Slug hitting the boot and bursting its way through the seat-back very close to my left arm the bastard, oh the bastard he’s going to put the next one straight into the spine and that means a slow death with unbearable pain or six months’ rehabilitation and a wheelchair, put it into the head you bastard don’t forget your bloody manners, chipping away at the cocktail cabinet with splinters flying up from the woodwork, rattling against the windscreen with not enough momentum left to smash a hole in it.

  ‘Situation?’

  Ferris.

  ‘He’s firing on us.’

  ‘I’ve ordered three cars in. Where are you now?’

  ‘Still going north, past Shenandoah Park.’

  ‘You’re still on 22nd Avenue?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then don’t divert. I’ll route them to intercept.’

  I told Treader.

  The flashing through the rear window had stopped. Treader wasn’t going to pull up because if he did that it would finish me off and it was his job to keep me alive for as long as he could or God help him when it came to debriefing. There was a bit of noise from behind us and I asked him about it and he said he thought Hood was using the Honda to worry the Corvette, ramming it obliquely to burst a tyre. It looked as if Proctor was alone in his car because I didn’t hear any shots going off that weren’t putting slugs into the limousine.

  Proctor had decided how to handle the police thing: the gun was making a noise and it wouldn’t be long before we brought a patrol car zeroing in but he was now relying on a quick kill with enough time to get him clear. He —

  Pock-pock in quick succession as the next one hit the boot and then the three-ply bulkhead and began nosing through the upholstery and I shifted to the right and felt the bloody thing ripping into the sleeve and saw the starburst on the windscreen as the glass frosted over.

  Very close and I crawled across the seat to the other side because he’d shifted his aim six inches to the right every time, feeling for me with his gun. Sweat on the skin and the scalp creeping because the situation was not in fact in control and there was nothing we could do and he was going to get fed up in a minute and pull out and gun up alongside and aim for Treader and send this barouche into a shop window and get out of his car and walk across and kick the glass in and empty the whole chamber into the side of the head, unless of course Ferris could bring in his interceptors somewhere north of here and do something useful.

  By the look of things we were doing approximately sixty mph and Treader was using the traffic lights as best he could, slowing enough to bring him to the next intersection still fast enough to gun up and go through on the green without losing too much speed. We could —

  Pock-pock and the thing glanced off the door pillar and buried the last of its momentum into the sun visor on the forward passenger’s side and I moved again, crawling across the seat to the right, little tufts of nylon padding lying around like puffs of smoke, torn away from the leather.

  Treader saying, ‘OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Quite a lot of noise suddenly from behind us and I saw headlight beams sweeping across the face of the buildings on the other side of the street and the flush of light under the roof didn’t change so it must be Hood in the Honda, some kind of trouble.

  ‘He’s lost it,’ Treader said.

  ‘Hood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Crumpling noise, a roll-over, the headlights flickering across the shop windows and then going out.

  ‘Ferris?’

  ‘No, sir. he’s on the other line. This is Tench.’

  ‘Tell him we’ve lost Hood. He’s crashed.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Pock-pock and the door of the cocktail cabinet buckled and glass smashed inside it. I got onto the floor and asked Treader, ‘What made him crash, did you see?’

  ‘It could’ve been the Mazda behind him, sideswipe or something.’

  Treader couldn’t see all that much because he was hunched down against the seat squab and could only use the outside mirrors and from his angle they wouldn’t be showing him a lot more than the top half of Proctor’s Corvette, but it was logical to assume that the Mafia hit man in the Mazda had got the Honda out of the running because it had been a threat to Proctor.

  We were leaving the park on our right and crossing 16th Street as the yellow turned to red but the Corvette and the Mazda came through without stopping and I gave it a minute, another two minutes at most unless Ferris could get his interceptors into the action because we were a sitting target and it was simply a matter of time.

  ‘Listening?’

  Ferris.

  I said yes.

  ‘Change of plan.’ He sounded quietly impersonal. ‘My instructions are to call off my people.’

  ‘To call —’

  They won’t be intercepting. You’re expected to deal with the situation by whatever means. Stay in contact.’

  Finis.

  I told him I understood. It did not in point of fact take a lot of understanding: Ferris was speaking from his base and Croder must be there too and either he’d only just found out that Ferris had ordered mobile support into the area or he’d given the order himself and then changed his mind. The Bureau gives a great deal of licence to the executives and their directors in the field but there are some rather strict guidelines and one of them is that we don’t fight a running battle through the streets of any given city and place the citizenry at risk, and - sirens - and that was precisely what we would have started doing if the interceptors had been sent in.

  Shot and then a secondary bang that sounded right underneath us and the limo gave a lurch and Treader said, ‘Got a tyre,’ and we began weaving and then straightened. There was a lot of noise now as the rubber wrapped itself around the rim and started heating up. The sirens were fading in from behind us, I suppose because of the Honda thing - someone had seen it roll and they’d got on the phone.

  I said, ‘Treader, we’re not going to get any help. They changed their minds.’

  ‘I see.’ Trying to sound cool. He knew the score now, too.

