What he didn’t want to do was get shot on the way over. Alone and on foot, he wouldn’t be in any position to control the play.
He weighed his options in a hurry.
He could walk toward his truck, which was probably what the scarred man expected him to do. This way, Peter would find out what the man had planned and do his best to defend against it. He’d always been pretty good at that.
Maybe the guy would just follow Peter, as he had before, keeping him in sight.
But maybe he’d open up with an automatic weapon, in which case a lot of other people might get hurt. And Mingus was in the back of the truck. That mahogany plywood wasn’t stopping any bullets.
If the man really wanted to kill Peter, though, wouldn’t he have set up outside the coffee shop door? It would have been a simple thing to shoot Peter at close range when he walked outside.
So walk in the opposite direction, against the traffic, and maybe get the man out of his vehicle. If he stuck in his SUV watching Peter’s truck, Peter could circle behind him. Find something to hit him with. Then have a conversation.
Which actually sounded like a plan.
Peter turned and started walking. At a decent clip, as if he had a destination in mind.
He came even with the black Ford but kept his face turned away, watching the scarred man’s reflection in a shop’s plate-glass window. The man tracked Peter’s path with his head but didn’t get out of his Ford. He wore the same black leather coat and Kangol cap.
Peter kept walking, turned the corner, left the man behind. Picked up his stride to a higher gear.
It was a decent city neighborhood, sidewalks and midsized residential buildings, but not exactly an upscale commercial area, although it was trying. He passed a couple of bars, a loading dock, a chain pizza place, and an all-night restaurant. Nobody behind him as he rounded the next corner, circling to come back on the scarred man.
He walked past a skateboard shop, a hairdresser’s, and an old movie theater, looking for a piece of pipe or scrap lumber but finding nothing to hit the man with but a trash can. That would not qualify as a concealed weapon.
Moving faster still, he turned the third corner by an upscale sports bar, then a short dead-end alley, and he wasted twenty seconds scouting for a piece of chain or an unbroken bottle, anything, but there was nothing but windblown trash, beer cans, and fast-food wrappers. Then a boarded-up building, yet another fatality of the shitty economy.
Before the last corner, he stopped and took off his jacket. Turned it inside out to change its color, then balled it up under his arm to change the shape of his body from a distance. Hunched over, he walked slowly into view of the black Ford, letting the traffic slow to flow around him as he made his way across the street. The SUV still parked, the window still down, the shape of a man still visible inside almost a block away.
But now Peter was on the same side of the street, and unobserved.
He angled past a fast-food Mexican place to head into the big parking lot that took up most of the block. It wasn’t full, but there were enough cars to provide decent cover. Still nothing to use as a weapon.
He put his coat on again. He was even with the Ford now. It was about forty yards away, across the parking lot and sidewalk. The scarred man indistinct through the passenger window.
Then Peter was past. No longer visible from the driver’s seat. He cut across the lot toward the Ford, staying out of the side mirror’s view. Objects may be closer than they appear. No weapon but his hands.
Then an old bike, shackled to a railing. A heavy cable lock, nothing he could get open without tools. But the seat. The seat post was quick-release. Peter flipped the lever and lifted it free from the bike. Which gave him a metal tube sixteen inches long. With a bicycle seat at one end. It had some weight. Gave him some reach.
Not much against a .32.
Better than nothing.
Still careful of the passenger-side mirror, he walked calmly toward the Ford. Coming at an angle from the rear. He could open the passenger door, but he’d have to attack through the vehicle. His improvised weapon wouldn’t help inside that small space. And the passenger door was likely locked, anyway.
So he crossed behind. Down low to keep out of the rearview. Holding the seat post like a medieval weapon in his left hand. The arm outstretched. The Ford’s engine running.