Manhattan Is My Beat

leopard-skin bag.
    No time to get a weapon. No time for anything.
    Nowhere to run.
    She looked around her glass house.
    Nowhere to hide.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
     
    He took the stairs one at a time, slowly, slowly.
    Pausing, listening.
    And struggling to control his anger. Which throbbed like the pain in his face—from when that fucking redhead had nailed him in the subway. Listening above him and listening below. He was out of his uniform now— he’d ditched the meter reader’s jacket a while ago, before he trailed the little short-haired bitch to Brooklyn—and downstairs some of the construction guys had given him some shit about just walking into the building. He’d just kept walking, giving them a fuck-you look and not even bothering to make up a cover story.
    So, listening for somebody laying in wait for him upstairs, listening for somebody following.
    But he heard no footsteps, no breathing, no guns being racked.
    Pausing at the top of the stairs, head down.
    Okay … go!
    Walking fast into the loft, eyes taking in places he could go for cover.
    Only he didn’t have to worry. She wasn’t there.
    Shit. He’d been sure she’d come back. If only to get her stuff before she took off. Pointing the gun in front of him, he made a circuit of the loft. She’d been there— there was a suitcase half filled. There was that God-ugly purse of hers. But no sign of the bitch.
    Maybe—
    Then he heard it.
    A click and a grind.
    The elevator! He ran to the stairs, thinking she’d snuck out behind him. But, no, the cage was empty. It was going down. So, she
was
coming home. He’d gotten there before her.
    He ducked behind a half-height wall of cinder block, out of view of the stairway, and waited for her to come to him.

     
    Rune was exactly eight feet away from Pretty Boy, standing in the steady stream of wind outside the loft, a hundred feet above the sidewalk.
    Her boots perched on a thin ridge of metal that jutted out six inches from the lower edge of the building’s facade. Most of her body was below the glass windows, and if she ducked, Pretty Boy couldn’t see her.
    Only she was compelled to look.
    Because she’d heard the elevator start down. Somebody was coming up!
    And Pretty Boy was going to kill them.
    Her hands quivered, her legs were weak, as if her muscles were melting. The wind was cold up there, the smells different. Raw. She looked down again, at the cobblestone patches of the street coming through the asphalt. She closed her eyes and pressed her face against her arm for comfort.
    Cobblestones—the final scene in
Manhattan Is My Beat
. Ruby Dahl, walking slowly down the wet street, crying for her tormented fiancé gunned down in Greenwich Village.
    Roy, Roy, I would have loved you even if you were poor!
    Rune looked back into the loft and saw Pretty Boy shift slightly, then cock his ear toward the doorway.
    Who was coming up in the elevator? Sandra? Some of the construction guys?
    Please, let it be the police—Manelli or Dixon. Coming to arrest her for the shooting in Brooklyn. They had guns. They’d at least have a chance against the killer.
    Suddenly, Pretty Boy crouched and held the gun’s muzzle up, his right index finger on the trigger. He looked around him, turning his head as though listening.
    Whoever was there was calling out some words. Yes, she could vaguely hear a voice, “Rune? Rune? Are you here?” It was a man.
    Richard ran up the stairs, shouting something.
    No, no, no! she cried silently. Oh, not him. Please, don’t hurt him!
    She closed her eyes and tried to send him a message of danger. But when she looked again she saw that he’d walked farther into the loft. “Rune?”
    Pretty Boy couldn’t see him from the other side of the wall. But he was following Richard’s steps with the gun. Rune saw him cock it with his long thumb and point it to the spot where Richard was about to appear.
    Oh, no …
    There was nothing else to do. She couldn’t let anybody else get hurt because of her. She raised her right fist above the glass. She’d break the window, scream for Richard to run. Pretty Boy would panic and spin around, shoot her. But Richard might just have enough time to leap down the stairs and escape.
    Okay, now! Do it.
    But just as she started to bring her fist down on the window, Richard paused. He’d seen the note—the note she’d written to Sandra. He picked it up and read it. Then shook his head. He looked around the loft one more time and then started down