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  Hawker bent and placed the Colt on the floor near his feet.

  “Now kick it away, like a good lad.”

  The man had a light Irish accent. But there was the calm edge of the trained killer in his voice, too.

  Hawker kicked the gun away.

  “Christ, Kevin,” whined the man with the bloody nose, “what took you so long?”

  “Just straightening up inside the apartment. It pays to be careful, don’t you see. Billy’s dead?”

  The man with the bloody nose retrieved his automatic and turned toward Hawker. “Yeah. This son of a bitch blew him away.” He pointed the gun at Hawker’s head. “Now I’m going to kill you, you bastard.”

  “By all means,” said Kevin calmly. “Make it quick, lad. We’ve still got to find a back way out of here and meet our pickup.”

  “But first I’m going to bust his nose,” said the kid, “just like he busted mine.”

  It was a mistake. Hawker knew it, and at once felt some hope of escape. The Irishman, Kevin, knew it, too, and he tried to stop the kid.

  “Don’t hit him, you stupid fool! Just shoot him and be done with it.”

  The kid lowered his weapon and threw an overhand right at Hawker’s face. Hawker stepped under the punch and slammed his fist deep into the kid’s solar plexus.

  The kid made a whoofing sound as Hawker swung him toward the Irishman. The two men collided in a tangle of arms and legs.

  Hawker dove for his Colt Commander. Two slugs exploded off the floor beside his head.

  Hawker’s right hand found the cold weight of his weapon, and he rolled onto his back, firing four rounds in rapid succession.

  The kid was slammed backward into the wall. His little automatic spun wildly in the air as his face melted into black gore.

  The Irishman clutched the spreading stain on his jacket, as if trying to stop a leak. His .38 fell from a quivering index finger as he slid down the wall.

  Hawker got to his feet and went to the Irishman. He was dying, and he knew he was dying. A helpless smile crossed his pale face. “The stupid kid,” he whispered. “A stupid opening to give you.”

  “Yeah,” said Hawker. “It was pretty dumb.” He knelt beside the dying man. “Why did you do it?” he demanded. “Why did you kill Beckerman?”

  The Irishman studied the blood seeping from between his fingers in disbelief, then looked at Hawker. “Orders, of course. We had orders.”

  “Whose orders, damn it? Who would have you hit a guy like Beckerman?”

  Blood bubbled from the Irishman’s lips with the soft chuckle. “And why would I be telling the man who … who killed me?”

  His head slumped sideways, eyes frozen wide.

  He was dead.

  The hydraulic whine of the elevator told Hawker the police were on their way up. He knew he had to hurry.

  Quickly he went through the pockets of the three corpses. He didn’t know why Saul Beckerman had been killed, but it had all the signs of a professional job.

  Hawker didn’t like professional killers. But he had even less affection for the organizations that hired them.

  Hawker had spent the last year fighting such organizations. With the help of his wealthy friend, Jacob Montgomery Hayes, he had, in fact, dedicated himself to fighting any group anywhere in the country that preyed on innocent people.

  Saul Beckerman wasn’t a close friend. But, in an odd way, he had won Hawker’s respect. Saul’s note had said he wanted to see Hawker on important business.

  This business? The business that had ended his life?

  Maybe. No—probably. Beckerman knew Hawker’s reputation as a tough cop. The best, until he resigned because of all the bureaucratic bullshit that made dealing effectively and legally with crooks and killers damn near impossible.

  Beckerman knew he was in trouble, and he had also known that Hawker might be the one individual who could help him.

  So this was to be Hawker’s assignment: Save Saul Beckerman from unknown killers for unknown reasons.

  Hawker hadn’t even been hired, and already the assignment was blown.

  But it wasn’t too late for Hawker to go after the organization that had hired the killers.

  Retained by a dead man?

  Sure, Hawker thought as he surveyed the three corpses. Why not?

  Sometimes justice was the most demanding employer of all.

  Quickly, he went through their pockets. Money. Cigarettes. No identification.

  They had been careful. Damn careful. It was to be expected. They were professionals.

  But in the jacket pocket of the Irishman, Hawker did find something. It was a crumpled piece of paper. On the paper were written two names and two addresses.

  One was Saul Beckerman’s.

  The other was a name that stunned Hawker.

  It was James O’Neil of 2221 Archer Avenue.

