Hard News

too!”
    “Let’s just say I was looking over your shoulder. The more you found, the more I got to thinking that it must’ve been Piper or Dan Semple who’d killed him. Lee, you crossed my mind too—that Beirut situation always seemed fishy to me.” He nodded toward Rune. “When she told me you were going to meet down here—a deserted studio—I figured you might be the one so I hid up there.” He glanced at the empty control booth.
    “Look, kid,” Nestor said impatiently. “Why don’t you just let us walk out of here. And we’ll forget everything. You go your way and we’ll go ours.”
    But Bradford ignored him. He nodded at the control booth and said to Maisel, “I got everything you said on tape, Lee.”
    Maisel closed his eyes. He slumped in the chair.
    Nestor sighed and shook his head. “Think you’re on your own here, Lee. Nice doing business with you.” The killer grabbed Rune by the hair and pulled her to her feet.
    “No!” she cried.
    Bradford pointed his pistol toward Nestor but the fat man paid no attention. He walked to the table where his own gun lay and picked it up.
    “Don’t!” Bradford said.
    “Yeah, right,” Nestor muttered.
    “Shoot him!” Rune shouted to Bradford. “Now!”
    But the young man froze. His eyes wide, his mouth open in fear as Nestor lifted the gun and fired at him as casually as if he were tossing coins in a wishing well. Rune couldn’t tell whether Bradford was hit or not. He fell or dove to the floor. Maisel slid from his chair and rolled to cover under the table.
    Tugging Rune after him, Nestor said, “Let’s go, honey. May need some insurance, in case the kid called the police.”
    “No! Goddammit!” she raged, trying to pry his hand off her hair. But he simply got a better grip and dragged her more quickly behind him.
    “Shut up,” he whispered.
    Maybe Bradford
had
called the police. Maybe Sam Healy and a hundred other cops were outside right now, their guns pointed at the door. Nestor’d see that and give up.
    He pulled her in front of him and kicked open the door that led to the parking lot.
    Please, she thought, let there be a thousand knights waiting here to slay the dragon …
    They stepped outside. Nobody. She scanned the alley and the parking lot. Empty.
    Oh, no …
    Nestor squinted, orienting himself.
    “Car’s on the other side of the building. That way.” He pointed.
    “Let go of me!”
    He released her hair but took her firmly by the arm and led her forward. She recalled what he’d said, about being a
mercenary
soldier. She said, “If you let me go I’ll give you eight thousand dollars.”
    “No.”
    “I can get it for you right now.”
    Nestor was walking more slowly now. He seemed to be considering what she was saying. Finally he shook his head. “Not enough.”
    “Maybe I can get a little more.” She thought desperately about where she might get some cash.
    “How about fifty?” Nestor said.
    “I don’t have fifty”
    “Forty-five.”
    Tears in her eyes. “I don’t
have
that. I can get … maybe twenty. I don’t know. From friends maybe …”
    “Forty-three thousand,” Nestor said.
    “I …” She shook her head.
    “Tell you what,” he said. “You give me thirty-nine thousand five hundred and I’ll let you live. I’ll let you walk away.”
    More tears. “But I can’t get that much.”
    “Thirty-eight two.”
    When she glanced at his face, a sick smile on it, she knew that he was just being cruel. He was playing with her, reciting the odd numbers. And whether she had fifty thousand or a hundred he wasn’t going to let her go. This was business and the bargain he’d made was with Lee Maisel. Jack Nestor’s job was to kill her.
    They were on the sidewalk now, deserted except for a homeless guy in the middle of the block. The street was shimmering with a light rain that wasn’t so much falling as hanging in the air.
    Nestor said, “This way,” and tugged her forward. Ahead of them, on Broadway, a few cabs and cars bounded up- and downtown. Maybe she could tear away and sprint the half block to the corner. She’d just charge right into traffic and hope she didn’t get hit. Maybe she’d be lucky the same way Randy Boggs was
unlucky
at Lance Hopper’s apartment building and a cop car would be cruising past.
    But Nestor’s grip was fierce and, besides, he still had his gun in his other hand, hidden inside his jacket.
    He stopped at a car. He slipped his pistol in his pocket and reached into his