Tracking Shot by Colin Campbell (i can read book club .txt) 📗

Cold hard eyes watched the shadowy figure enter the courtroom. Dust motes danced in shafts of sunlight from the tall windows, lending weight and substance to a room that was really just an annex of the orphanage. Cold eyes watched the figure stand in the doorway then walk to the center aisle and turn right. The heavy tripod was still in the middle of the room. The judge’s bench was still a solid presence in a make-believe world. The bullet holes and splintered woodwork made it all real. People had died here. The cold-eyed observer had killed them.

The gunman raised his weapon in both hands and sighted along the barrel. “Stop.”

The figure stopped and looked toward the voice. The big leather chair behind the judge’s bench creaked as the gunman swiveled for a better angle. He rested one elbow on top of the judge’s bench and adjusted his aim. Dead center. Most secure place to shoot anyone. Center mass. No headshots. No trying to wing him in the arm. Kill shot. The only way to shoot.

“Turn to me.” The figure turned full frontal, presenting the widest target. “Forward.”

He could see the man in black behind the judge’s bench but the shafts of sunlight didn’t reach that far. The gunman was just a vague shape in the shadows at the front of the room. There was no telltale click of the hammer being cocked or the slide forcing a round into the chamber because the gun was already loaded and ready to fire. He felt exposed and vulnerable and foolish for letting himself get talked into this.

“I said forward.”

He nodded and negotiated the fallen chairs and medical detritus from the original shooting, knowing that if he didn’t act soon there was going to be another shooting, right now. He hefted the bags in both hands and gave them a little swing to build up momentum. He passed from one shaft of sunlight to another. There was a brief moment when he was in shadow himself. He gripped the bags tightly.

The judge’s bench bulked up in front of him. He saw the pale shapes of the face and hands. He imagined rather than saw the gun pointing straight at his chest. The moment of shadow stretched as he slowed down. Any moment now he was going to find out if he’d made the right choice. He didn’t want obscurity or sudden movement to affect the gunman’s aim so he took another step forward so he looked like Jesus at the crucifixion carrying two sports bags. Glowing motes of dust glimmered around his head. He wondered if he should say something. Ask where the girl was? But if he spoke then the game would be up.

The game was up anyway—as soon as he stepped into the last shaft of sunlight so close to the judge’s bench that the gunman got a good look at his face and realized it wasn’t Vince McNulty. There was no hesitation. The gunman fired twice in quick succession, center mass, and shot Jerry Solomon in the chest.

FIFTY-FOUR

Harlan DeVries’s directions were clear, concise and accurate. McNulty came out of the narrow passageway that had once linked the servants’ quarters to the main house—back when the orphanage had been a wealthy family home—and entered the room behind the judge’s bench. From inside the room, the door he’d entered through didn’t appear to be a door at all, but simply a section of the wood paneling that looked no different from the rest of the wall.

“I said forward.”

McNulty heard the command through the door to the courtroom and knew he was running out of time. Solomon was already in the building. McNulty cursed himself for getting one of the turns wrong, despite DeVries’s description over the phone of the secret passageway. He moved quickly, keeping low, despite being shrouded in darkness. The gunman had left the door to the room behind him ajar to provide an easy escape if things went wrong. McNulty peered through the gap and saw Solomon move between two shafts of sunlight. From light into the dark.

A shift of position gave McNulty an angle on the gunman, but what he saw didn’t fill him with confidence. The judge’s chair creaked. The gunman rested one elbow on the bench and sighted along the barrel. Solomon came back into the light and McNulty held his breath. He wondered how good a look the gunman had gotten of him at the armored truck robbery. Distance was a factor, but daylight made the viewing clearer.

Gunshots answered McNulty’s question. Two to the chest. Jerry Solomon was blown back off his feet, dropping the bags as he was twisted into an untidy heap on the floor, half in a death tangle and half in a fetal position. McNulty snatched the prop gun from the back of his belt and shouldered open the door.

He was too slow. The gunman had already swiveled with steady aim and calm eyes. He hadn’t been caught by surprise and he wasn’t intimidated by McNulty’s gun. He shook his head without affecting his aim.

“Really? You’re gonna shoot me with a popgun and blanks?” He firmed his stare and tightened his grip. “Put it away before you hurt yourself.”

McNulty stuck the gun back under his belt. He felt lightheaded and short of breath. Solomon lay still on the floor, just another victim in a room that had already seen too many. “That’s a lot of dead people for a million dollars.”

The gunman braced his legs so the chair wouldn’t swivel. “You ever had a million dollars?”

McNulty shrugged. “I know the average house price is a quarter-mill. Depending where you buy it. If you buy one each, won’t leave you much change.”

The gunman nodded toward the sports bags lying next to Solomon. “Different question then. You ever seen a million dollars?”

McNulty looked at the bags. No he hadn’t, but he’d been surprised at the volume of bills in the bags. He reckoned they must have