High Noon

wall. Some of them weren’t. This motel.”
    “Over by Oglethorpe Mall,” the technician told her. “You see he’s got shots of the outside, the lobby and this room.”
    “They used that room for trysts when it wasn’t convenient to use his apartment. And this restaurant—I know this place, little Italian place. That’s out by the mall, too. Not in the heart of things, not places they’d likely run into anyone in her husband’s circle. But they don’t feel like the sort of places he’d target. They’re not what you’d call important, like Bonaventure. Not a statement like—Wait.”
    She gripped the tech’s shoulder as he panned through the file. “Wait, that’s Mark D’s.”
    “Inside and out, back and front. I don’t think they allow photographs inside Mark D’s.”
    “No, security, insurance. No, they wouldn’t want photographs. Pictures of the back door, the front door from inside and out.” In her belly, muscles tightened. “I want cars over there now. Right now. Liz, get ahold of Property, find out what jewelry was listed in her personal effects. And, Jesus, let’s get his credit card records for three months back from Angela’s death. Good work,” she said to the technician. “Let’s get the hell over there.”
    Six minutes, she noted as she rushed out. Six minutes until noon. Maybe they weren’t too late.
     
    “Hey, buddy, when are you guys going to get the word that deliveries are supposed to come in first thing in the morning, before the customers?”
    “Just following orders.” He rolled in the dolly with its three large boxes. He turned deliberately into Arnie. “Just like you’re going to do, unless you want to take a bullet in the belly. Lock the door, asshole,” he ordered as he clamped a hand over Arnie’s weapon. “I’ve got an S-and-W nine shoved right into your navel. The bullet’s going to make a hell of a hole out the other side of you, if you don’t do now and think later.”
    “What the fuck do you…I know you.”
    “Yeah, I used to be a cop, too. Let’s do it this way.” Lifting the gun, he whipped it across Arnie’s face and sent him down. Even before the first scream, he was turning, both weapons in his hands. And he smiled as, right on schedule, right according to plan, some good employee hit the alarms that set them shrilling. And locked the place down.
    “Everybody on the floor. Now! Now!” He put a series of rounds in the ceiling, shattering crystal. There was plenty of screaming as people dove for cover or simply dropped to huddle together on the floor. “Except you, Blondie.”
    He aimed the nine at Patsy. “Over here.”
    “Please. Please.”
    “Die there or come here. Five seconds.”
    With tears already streaming out of her eyes, she stumbled toward him. He hooked one arm around her neck, put the gun to her temple. “Want to live?”
    “Yes. God. Oh God.”
    “Anyone in the back? Lie to me, and I’ll know, and I’ll kill you.”
    “I…Mr. D.” She sobbed it out. “Mr. D’s in the back.”
    “He’s got monitors back there, right? He can see us right now. You’d better call out, Blondie. Because if he isn’t out here in ten seconds, he’s going to lose his first employee.”
    “There’s no need.” Mark stepped out of the back room, hands high. He was a small-framed man in his early sixties, with a dapper white mustache and a head of waving white hair. “There’s no need to hurt her. No need to hurt anyone.”
    “That’ll be up to you, for a start. Over here, cuff your boy, hands behind his back.”
    “He’s hurt.”
    “He’ll be dead, you don’t get it done. I want everyone to empty their pockets—one at a time—starting with you.” He kicked the shoulder of a man in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. “Everything out, turn the pockets inside out. Anyone reaches for a cell phone, a weapon, a fucking stick of gum, I shoot. What’s your name, honey?”
    “Patsy. It’s Patsy.”
    “Cute. I shoot cute Patsy in the ear. Pockets, now,” he snapped.
    “He needs medical attention,” Mark said as he knelt beside Arnie. “I’ll unlock the cases. You can take whatever you want. The police are on the way. The alarm.”
    “Yeah, it’s handy.” He heard the sirens already, cutting through the high ring of the store alarm. Quicker than he’d thought, but that was fine. “You’re going to turn off the alarm, Mark, but you’re not going to abort the lockdown. You got that? Screw it up, and Patsy’s