THIRTY-ONE

I aimed for the architecture, my only sure shot. A piece of wood jumped out of the top of the doorframe, leaving a yellow scar. I was moving by then.

She returned fire. I didn’t hear the slug strike in the echo of the two blasts, but I felt the impact through the floor the instant after I landed on my shoulder. I rolled up onto my feet and made for the bottom step of a staircase upholstered in the same oyster-colored pile that covered the floor, bounded over it and hit every third step going up. I avoided the side railed in brass; if she snapped one down the staircase that was the direction she’d pick. That was my second mistake in five minutes.

The inside wall was finished in textured plaster. It exploded, spraying chalk in my face. I’d seen a flash of movement at the top just in time to avoid running into a bullet, which pierced the air where my head would have been if I’d taken the next step. I fired from reflex, but she was gone by then and I hadn’t had time to aim. Brass rang.

Silence then, or what passed for it. A plane could have crashed through the second story and I wouldn’t have heard it for the ringing in my ears.

My eyes were filled with tears and dust. I backed down several steps to clear them with a sleeve. For a second I was a fat target, but Lucille was being cautious now after two misses. I was going to have to come to her.

That was the last thing I wanted to do. I thought about calling for backup. My cell was on my front passenger seat, where I’d tossed it after talking to Alderdyce. I might as well have left it with a duck on a firing range.

I wanted to stay on that staircase. I’d stayed in places a lot less comfortable. I hadn’t the luxury to choose. Lucille had a hostage and I was responsible for that.

I resumed climbing, slow as the hands on a clock. I was leaning on the railing now. It made a swell slide if I had to retreat in a hurry. Four steps from the top I got down on my hands and knees and crawled, an awkward position with a gun in one fist, but if she was waiting for me around the corner the odds were she’d be aiming at trunk level. That’s what they teach when you take a firearms course designed for your protection. Legs are too hard to hit.

But this was Lefty Lucy, who seldom played by the rules.

Out of the tail of my eye I saw a face where a face couldn’t exist. It startled me, and I almost went into a flat slide down the steps. My head was level with the bottom of the hanging light fixture, and in the polished curve of one shade I saw Lucille’s profile from the waist up. She wasn’t wearing one of her usual blazers and the gray steel of her semiautomatic extended at a downward angle from a stiff arm in a white sleeve, supported by her other hand around her wrist. She was standing eight feet from the top of the stairs aiming just above the floor.

She’d picked her spot with care. The fixture reflected the upper part of the stairs, and if I were ascending them the customary way she’d see me in it.

Trust her to choose another head shot.

I felt like a bug in a jar. Then I realized it wasn’t me in the jar. I could see her, but as long as I stayed down I was invisible. Not that it solved any problems. The only way I could crawl was backward, and that moved Marcine back to the top of the target list. When Lucille realized I wasn’t coming she’d shoot the bird in hand before she went looking for the one in the bush.

“Lucille?”

The tricky acoustics rattled her. Her head moved, glancing around. I might have been standing next to her in the loft. She relaxed her stance a little.

“I’m here, Amos. Where are you?” Her eyes pawed the mirrored shades.

“I just wanted to say that after you kill us, you’ll still be in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service. They never back off.”

“Funny. I knew I made a mistake when I sent you after those computer files. I should’ve let them go and sued to get them back. I could make a case against having them admitted on the grounds they were illegally obtained.”

“Well, you had a lot on your mind.”

“So do you. I’m going to kill your little English toffee if you keep me waiting.”

“How do I know you didn’t? She’s been pretty quiet, and I lost track of the shots.”

“I gagged her. She’s got some mouth on her when she’s not playing Princess Di.”

While we were talking I gathered my legs under me and got a grip on the railing. A board creaked under the carpeting. She sent a glance toward the fixture, then returned her concentration to the top of the stairs, the gun slanting down.

I pulled myself up all of a piece and took the rest of the steps in one bound. My reflection flashing in the brass shade distracted her. Her head jerked that way, but her finger was still on the trigger. Both guns went off at once.