Lone Wolf #2: Bay Prowler by Mike Barry Read Free Book Online

turn into a killing machine, he went out into the street to cut his own little slice of destiny.

IV
    Trotto touched the other man in the ribs from behind the wheel and said quietly, “I think he’s coming out.”
    The other man who Trotto knew only as Ferguson grunted and without turning said, “Good. Do we hit him now or wait thirty seconds?”
    That was Ferguson; a good practical man. Not much imagination but a performer all the way. Give Severo this much: he had taste in personnel, and when Trotto asked for a man Severo got him a dependable one. Nevertheless Trotto felt a little thump of unease. It wasn’t
that
simple and never had been. If it was just a matter of knocking the man to the pavement and bailing out, Trotto could have done it himself. The trouble was that there was just almost no way you could teach the Fergusons that they lived in an enormously complicated world.
    “We wait,” Trotto said, holding the wheel loosely and reaching for the ignition. “We see where he goes.”
    “Why not hit him and be done with it?”
    “Because you can’t hit a man in broad daylight even on a sidestreet without taking risks,” Trotto said irritably. “We’re not here to take risks at all, just to get a job done. Besides,” he added, “let’s let him get a little closer in. We want to make sure that he’s our man and not some poor fool who looks like him.”
    “I don’t know,” Ferguson said unhappily fondling the gun which was exposed at his hip, “Back in the East we used to hit them in broad daylight on streets which had ten times the traffic this one does. What’s the difference? If you got a good silencer and you know how to get away through local traffic it’s better just to do the job, not sweat it.”
    “That’s the difference between here and your East,” said Trotto without humor. “Differing lifestyles, you know?”
    Their man came down the street casually, showing no indication that he knew he was being cased. A big bastard, just like the reports had said. Shit, Trotto had pictures but the pictures somehow had given no indication of the
bulk
of the man. Six four, that was about all, six four wasn’t so sensational in a world where your average professional basketball player went six-nine, two-seventy or so, but this guy was
massive.
It had something to do with his being constructed low to the ground so that everything seemed to compress purposefully in his center. Yet for all of that he moved quite swiftly and gracefully, his eyes alert, Trotto knew, to every indication in the scenery. Hell, he had picked up the Fleetwood and its two passengers a long time ago. Those eyes, those New York cop’s eyes missed nothing at all. But the guy was good, Trotto had to admit, he could see and he could take in, but he could do all of these in a way so offhanded that you might think, if you were casual, that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
    Trotto decided that he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. This guy, whoever the hell he was, was no clown; he had left a short brilliant trail in the East which had left them in panic and worse yet they had let him get away. They had not even cleaned up their own mess but had dumped it on Severo. And now he was walking toward them, walking right toward the Fleetwood, those casual eyes, sweeping right and left seemingly not noticing anything, their quarry was coming right toward them, just striding along and by
mother of God they were the prey:
    “Watch out!” Trotto screamed, seeing all of it in an second, lunging for his own gun, trying to alert Ferguson, “for Christ’s sake watch it!” trying to do everything in one motion, fire the gun, start the car, move the car, galvanize Ferguson, protect himself, and although his reflexes and coordination were as good as they possibly could be for a man of his age, Trotto could see from some dead calm center of all of this that it was too late. It was not going to work. The second was crucial;