at her lip. When he raised his eyes, he saw that she had been watching him stare, so he said, “If you want, I could chew that for you.”

“If you’re not going to shoot him,” she said, “why can’t I take the pistol with me?”

“I’m not going to start the shooting. But if he opens fire on me, I’d like to have some option besides throwing my shoes at him.”

“I really like this little gun.”

“I promise I won’t break it.”

“Do you know how to use a pistol?”

“I’m not one of those guys who waxes his chest.”

Reluctantly, she passed her purse across the table.

Tim put the purse on the booth beside him, glanced around to be certain that he wasn’t watched by one of the few other customers or a waitress, fished out the pistol, and slipped it under his Hawaiian shirt, under his belt.

Her stare was not sharp any longer, but as solemn and knowing as the sea, and it seemed to him that right then she took down into her depths a new understanding of him.

“They’re open twenty-four hours,” she said. “We could just sit here until he goes away.”

“We could tell ourselves he isn’t really out there, it’s someone else, nothing to do with us. We could tell ourselves all the way out the door, just walk into it and get it over with. A lot of people would.”

She said, “Not a lot would have in 1939.”

“Too bad your Ford isn’t a real time machine.”

“I’d go back there. I’d go back all the way. Jack Benny on the radio, Benny Goodman from the Empire Room of the Waldorf-Astoria…”

He reminded her: “Hitler in Czechoslovakia, in Poland…”

“I’d go back to it all.”

The waitress asked if they wanted anything more. Tim requested the check.

Still no one had gotten out of the white Chevy. Traffic on the street had diminished. The incoming tide of clouds had extinguished the moon.

When the waitress brought the check, Tim had the money ready to pay it and to tip her.

“Turn right in the alley,” he reminded Linda. “Run to the end of the block. Look for me coming west on the main street.”

They slid out of the booth. She put a hand on his arm, and for a moment he thought she was going to kiss him on the cheek, but then she turned away.

Under his belt, the gun felt cold against his abdomen.

Twelve (#u65e7b131-c2e7-55e0-bb92-b6c31e1b1967)

When Tim Carrier pushed through the glass door and exited the coffee shop, all the air seemed to have escaped the night, leaving a vacuum that could not sustain him.

Along the street, with swish and clatter, queen palms shuddered in a freshening breeze that belied the impression of airlessness.

After a shallow breath gave way to a deeper one, he was all right, and he was ready.

His paralysis had not been caused by fear of Kravet, but by dread of what would come after he dealt with Kravet. Over the years, he had successfully sought anonymity. This time it might elude him.

Pretending to be at ease, showing no interest in the distant Chevy, he walked directly to the Explorer. Behind the wheel, when the interior lights went off, he glanced once toward the suspect vehicle.

From this better vantage point, he could see a man in the car, the gray smear of a face. He was not close enough to discern any details, and couldn’t tell if this might be the man to whom he had given ten thousand dollars in the tavern.

Tim withdrew the pistol from under his belt and put it on the passenger’s seat.

He started the engine but didn’t switch on the headlights. At little more than an idle, he coasted toward the restaurant, as though intending to pick up Linda near the entrance.

In the rearview mirror, he saw the driver’s door of the Chevy open. A tall man got out.

As the Explorer neared the restaurant and began to pull parallel to it, the man from the Chevy approached. He kept his head down, as if in thought.

When the guy came out of the shadows and into the parking-lot lights, he proved to be of a size and a physical type that matched the killer.

Tim braked to a stop, apparently waiting for Linda, but in fact luring his adversary as far from the Chevrolet as he dared. If he delayed too long, the gunman might suddenly sprint to the Explorer and shoot him dead in the driver’s seat.

About forty yards directly ahead was an exit from the parking lot. Tim waited perhaps a beat longer than he should have, then switched on the headlights, tramped the accelerator, and raced toward the street.

Fate plays with loaded dice, so of course the light traffic abruptly became heavier. An eastbound trio of vehicles brightened toward him in excess of the speed limit.

Expecting a gunshot, glittering glass, and a bullet to the brain, Tim remained committed to flight. As the Explorer shot into the street, however, he realized that the momentum lost in a right turn would ensure that one or all of the approaching vehicles would tail-end him.

Brakes shrieked, horns blared, headlights seemed to sear him. Instead of turning right, he highballed straight across the two eastbound lanes.

Without a further scream of brakes, although with a vigorous condemnation of horns, two cars and a panel truck sailed past behind him. Not one vehicle so much as kissed the Explorer’s bumper, but their turbulent breath buffeted it.

When he barreled into the westbound lanes, oncoming traffic was at a safe distance but closing fast. Turning west, he glanced south, and saw that Kravet had sprinted back to the Chevrolet. The killer was in the driver’s seat, pulling the door shut.

Tim continued turning, out of the westbound lanes, crossing the yellow median lines. He drove east, into the wake of the traffic with which he had almost collided.

As he drew near the next major intersection, he checked the rearview mirror, then a side mirror, and saw the Chevy exiting the coffee-shop parking lot.