  Jimmy O’Neil was James Hawker’s best friend.…

  three

  Hawker got to Jimmy O’Neil’s place at just after one A.M.

  He had spent more than an hour dealing with the police, answering questions and trying to calm the beautiful Felicia Beckerman.

  The first plainclothes cop to arrive was a man Hawker knew well. He was Boone Chezick, a heavily muscled, dour man with whom Hawker had worked many times.

  They had had their differences. In fact, they had spent quite a few years hating each other’s guts. But, a few days before Hawker resigned from the force, they had come to a platform of truce. They still didn’t like each other much. But there was a grudging respect between the two men.

  In the last year, Chezick had been promoted from lieutenant to inspector, and transferred to the detective division.

  Inspector Chezick. Homicide. It sounded strange to Hawker.

  Chezick stepped out of the elevator. He wore an almost threadbare blue suit beneath his cheap trench coat. There were three cops in uniform behind him. Except for a slight widening of the eyes, he showed no surprise at seeing Hawker.

  He considered the three dead men, then looked at Hawker. “Still trigger-happy, huh, Hawker?”

  Hawker smiled. “It’s a reflex action. Whenever someone starts shooting at me, I start firing back.”

  “Did you kill the guy splattered on the pavement downstairs, too?”

  “Saul Beckerman?”

  “I don’t know his name. We haven’t scraped his I.D. out of the cement yet.”

  “No. I didn’t kill Saul. These guys did.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I was standing on a balcony on the twentieth floor with Saul’s wife. We heard a gunshot. A moment after we heard the shot, we saw Beckerman tumble off the balcony below us. I came running down. These three guys were just coming out of the apartment. When they saw me, they opened fire.”

  Chezick grunted and gave orders to the uniforms. As they went to work with their cameras and their tapes and their chalk, Chezick approached Hawker.

  “Let’s have it,” he said. “Your weapon.”

  Hawker drew the Colt Commander and handed it to the inspector butt first. Chezick wrapped it in his handkerchief without touching it. “You got a permit, I suppose.”

  “I do.”

  “Self-defense, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You have any witnesses?”

  Hawker nodded toward the corpses. “None you could hold a conversation with.”

  Chezick deposited the Colt in his trench coat pocket and took a step toward Hawker. His jaw was tight and his tiny, pale eyes were squeezed to slits. “The boss man isn’t going to like this, Hawker. He still hates your guts from when you were on the force. The press had a way of making him look like a fool, and you look like a hero. He’s going to make us go over this thing with a fine-tooth comb. If there are any irregularities at all, he’s going to try to nail your ass. He’d love nothing better than to see you playing one-on-one with rat shit in the state pen.” Chezick sniffed and scrubbed at his nose with a huge fist. “He thinks you
’re trigger-happy. That’s why he says he canned you.”

  “I resigned, Chezick. Check the records.”

  For the first time, Chezick allowed himself a thin smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. And I don’t blame you, Hawk.” He pulled a notebook out of his back pocket and flipped it open. “So tell me what happened, old buddy.” His smile broadened. “And you’d better make it good.”

  So Hawker went over the story again. He went slowly and carefully, as Chezick scribbled in his notebook. Hawker’s only lie was the lie of omission. He didn’t tell him about Saul Beckerman’s request for help. And he didn’t tell Chezick about the note he had found in the Irishman’s jacket.

  “Then you didn’t actually see these three men kill Beckerman?” Chezick questioned.

  “How in the hell could I?” snapped Hawker. “We were on the next floor—like I told you.”

  “So, actually, you just assumed they killed him?” Chezick sniffed and checked his notes before he gave Hawker a probing look. “I don’t suppose you came running down here and found these three guys just coming out of the apartment and blew them away? You know, shoot first and ask questions later? And then, maybe, staged all the rest of this? Fired their weapons, wiped the prints off, then set ’em up. Could you have done something like that, Hawker?”

  Hawker felt the blood rising in his face. “Sure, I could have set them up. Any cop can set up something like that. But I didn’t.”

  “The commissioner’s going to figure the worst.”

  “I don’t give a damn what he figures. It happened just the way I told you.”

  “They killed Beckerman, and you interrupted their escape?”

  “Right.”

  “No doubt in your mind about that?”

