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

this guy worked on seconds just as Trotto did and he had the drop on them.
    There was a
spang!
which came so quickly that it was hard to coordinate it with the revolver that had appeared in the man’s hand. The windshield before Ferguson opened up like a flower and Ferguson fell toward Trotto, a strange, discombobulated look on his face. “Holy shit,” Ferguson said his face sprouting blood, and he collapsed against Trotto’s shoulder groaning. Trotto shoved him away, wrestling for his revolver but Ferguson’s collapse probably broke open what might have been his one good chance to get a shot at the bastard. Trotto could not get to his gun. It caught inside his clothing.
    In the same instant he knew he was dead.
Holy
shit, he muttered, echoing Ferguson and waited for the shot that would split his brains open and kill him. In one way or the other he guessed he had been looking for that shot for twenty-six years. No guy got into this kind of business, Trotto understood in a sudden flare of insight, unless a good part of him
wanted
that shot. But he was a professional. He was no dumb hit guy like Ferguson, waiting to have his brains exploded in a final gesture of dumbness. If he had lost he could at least lose with some dignity. He drew himself up behind the wheel of the Fleetwood, no longer struggling for the gun. Let it be this way then.
    All of this had taken no more than five seconds. Things speeded up incredibly under the perception of death. But then, when the carpet of death had been yanked from under him and to his surprise Trotto saw that he was still alive, everything slowed down. Now it was as if time was a chain that was slowly expanding, bubbling under water. In slow motion he saw Ferguson roll to his lap, oozing blood from his mouth and roll across his knee to the floor; in slow motion he saw the little spurts and jets of blood that marked Ferguson’s trail. Then the guy, holding the revolver was standing by the open driver’s-side window. Stupid. Stupid again. He had had it rolled down all the time during the reconnoiter.
    Couldn’t he have anticipated something like this? Why hadn’t he rolled it up?
Stupid,
Trotto thought, stupid.
    The guy held the gun to Trotto’s head. No one was watching. A couple of college kids far down the block were squatting in an alleyway passing one another a joint. The anticipation of death had made Trotto far-sighted. He felt the gun tickle his temple. “Are you going to cooperate?” the big guy said. The gun was cold and steady. Trotto could feel it, wedging a point all the way toward his brains.
    “Yes,” he said. What else was there to say? When you came right up against it you followed the orders of the man with the gun if you wanted to live. Ten minutes ago Trotto would not have believed it but yes, he wanted to live very badly. Twenty-six years old. Severo or no Severo, he wanted to go on living. Outside of this world Severo was not going to protect him. “Yes, I’ll cooperate.”
    “Reach in your pocket,” the man said, “reach inside carefully and hand me your gun, barrel first. Try anything funny and your brains will be in that pocket along with the gun. You hear me?”
    “This guy is dead,” Trotto said, inclining his head toward Ferguson. Funny the things you found yourself saying when you were under pressure like this. Still the discovery was new. Trotto had killed a few but he had never had to sit beside a dead man. The hits had been at far range and only once in close but he had immediately left the room. The thing was, he guessed, that he just had no stomach for it.
    “I know he’s dead,” the guy said. Wulff, that was his name, Burt Wulff. Now it all came back to Trotto. They had had information on him and everything. They had had the drop on him all the way and it should have been a routine hit, so what the hell happened? Was it possible that it wasn’t New York’s fault at all; that they had just gone up against a guy they couldn’t handle?