Harlan's Race

is down. They’d try an easy hit, and we’d zap them.”
    Them.
    I still wasn’t 100 percent convinced that LEV. was connected with Montreal.
    We took the clam-boat across the bay.
    After Chino and Harry dumped their gear in their rooms we spent the rest of the day analyzing the broken-window incident.
    First the vets looked at the rock, in its sandwich baggie. ‘We know a guy,” said Harry. “His name is Julius. He’s got access to labs. Julius ought to see this.”
    Then we left Angel taking a nap in the house, and Harry, Chino, Steve and I walked out to the dune where we’d seen the bird-watcher. Chino read the signs easily, moving along with that quiet command that added inches to his five foot ten. His high-cheekboned face could look European or Asian, depending on the angle of the light, or the mood he was in. Right now, in the strong afternoon sun, Chino looked like an Aztec tracking missionaries who’d massacred his tribe.
    “Look,” he said, pointing at the trampled sand. “Your birder was laying prone here. You didn’t see him the second time because he was down in the brush. He scuffed the marks over. But sand is tricky — he couldn’t restore the old crust on it.”
    Chills rushed down my spine.
    We followed the vague tracks across the sand dunes for a hundred feet, to the bay. At the grassy muddy tide-flat, we couldn’t go any farther. Chino hunkered down, Asian style, to point out some marks through the wet grass. “Look at that. The fucker was wearing those wide tire-tread shoes that the North Vietnamese wore. You can walk across mud without sucking, and you don’t leave identifiable footprints.”
    “And let’s not assume LEV. is a vet,” Harry pointed out. “Anybody can learn Vietnam stuff if he pays enough money to guys like us.”
    Steve and I looked at each other gloomily.
    Chino’s eyes scanned the bay with their eerie alertness. Despite the clear afternoon, not many boats dotted the water. Right now, a family of four was out there treading for clams, waist-deep in the shallows. Their boat was bobbing gently near them, at anchor.
    “He had his own boat,” said Chino. “Anchored offshore like that family. Nobody would look at him twice.”
    “Somebody must have seen him,” said Steve. “If they remember the boat’s name or license number, we can trace it.”
    “If this guy is as good as I think he is,” Harry said, “he’ll have a fake boat registration.”
    “He broke your bedroom window from the boat too,” said Chino.
    “How the hell...”
    “He’d probably been around for a few days. Just birding. Camping in the brush. Saw enough to know which room is yours. Watched you and Vince on the beach. Saw you getting horny and going to the house. Waited till after dark. Came sneaking up on the north side of the house, just outside your cove, and... wham.”
    ‘Why no engine noise?”
    “An engine silencer.”
    “Why didn’t he shoot the window out?” Steve asked. ‘That’s the interesting part, man. Probably because he couldn’t put his name on the bullet. This is his fucking calling card. It broke the window with a lot of force too. My guess is — he used a wrist-rocket. That’s a metal slingshot
    — a kid can buy one in any sports store. Maybe he customized it a little. Wham and scram. He’s saving the bullet for a special occasion.”
    I was aghast.
    “He sure knew the most delicate moment to shoot,” I said. “No shit,” said Chino. “You had the curtains open? He was probably sitting out there in the boat using ... well, it’s a kind of binoculars designed for low-intensity light. You can see somebody thread a needle half a mile away.”
    A slow, hot, angry flush rushed over me.
    “I’d say our guy is a kinky latent,” added Harry. “He hates what we do, but he can’t get it off his mind.”
    “Somebody is going to a lot of trouble,” Steve muttered. “Yeah,” Harry shrugged. “LEV. is either independently wealthy, or he’s with a vigilante group that has beaucoup bucks, and you’re on their ‘A’ list.”
    “You think he killed Horatio, then?”
    “Maybe,” said Chino. “The cat got it the night you brought Vince home. He’s studied you for a long time, Harlan. He knows that Vince is a serious step for you.”
    Chino stood up and looked directly into my eyes, with those gray eyes of his that had seen everything.
    “This guy is not your standard hit man,” he said. “Right now, he’s playing with you. Taking his time.