Rowena, whether responding to the Harry-Huck of him or to other qualities, seemed to accept Ethan for who and what he claimed to be.
?If I guess your favorite variety of climbing rose,? he said, ?will you answer a few questions about a customer you served earlier this afternoon??
?Is this police or celebrity business??
?Both.?
?Oh, delicious. I love running a rose shop, but there?s more fragrance than excitement in it. Make your guess.?
Because in Rowena he saw Hannah as she might have been at sixty, he spoke the name of the climbing rose that his lost wife had loved best: ?Saint Joseph?s Coat.?
Rowena seemed genuinely surprised and pleased. ?That?s exactly right! You put Sherlock to shame.?
?Now your half of the bargain,? Ethan said, leaning with both arms on the counter. ?This afternoon a man came in here and bought a bouquet of Broadway roses.?
The dazzling golden-red blooms on Hannah?s grave had been wrapped in a cone of stiff cellophane. Instead of Scotch tape or staples, a series of six peel-and-press stickers had been applied to seal cellophane to cellophane and thus ensure that the cone kept its shape. Each fancy foil sticker bore the name and address of Forever Roses.
?We had just two dozen,? Rowena said, ?and he took them all.?
?You remember him then??
?Oh, yes. He was quite memorable.?
?Would you describe him for me??
?Tall, athletic but a bit on the thin side, wearing an exquisite gray suit.?
[149] Duncan Whistler owned uncounted fine suits, all custom-tailored at great cost.
?He was a handsome man,? Rowena continued, ?but terribly pale, as though he hadn?t seen the sun in months.?
Comatose for twelve weeks, Dunny had developed a hospital pallor subsequently seasoned by at least an hour of morgue time.
?He had the most magnetic gray eyes,? Rowena said, ?with flecks of green. Beautiful.?
She had given a perfect description of Dunny?s eyes.
?He said that he wanted the roses for a special woman.?
At her funeral, Dunny had seen the Broadway roses.
Rowena smiled. ?He said an old friend would be around before long, asking what kind of roses he?d bought. I gather you?re in competition for the same girl.?
Neither the winter day outside nor the cool air here in the flower shop was responsible for the chill that might have rattled Ethan?s teeth if he hadn?t clenched them.
He suddenly realized that Rowena?s smile had a curious tilt, as though tempered by uncertainty or uneasiness.
When she recognized how deeply her revelation troubled him, her tentative smile faltered, vanished.
?He was a strange man,? she said.
?Did he say anything else??
Rowena broke eye contact and looked toward the windows at the front of the shop, as though expecting to see someone familiar-and unwelcome-at the door.
Ethan gave her an opportunity to consider her words, and at last she spoke: ?He said you think he?s dead.?
Images swelled to the foreground of memory: the empty gurney and the tangled shroud in the hospital morgue; the elusive phantom in the steam-blurred bathroom mirror; the lizard on the driveway, struggling to ascend in spite of its broken back, confronted by a cruel [150] degree of incline and by sluicing water as cold and insistent as the flow of time
?He said you think he?s dead,? Rowena repeated, shifting her gaze from the shop door to Ethan once more. ?And he said I should tell you that you?re right.?
CHAPTER 22
HAZARD IN THE HALLWAY, HAZARD ON THE stairs, acutely aware of what an easy target a big man made in a narrow space, threw himself nonetheless into the hot pursuit. When you took the job, you knew it wasn?t part of the deal that you could pick and choose the places where you would put your life on the line.
Besides, like most cops, he operated on the superstitious conviction that the greatest risk came with hesitation, came in the moment when nerve was briefly lost. Survival depended on boldness seasoned with just enough fear to discourage outright recklessness.
Or so it was easy to believe until a bit of boldness got you killed.
In the movies, cops were always yelling ?Halt! Police!? when they knew that the dirtbags running away from them weren?t going to obey, but also when a shout would reveal their presence before absolutely necessary and even before every bad guy on the game board realized that badges were in play.
Hazard Yancy, who had recently escaped being shot at while in an armchair, didn?t bellow either a command or a threat at the gunman who had killed Rolf Reynerd. He just plunged down the stairs after the guy.
By the time Hazard reached the midfloor landing, the shooter had [152] thundered to the bottom of the lower flight, losing his balance as he flew off the last step into the public foyer. He slipped on the Mexican-tile floor, windmilled his arms, but avoided a fall.
