Manhattan Is My Beat (Rune 1)

Light to die by.

There was a sudden metallic snap, and she jumped.

A shuffle of feet outside the door.

A second lock clicked and the door opened. Haarte stood in the doorway. He was cautious. He looked around the room, maybe to see if she'd rigged any traps or found any weapons. Then, satisfied, he nodded for her to follow. Tears of fear pricked in her eyes but she wouldn't let them fall.

He led her up some rickety stairs.

Emily's attention was on her. She was amused, studying Rune like a real estate agent appraising an apartment. When Rune hesitated outside the doorway Haarte pushed her in. Emily didn't seem to like that but she didn't say anything.

No one spoke. Rune felt the tension in the air. Like the scene inside the bank in Manhattan Is My Beat where the cop is staring down the robber. His hand is out, not moving, saying over and over, "Give me the pistol, son. Give it to me." The lighting shadowy and stark, the camera moving in close on the muzzle of the .38.

Would the robber shoot or wouldn't he? You wanted to scream from the tension.

Haarte pushed Rune into a cheap dining-room chair, stared down at her. She whimpered, feeling not the least bit adult.

But then, from somewhere in her mind, an image came. An illustration from one of her fantasy books. Diarmuid. Then another: King Arthur.

She ripped his hand off her shoulder. "Don't touch me," she snarled.

He blinked.

Rune waited a moment, staring into his eyes, then walked slowly to the chair. She adjusted it so she was facing Emily and sat down, then said in a sly, tough, Joan Rivers voice, "Can we talk?"

Emily blinked then laughed. "Just what we had in mind."

Haarte pulled up a chair and sat down too.

Rune kept spinning the sole bracelet on her wrist, slipping it on and off. Trying to be tough, looking as hip and cynical as she could. The silver ring spun. She looked down and saw the hands clasped together. She tried not to think about Richard.

Emily said, "We need to know who you told about Spinello and about me."

Rune snapped, "You killed Robert Kelly. Why?"

Emily looked at Haarte. He said, "You could say that it was his fault."

"What?"

"He moved into the wrong apartment," Emily said. "We felt bad. I mean, it looks bad for us. To make a mistake like that. Felt bad for him, too, of course."

Rune exhaled in shock. "He was just ... You killed him by mistake?"

Haarte continued. "After Spinello testified in the St. Louis RICO cases in January, the U.S. Marshals moved him to New York. Witness protection. They gave him a new identity--Victor Symington--and put him in a place uptown but, well, you saw he was pretty paranoid. He didn't stay where they'd set him up and got the apartment down in the Village. He moved into Apartment 2B. But then he heard there was a bigger apartment available on the third floor. So he moved upstairs. Your friend Kelly moved into Spinello's place."

"The information we had from the people hiring us," Emily said, "was that the hit lived in 2B."

"And, I mean, what can we say?" Haarte reflected. "I checked the directory down in the lobby, but it was so covered up with graffiti, I couldn't read a fucking thing. Besides, Kelly and Spinello looked a lot alike."

"They didn't look a thing alike!" Rune spat out.

"Well, they did to me. Hey, accidents happen."

Rune asked, "Then you came back and tore up his place just for the fun of it?"

Haarte looked insulted. "Of course not. We heard on the news that this Robert Kelly guy'd been killed. That wasn't the hit's new name. So we started to think we'd hit the wrong man. I mean, you interrupted me during the job. We didn't have time to verify it. I checked out the place later and found a picture of Kelly with his sister, letters. They looked legit."

Rune remembered the torn picture. Haarte had probably lost his temper when he'd realized his mistake then ripped up the photo in anger.