Persuader

right there in the endgame, freewheeling toward victory.
    But I was wrong.
    I knew it before Paulie got halfway through opening the gate. He came out of his house and stepped across to the latch. He was wearing his suit. No coat. He lifted the latch by butting it upward with his clenched fist. Everything was still normal. I had seen him open the gate a dozen times and he was doing nothing he hadn't done before. He wrapped his fists around the bars. Pulled the gate. But before he got halfway through opening it he stopped it dead. He just made enough space to squeeze his giant frame through. Then he stepped out to meet me. He walked around toward my window and when he got six feet from the car he stopped and smiled and took two guns out of his pockets. It happened in less than a second. Two pockets, two hands, two guns. They were my Colt Anacondas.
    The steel looked dull in the gray light. I could see they were both loaded. There were bright snub-nose copper jackets winking at me from every chamber I could see.
    Remington .44 Magnums, without a doubt. Full metal jacket. Eighteen bucks for a box of twenty. Plus tax. Ninety-five cents each. Twelve of them. Eleven dollars and forty cents' worth of precision ammunition, ready to go, five dollars and seventy cents in each hand.
    And he was holding those hands very steady. They were like rocks. The left was aimed a little ahead of the Cadillac's front tire. The right was aimed directly at my head. His fingers were tight on the triggers. The muzzles weren't moving at all. Not even a fraction.
    He was like a statue.
    I did all the usual things. I ran all the numbers. The Cadillac was a big car with long doors but he had put himself just far enough away that I couldn't jerk my door open and hit him with it. And the car was stationary. If I hit the gas he would fire both guns instantly. The bullet from the one in his right hand might well pass behind my head but the car's front tire would roll straight into the path of the one from his left. Then I would hit the gates hard and lose momentum and with a blown front tire and maybe with damaged steering I would be a sitting duck. He would fire ten more times and even if I wasn't killed outright I would be badly wounded and the car would be crippled. He could just step over and watch me bleed while he reloaded.
    I could sneak it into reverse and howl away backward but reverse gear is pretty low on most cars and therefore I would be moving slowly. And I would be moving directly away from him in a perfectly straight line. No lateral displacement. None of the usual benefits of a moving target. And a Remington .44 Magnum leaves a gun barrel at more than eight hundred miles an hour. No easy way to outrun one.
    I could try my Beretta. It would have to be a very fast snap shot through the window glass. But the window glass on a Cadillac is pretty thick. They make it that way to keep the interior quiet. Even if I got the gun out and fired before he did, it would be pure chance if I hit him. The glass would shatter for sure, but unless I took all the time I needed to make absolutely certain the trajectory was exactly perpendicular to the window the bullet would deflect. Perhaps radically. It could miss him altogether. And even if it hit him it would be pure chance if it hurt him. I remembered kicking him in the kidney.
    Unless I happened to hit him in the eye or straight through the heart he would think he had been stung by a bee.
    I could buzz the window down. But it was very slow. And I could predict exactly what would happen. He would straighten his arm while the glass was moving and bring the right-hand Colt within three feet of my head. Even if I got the Beretta out real fast he would still have a hell of a jump on me. The odds were not good. Not good at all. Stay alive, Leon Garber used to say. Stay alive and see what the next minute brings.
    Paulie dictated the next minute.
    "Put it in Park," he yelled.
    I heard him clearly, even through the thick glass. I moved the gearshift into Park.
    "Right hand where I can see it," he yelled.
    I put my right palm up against the window, fingers extended, just like when I signaled I see five people to Duke.
    "Open the door with your left," he yelled.
    I scrabbled blindly with my left hand and pulled the door release. Pushed on the glass with my right. The door swung open. Cold air came in. I felt it around my knees.
    "Both hands where I can see them," he said. He spoke quieter, now the glass wasn't