  “God damn it, Chezick, don’t treat me like some stupid rookie! I told you what happened. That dead Irishman over there practically confessed when I asked him why they had hit Beckerman. Remember? He said, ‘Why should I tell the man who killed me?’”

  Boone Chezick shrugged and put his notebook away. “The lab reports better confirm every single inch of your story, Hawker. Beckerman better have been murdered, and these bloaters better have powder burns on their hands—from their weapons. Because if it doesn’t match up, I’ll be coming after your ass. You can bet the damn bank on that. The commissioner will see to it. So, until we get everything checked out, don’t—”

  “I’m not going to leave town,” Hawker interrupted coldly. “Anytime you want me, Chezick, you’ll know where to find me.”

  Hawker turned toward the elevator and didn’t look back.

  Hawker stopped at the late Saul Beckerman’s penthouse before heading for his car.

  Except for another team of uniformed cops and Felicia, the apartment was empty. Those who had come for the sex banquet had vanished. Hawker wondered how they felt, how the lethal finish to their plunge into the modern world of fun-love had affected them.

  The image of a dozen wealthy, middle-aged businessmen scattering bare-assed toward the parking lot almost made Hawker smile.

  Felicia was in her bedroom, lying on a massive circular couch. Her room was neat and immaculately decorated. There was a walk-in closet, a Jacuzzi whirlpool near the sunken tub, and a series of pen-and-ink drawings on the wall.

  The pen-and-ink drawings were studies of gnarled oak in winter. They gave the room a faintly masculine air. They seemed to shout out her loneliness.

  Everything else bespoke a wealthy, refined—and independent—woman. All woman.

  She lay on the couch with her forearm thrown across her eyes. A policeman was in attendence. He sat on a chair by the bureau. He looked bored. He seemed to recognize Hawker. He nodded.

  “I need to give the doc a call, anyway,” the cop said as he rose and headed for the door. “I think she’s going to need a shot or something.”

  Hawker knelt down beside her. “How’re you doing, lady?”

  She shook her head wearily. “It really happened, didn’t it? Saul really is dead.”

  “Yes. It happened.”

  “My head’s roaring. Everything seems to be coming at me down a tunnel. There’s an air of unreality about me … you … this moment.”

  Hawker touched his hand gently to her arm. “It’s called shock. It’s nothing to be afraid of. A doctor will be here soon.”

  Her face trembled as if she were about to cry, but she didn’t. She studied Hawker for a moment. “Just before … just before Saul left, I was about to say that I wished something would happen to him. Something to make me a free woman. My God, it’s like it was—”

  “You had nothing to do with it, Felicia. Every married man and woman who has ever lived has made that same secret wish at one time or another. Few of them mean it. And I know you didn’t mean it.”

  “But I did want to be free!” she cried.

  “Even if you did, it had nothing to do with Saul’s death. Remember that. You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.”

  She nodded noncommittally. “I’ve just been lying here thinking how damn lucky I was you didn’t let me seduce you. I don’t think I could have stood knowing that Saul died while I was—”

  Hawker touched his finger to her lips. “Enough,” he said. “You need to rest.”

  “You’re going?”

  “Yes.”

  She propped herself up on one elbow, brushing the silken brown hair off her face. “Please call me. Please.”

  “I will.”

  “James? Saul didn’t commit … I mean, was he—”

  Hawker had opened the door. He stopped and turned. “He was murdered, Felicia. I killed the men who did it.”

  “I’m glad,” she whispered. “I feel better knowing that.”

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  About the Author

  Randy Wayne White was born in Ashland, Ohio, in 1950. Best known for his series featuring retired NSA agent Doc Ford, he has published over twenty crime fiction and nonfiction adventure books. White began writing fiction while working as a fishing guide in Florida, where most of his books are set. His earlier writings include the Hawker series, which he published under the pen name Carl Ramm. White has received several awards for his fiction, and his novels have been featured on the New York Times bestseller list. He was a monthly columnist for Outside magazine and has contributed to several other publications, as well as lectured throughout the United States and travelled extensively. White currently lives on Pine Island in South Florida, and remains an active member of the community through his involvement with local civic affairs as well as the restaurant Doc Ford’s Sanibel Rum Bar and Grill.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1984 by Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

  Cover design by Andy Ross

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-2451-8

  This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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