  Stink of burning rubber coming into the car, I hate that smell, gets on your guts, shot and the rear window frosted over as the slug came through and drilled a hole in the roof, he wasn’t firing wild, I think, it was just that the limo was lurching about quite a bit, difficult target at sixty mph with the steering affected. Siren again and this time ahead of us, a patrol car picking up the Honda call from the despatcher and turning south, its lights starting to colour the polished surfaces inside the limo and the siren growing louder. I didn’t think it would ignore a limo doing this speed with a burst tyre so I spoke to Treader again.

  ‘Listen, I want you to ditch me. Look for an alley between the buildings or the gates of a yard or a car park —’ bright lights now as the police car saw us and started a U-turn with the siren howling - ‘anywhere with enough cover to let me run, all right?’

  He said he’d do what he could and I found the little chrome lever and got the right-hand door unlocked and waited, pulling out my handkerchief and wrapping it round my right hand, waited, watching the coloured lights reflecting from the inside of the windows, waited, holding my breath against the sickening reek of rubber, sweat on the left hand, the phone slippery with it, waited until Treader told me to get ready and I signalled Ferris that I was making a run and pitched sideways against the division as the brakes came on and the tyres whimpered and we lurched once, twice as he lost the front end and dragged it straight again as the burst tyre came off the rim and the metal screamed on the tarmac and I heard Treader’s voice in the background.

  ‘Ditching.’

  Pulled the door-lever and hit the door and went through as it swung wide and I rolled into the ukemi with the edge of my right hand making contact with the pavement and the arm and shoulder following and then the whole body curving into the roll and coming out of it with my feet to the ground and enough balance to get me running.

  He’d found an alley for me and I checked the environment as I ran because I didn’t want to present a silhouette against the lights of the street at the far end: it was a mess back there and I didn’t know if Proctor or the man in the Mazda had seen me leave the car but if they’d seen me they’d follow me on foot and I wouldn’t have more than a fifty-yard lead and there were high walls here and no cover that could shield me if he came close enough to use his gun.

  The alley looked endless ahead, the length of a city block, with the lights of the next street making a bright niche in the shadows. I didn’t turn my head to look behind me because it would slow me and if I saw Proctor coming there was nothing I could do - he’d have ample time to break his run and go into the aiming stance and make sure of the shot, shadow down, the slug ripping into the back of the dinner jacket and shattering the spine and leaving the nerves in catastrophic disarray, the muscles of the legs cut off from the brain and the body tilting forward, shadow down.

  I was nearing the street ahead but the scene in the mind’s eye had brought fear with it and I had to look behind me and I saw nothing, no movement anywhere in the whole length of the alley, so I slowed a little as the brightness of the street came flooding against me and a car slid to a stop with its tyres squealing and a door coming open.

  Mazda.

  Chapter 20 : MONIQUE

  ‘You don’t trust my driving?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I said.

  Buckle wouldn’t work.

  ‘You know something? I bet I dropped a dime down there in the slot. I’m always doing it.’ She leaned towards me, scent of patchouli. ‘Hit it. Hit it like this.’ A ripple of laughter, ‘See what I mean? You can keep it, buy yourself a yacht.’

  I got the buckle fixed and sat back and pulled it tight and tried to think.

  ‘Ride around a little?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  She turned left again at the lights, driving cleanly, sitting there in her black leather skirt and tunic, gold belt, rings on her fingers and long gold nails, tiny feet half-naked in gold sandals poised over the pedals, the curve of her body cut like a black crescent moon.

  ‘Monique, I believe it was.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What happened,’ I asked her, ‘to the Honda?’

  I wanted to know where we stood.

  ‘He got him kinda shunting. George Proctor is a real mean man. He got him kinda shunting and then I think the guy in the Honda must have swung the wheel at the wrong time and he wasn’t going too slow and bingo, he went rolling like a barrel. Who was he?’

  ‘A friend of mine.’

  ‘He in drugs too?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was trying to look after you, right? Didn’t want Proctor to get you.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Proctor’s real mad at you, right? You cut off his supplies or what?’

  ‘I’m not a dealer,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing like that.’ I watched the flash of her smile reflected in the windscreen. ‘That’s why Nicko was going to feed you to the sharks.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘for trying to stop him.’

  ‘Usual way,’ she said, ‘I don’t give a shit if a dealer gets his, providing of course he’s not working for Toufexis. But the execution thing, I dunno, it kind of involves judgement, right? Kind of coldblooded, different from just some guy gets in the way of an AK-47 and kerboom. You British?’

  ‘Yes.’ She still hadn’t answered the question. It hadn’t had anything to do with judgement.

  Is this the guy? Nicko, pushing his flashlight against my face.

  No.

  Don’t give me that shit! Shaking the photograph in her face.

  I haven’t seen him before.

  Well Jesus Christ this is the face of the guy in the photograph!

  You’d better take care, Nicko, she said. Don’t kill too many.

  Her face hidden by the glare of the flashlight, but I’d caught the scent of patchouli.

  ‘So why did you get in the car?’ She was watching my face, too, in the windscreen.

  ‘Which car?’

  ‘This one.’

  ‘I didn’t have time,’ I said, ‘to find a taxi.’