Running, the perp never looked back, suggesting that he was oblivious of being pursued.
As he gave chase, Hazard was in the guy?s head. Expecting Reynerd to be home alone, the rent-a-killer gink comes in to do a quick pop, he drops the sucker with a heart-buster, manages to avoid getting lit up in the process, breaks hard for the street, and now he?s already thinking about smoking some good bo with some long-legged fresh who?s waiting for him in his crib.
The shooter hit the front door, and at the same moment, Hazard landed in the foyer, but the shooter was making too much noise to hear doom closing from behind, and Hazard didn?t slip as his quarry had done, so he was gaining.
When Hazard reached the door, the shooter was already out in the night, down the exterior steps, maybe thinking about spending some of his hit money on fancy chrome laces for the wheels on his bucket, some on 24-carat flash to drape his lady.
Not much wind, cold rain, Hazard on the steps, shooter on the walk: The gap between them closed as inevitably as that between a speeding truck and a brick wall.
Then the car horn blared. One long bleat, two short.
A signal. Prearranged.
In the street, not at the curb, stood a dark Mercedes-Benz, headlights on, engine running, exhaust pluming from the tailpipe. The front passenger door stood open to welcome the shooter. This was a getaway bucket with style, maybe a G-ride, a gangster ride, stolen out of a driveway in Beverly Hills, and behind the wheel sat the shooter?s ace kool, his backup homey, ready to shave the tires bald in a pedal-jammed escape.
The one long bleat followed by two short must have signaled the rabbit that he had a wolf on his ass, because he made a sudden break [153] to the left, off the sidewalk. He torqued himself around so hard that he should have stumbled, should have fallen, but didn?t, and instead brought up the piece with which he?d popped Reynerd.
Having lost the advantage of surprise, Hazard finally shouted ?Police! Drop it!? just like in the movies, but of course the shooter had already earned life without possibility of parole, maybe even the death penalty, by chilling Reynerd, and he had nothing to lose. He would be no more likely to drop his weapon than he would be likely to drop his pants and bend over.
The piece looked big, not a trey-eight or a.357, but a four-five. Loaded with wicked ammo, a four-five would reliably bust bone and tenderize meat for the undertaker, but it required stability and calculation to compensate for the kick.
In a bad stance, from panic rather than poise, the perp squeezed off a shot. His pull was actually more jerk than squeeze, and the round went so wild that Hazard stood at less risk of being drilled by this bullet than of being pulverized by an asteroid.
The instant he saw the muzzle spit fire into the rain and heard the slug shatter a window in the apartment house behind him, however, Hazard was only partly driven by training, partly by duty, and mostly by blood. The shooter wouldn?t be sloppy twice. All the sensitivity instruction, all the earnest lectures in social policy and political consequences, all the police-commission directives to meet violence with patience, understanding, and measured response were impediments to survival when, in the quick, you had to kill or be killed.
The sound of bullet-battered glass was still ringing through the rain when Hazard got a two-hand grip on his gun, assumed the stance, and answered fire with fire. He placed two rounds with little concern for the stern judgment of the Los Angeles Times in matters of police deportment, but with every concern for the safety of Mother Yancy?s favorite baby boy.
The first shot took the killer down, and the second rapped him hammer-hard even as his knees were still buckling.
[154] Reflexively, the perp fired the.45 not at Hazard, but into the grass in front of his own feet. The recoil broke his weakened grip, and the gun flew from his hand.
He met the ground with one knee, in the briefest genuflection, then with two knees, then with his face.
Hazard kicked the dropped.45 away from the killer, into shrubs and shadows, and he ran toward the street, toward the Mercedes.
The driver gunned the engine an instant before he let up on the brakes. Shrieking tires spun off clouds of vaporized rain, and smoke that stank of burnt rubber.
Maybe Hazard was at risk of being shot by the driver, who could get a line on him through the open front passenger?s door, but that was a risk worth taking. An ace-kool wheelman specialized in flight, not fight, and although the guy would be packing heat for use in a cornered-rat situation, he wouldn?t likely draw down on anyone when he had an open street, gas in the tank, and ignition.
Splashing along the puddled pavement, Hazard reached his sedan. Before he could get around that parked vehicle, into the street, the spinning tires of the getaway car bit blacktop and bolted forward with a bark. Momentum slammed shut the passenger?s door.
He hadn?t gotten a look at the driver.