In Death 11 - Judgment in Death

killed. For Christ's sake, Ricker, you're behind that?"
    "And there'll be more before it's done. It amuses me."
    "I don't want any part in cop killing. They'll bury you."
    "Don't be ridiculous. They'll never touch me. I didn't kill anyone. I simply put the idea in the right head, the weapon in the most vulnerable hand. Just a game. You remember how fond I am of games? And how I enjoy winning them."
    "Yes, I remember. No one did it better. How did you pull this off?"
    "Arrangements, Roarke. I enjoy arrangements and watching how the pieces fall into place."
    "I sleep with a woman in the department, and I can't get that close." Roarke's voice filled with admiration. "I underestimated you. It must have taken years to set up."
    "Months. Only a few months. It's simply a matter of selecting the right target. A young cop, too stiff-necked to play the game. Eliminating him is simple enough, but the beauty is how it can be connected, how it can be expanded upon by planting the seeds in the heart of the grieving father. Then I simply sit back and watch a once-dedicated cop kill. Again and again. And it costs me nothing."
    "Brilliant," Roarke murmured.
    "Yes, and satisfying. Best, I can do it again, any time I like. Murder by proxy. No one's safe, certainly not you. Transfer the money, and until the wind changes, I'll protect you. And your wife."
    "That was twenty million?"
    "For the moment."
    "A bargain," Roarke said quietly, brought the hand he'd slipped under the table, under his jacket back into view. And the gun with it. "But I find the idea of doing business with you turns my stomach. Oh, tell your man to hold, or it'll give me great pleasure to use this. Recognize it, Ricker? It's one of the banned weapons you trafficked in, years back. I have quite a collection of twentieth-century handguns -- and a collector's license. They leave a horrible nasty hole in a man. This one's a nine-millimeter Glock and will blow your face right off the skull."
    The shock of having a weapon aimed at him robbed Ricker of speech. It had been years, a lifetime, since anyone had dared. "You've lost your mind."
    "No, indeed. Mine's sound enough." He slapped a hand on Ricker's wrist, twisted viciously until the laser scalpel fit into his own palm. "You always had a weakness for sharp things."
    "You'll die painfully for this. Painfully. Do you think you'll walk out of this place breathing?"
    "Certainly. Ah, there's my wife now. Lovely, isn't she? And by the sound of things through the scanner your inferior sweepers missed, it appears your team of fools is even now being rounded up and moved along."
    He waited while Ricker focused beyond him, through the dome, and saw for himself.
    "One of us has lost his touch, Ricker, and it appears to be you. I set you up, and it was child's play."
    "For a cop." Eyes wild, Ricker leaped to his feet. "You rolled on me for a cop."
    "I'd have done it for a mongrel dog, given half the chance. Ah, please, try for it," Roarke murmured. "And make my life worth living."
    "Enough. Roarke, back off." Eve opened the door to the booth, slid her police issue into Ricker's ribs.
    "You're dead. You're both dead." He whirled, backhanded Eve as he leaped. She took the blow and dropped him.
    "Tell me you had it on full."
    "He's stunned, that's all." She wiped the blood from her mouth with her sleeve and ignored the scramble of people who rushed away from the trouble. Onstage, the strippers continued to dance.
    Roarke handed her a handkerchief, then reached down, lifting Ricker's head off the floor by his throat.
    "Don't -- "
    "Keep back," he snapped as Eve crouched to hold him off. "You'll bloody well keep back till I've finished this."
    "If you kill him, it's been for nothing."
    He stared at her face, and all the strength, the purpose, all the danger he hadn't shown to Ricker leaped out of them. "It would be for everything, but I don't mean to kill him." To prove it, he handed her the Glock.
    But he kept the scalpel and, holding its keen point to the pulse in Ricker's throat, imagined. "You can hear me, can't you, Ricker? You can hear me well enough. I'm the one who took you down, and you'll remember it while you're pacing the box they'll put you in. You'll think of it every day with what's left of your mind."
    "Kill you," Ricker choked out, but he couldn't so much as lift his hand.
    "Well, you haven't managed that as yet, have you? But you're welcome to try again. Listen to me now, and carefully. Touch her, put your hand on