  ‘With Mr Proctor right up your ass!’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So what’s a Britisher doing over here in God’s country, muscling in on the game?’

  ‘It’s like calling you an Americaner, which sounds awful, don’t you think? A British subject is actually a Briton.’

  ‘You real cool cat,’ tossing her head back, laughing, the big gold earrings flashing as they swung. ‘So what’s a Briton doing over here messing around on our home ground?’

  She swung the wheel and gunned up through the intersection with an expertise that I found sexy. ‘I work for the Foreign Office in London,’ I said, ‘and the reason why Nicko intended to kill me was because Proctor had asked your friend Toufexis to put out a contract on me, as you know.’

  ‘Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.’ Not smiling now.

  We were going very carefully, she and I. As far as I knew she worked for Toufexis and looked capable enough of making a hit if I said something wrong, despite her alleged aversion to making judgements. As far as she knew I was opposed to Proctor and Toufexis to the point where they’d put a price on my head.

  ‘Foreign Office,’ she said. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘State Department.’

  ‘See your ID?’

  And the tone was unmistakable. I gave her my card.

  ‘Looks authentic,’ she said. ‘Could even be.’

  I took it back. ‘You can flash your badge,’ I said. ‘I won’t tell Toufexis.’

  ‘What badge?’

  Said it too fast.

  Watching me in the windscreen, ‘You know what I find so interesting about you? First time I see you, it’s in George Proctor’s place, visiting. Next thing, he vanishes like a bunny with a bee in his ass. Then you’re down there on Quay 19 and Nicko’s going to cream you, execution style, which is the only way he knows. Next thing, I see you tonight in that place talking with the highest-paid anchorwoman in the US of A like you knew each other all your lives, when you shoulda been out there in the ocean feeding the sharks. I don’t get time to catch my breath before La Cambridge is lying dead on the ground just a hundred feet from where you’re standing, just like you were the spotter for those guys, ain’t actually saying anything. Then before I can blink you’re tooling through the town in a limo with Proctor drilling holes in the bodywork, busy as a riveter. So I find you a very interesting man.’

  She used the gear shift, the heavy gold bracelet shimmering in the glow from the facia panel, and we turned again, eastward towards the Bay.

  I didn’t say anything. I’d had to roll twice on the sidewalk back there and the stitches must have pulled because my shirt was sticking to the wound and the right shoulder was bruised because it had taken the impact but the worst of the shock was over by now and I was beginning to feel the heady lightness that suffuses the organism when it comes to know that life is sweet and that it has not been taken away.

  Proctor had come very close to doing that, and it was nice to be driving through the late night streets of this fair city with a pretty little undercover agent of the Miami Police Department.

  She was still watching me, and I suppose it would have been rude not to answer.

  ‘One has to keep busy,’ I said.

  ‘It’s this Foreign Bureau thing I don’t get. It doesn’t gel with all that.’

  ‘Office.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Foreign Office.’

  ‘Oh, sure, yeah. Maybe intelligence?’

  ‘I was afraid you’d never catch on.’

  Proctor knew; Toufexis and the mob knew; it was practically in the papers.

  ‘Okay,’ she said in a minute, ‘that makes sense.’ She turned her head to study me. ‘Yeah, you got the look. Mean, hard as a nail, sell your own mother and not for much.’ She slipped a slim dark hand into the gold bag on the seat. ‘You mean this one?’

  ‘Yes.’ A lieutenant, yet.

  ‘Just a bit of gold tin, but I like the life.’

  ‘It suits you. Does he deal? Proctor?’

  ‘No. He smokes crack, that’s all. But he’s in with Toufexis like you said. We go to your place or mine?’

  ‘Yours.’

  ‘Okay. Fix you some protein. You gotta be feeling hungry after a ride like that. I been there.’ I suppose she meant the Corvette thing.

  ‘I can imagine,’ I said.

  ‘See, I moved in on Proctor to find out what he was doing. I knew he was in with Toufexis.’

  ‘And Toufexis is your assignment.’

  ‘Absolutely. Pull him in, I pull in the most powerful branch of the mob in Florida, that don’t get me captain, nothing can. Proctor, he doesn’t deal, no, but tell you this, he’s into something bigger than that. Political. And very sophisticated. Like when I move in on him I have to move La Cambridge out, and she’s - she was really quite attractive. So what happened, you going to tell me Nicko got a sign from heaven to spare you out there in that boat, or what?’

  She’d done a lot of interrogation in her time, been taught how to drop a subject for a while and then snap back to it, catch you by surprise.

  ‘They weren’t professionals,’ I said.

  ‘You bet your sweet ass they were professionals, man. They -‘

  ‘I mean they weren’t trained in close combat.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You mean you had a teeny weeny XM-177 assault rifle tucked in your sock and they never frisked you.’

  ‘I never carry a gun.’

  She stopped at the lights, hand on the gear shift, her head turned to look at me. ‘You never carry a gun. But there were four of those guys out there with -‘

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘this is very embarrassing. I had some luck, and that’s it.’

  Watching me, a shimmer of dark eyes between smoky lashes. ‘You’re really annoyed aren’t you?’