I is for Innocent (Kinsey Millhone 9)

"Smart."

"Very smart," he said, "which is more than you can say of most people. Human beings are like ants. So busy, so involved in their little world. Watch an anthill sometime. Such activity. You can tell everything looks so important from the ant's point of view. But it's not. In reality, it doesn't amount to anything. Haven't you ever stepped on an ant? Rubbed one out with your thumb? You don't suffer any great pangs of conscience. You think, There. I gotcha. Same thing here."

"Jesus. This is really profound. I'm taking notes over here."

That made him mad and he fired twice, slugs plowing into the carpet to my right. I matched him shot for shot just for the hell of it.

"You're so innocent," he said. "You think you're such a cynic, but you were easy to fool-"

"Let's not jump to conclusions," I said. I thought I saw his head appear in Lonnie's doorway. I fired two more times.

He disappeared. "You missed."

"Sorry to hear that." I slipped out the magazine and counted cartridges by feel. All that nice ammo in the other room.

"You have a problem over there?"

"I broke a fingernail."

He was silent for a moment. "Be careful with your ammo. You only have one shot left."

"Bullshit. I have two."

He laughed in the dark. "Oh, right. Uh-hunh."

I was quiet and then I said, "What makes you so sure?"

"I can count."

I put my head down briefly, gathering my strength. Time to move along, I thought. I slipped my left shoe off and placed it on the floor in front of me. I slipped my right shoe off, my eyes crossing at the heat in my right hip. I could feel a numbness spreading and I couldn't quite compute how pain and nothing could share the same nerve path. "That was only seven," I said.

"It was eight."

"I have a ten-shot," I said piously. I began to ease back toward the point at which the corridor made a left.

"A ten-shot. What crap. You're such a liar," he said.

"Oh, really? What kind of gun do you have?"

"A Walther. An eight-shot. I have two shots left."

"No, you don't. You have one. I can count, too, bird-breath." I was moving by degrees, nearing the corner, feeling backward with my foot. David Barney didn't seem to notice the change in my location.

"You can't fool me. I did my homework on you."

"Like what?" I said. I reached the corner and angled myself around until only the upper portion of my body was in the corridor. David Barney was now about twenty-five feet away. I was resting on my right side, my blue jeans wet with blood. I looked down at myself. My hip had started to glow. I lifted myself on one elbow. I'd put my weight on my keychain, activating the little plastic flashlight that was shaped like a flattened oval and turned on when you pinched it. I eased the keys out of my jeans pocket and took the flash off the key ring. I pushed the keys to one side, uneasy about their jangling.

"Like this business about your lying. You take a lot of pride in the fact."

"Who'd you hear that from?"

"I get around. It's amazing how much information you can pick up in jail."

"I bet you tell a lot of lies yourself," I said. "You probably have a nine-shot."

He actually sounded flattered. "You never know," he said.

"What made you so sure I'd come down here tonight?" I pulled myself up onto my hands and knees.

"You didn't figure that out? You told Curtis you kept your gun here. That's why I set up the meeting at the bird refuge. I knew you'd never go down there without your gun."

Let's get this over with, I thought. I came up to a half crouch, like a runner at a starting post, painfully aware of the throbbing in my butt.

Behind me, I heard him say, "You still there?"

I didn't answer.

"Where'd you go?"

I limped in my sock feet as quickly as I could toward the kitchen door. The room glowed a faint gray from the outside light. I realized at a glance there was no place to hide. I veered out of the room and across the hall. I tiptoed to the far corner and I crouched down beside the Xerox machine with my back to the wall. Bending my right leg hurt so bad I had to grit my teeth. I made it to a sitting position, my gun in my right hand, the little flash in my left. My hands felt greasy with sweat and my fingers were cold.

"Kinsey?" From the hallway. Any minute he'd figure out I was gone and come barreling after me.