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Of course, cop instinct wasn’t always reliable The coat ht actually be the absentht be stuffed with nothing more sinister than a pipe, tobacco pouch, slide rule, calculator, lecture notes, and all sorts of ite it
Harry whose voice had trailed off in midsentence, slowly put down his chicken sandwich He was intently focused on the man in thefrench fries She dropped thereasy fingers on her napkin, all the while trying to watch the new custo at him
The hostess, a petite blonde in her twenties, returned to the reception area after seating the couple by the , and the man in the Ultrasuede coat shed politely as if what he’d said washtly She reached for a couple of fries
The newcomer seized the hostess by her belt, jerked her toward hirabbed a handful of her blouse His assault was so sudden and unexpected, his moves so catquick, that he had lifted her off the floor before she began to screa, he threw her at nearby diners
"Oh, shit" Connie pushed back fro under her jacket and behind to the revolver that was holstered in the small of her back
Harry rose, too, his own revolver in hand "Police!"
His warning was drowned out by the sickening crash of the young blonde sla into a table, which tipped sideways The diners toppled out of their chairs, and glasses shattered All over the restaurant people looked up from their food, startled by the uproar
The stranger’s flaht also be genuinely psychotic
Connie took no chances, dropping into a crouch as she brought her gun up "Police!"
Either the guy had heard Harry’s first warning or he had seen them out of the corner of his eye, because he was already scuttling toward the back of the restaurant, between the tables
He had a handgun of his ownli at random, each shot thunderous in the confines of the restaurant
Beside Connie, a painted terracotta pot exploded Chips of glazed clay showered onto her The dracaenanarrow leaves, and she crouched even lower, trying to use a nearby table as a shield
She wanted in the worst way to get a shot at the bastard, but the risk of hitting one of the other custoreat When she looked across the restaurant at child’s level, thinking maybe she could pulverize one of the creep’s knees with a wellplaced round, she could see hi across the roo of panicked, wideeyed people had taken refuge under their tables
"Shit" She pursued the geek while trying to et of herself as possible, aware that Harry was going after hi because they were scared, or had been shot and were in pain The crazy bastard’s gun booe clips with superhu s took a direct hit and calass splashed across the cold Santa Fe tile floor
As Connie crept from table to table, her shoes picked upcacti, and crunchingtinkling pieces of glass And as she passed the wounded, they cried out or pawed at her, desperate for help
She hated to ignore theet a shot at the walking phleght be able to provide wasn’t going to help the about the terror and pain the sonofabitch had already wrought, but she e if she stayed on his ass
She raised her head, risking a bullet in the brain, and saw the scu at a swinging door that had a glass porthole in the center Grinning, he squeezed off rounds at anything that caught his attention, apparently equally pleased to hit a potted plant or a huly ordinary in appearance, roundfaced and bland, with a weak chin and soft rin failed to make him look like a madman; it was more the broad and affable smile of someone who had just seen a clown take a pratfall But there was no doubt he was crazydangerous, because he shot a big saguaro cactus, then a guy in a checkered shirt, then the saguaro again, and he did have two guns, one in each hand
Welcoh to line up a shot
Harry was especially quick to take advantage of the lunatic’s sudden obsession with the saguaro He came to his feet in another part of the restaurant and fired Connie fired twice Chunks of wood exploded frolass blew out of the porthole; they had bracketed hih the swinging door, which took both Harry’s and Connie’s next rounds and kept swinging Judging by the size of the bullet holes, the door was hollowcore, so the slugs h and nailed the sonofabitch on the other side
Connie ran toward the kitchen, slipping a little on the food strewn floor She doubted they were going to be lucky enough to a find the creep wounded and squir like a halfcrushed cockroach on the other side of that door More likely, he aiting for theht even step through the door from the kitchen and cut her down as she approached But her juices were up; she was jazzed When her juices were up, she couldn’t help but do everything fullbore, and it didn’t even matter that her juices were up most of the time
God, she loved this job
Harry hated this cowboy stuff
When you were a cop, you knew violence ht suddenly find yourself up to your neck in wolves a lot nastier than any Red Kicking Hood ever had to deal with
But even if it was part of the job, you didn’t enjoy it
Well, maybe you did if you were Connie Gulliver
As Harry rushed the kitchen door, going in low and fast with his revolver ready, he heard her behind hi fulltilt He knew that if he looked back at her, she would be grinning, not unlike the h he knew she was on the side of the angels, that grin never failed to unnerve him
He skidded to a halt at the door, kicked it, and instantly ju hail of bullets
But the door slaunfire followed
So when it swung inward again, Connie burst past hi under his breath, which was the only way he ever cursed
In the huers sizzled on a grill and fat bubbled in a deepfryer Pots of water boiled on a stovetop Gas ovens creaked and popped from the intense heat they contained, and a bank of microwave ovens hummed softly
Half a dozen cooks and other employees, dressed in white slacks and Tshirts, their hair tucked under white stringtied caps, pale as dead men, stood or cowered a tendrils of steahosts Almost as one they turned toward Connie and Harry
"Where?" Harry whispered
One of the employees pointed toward a halfopen door at the back of the kitchen
Harry led the way along a narrow aisle flanked on the left by racks of pots and utensils On the right was a series of butcher blocks, a machine used to cut wellscrubbed potatoes into raw french fries, and another that shredded lettuce
The aisle widened into a clear space with deep sinks and heavy duty co the wall to the left The half open door was about twenty feet directly ahead, past the sinks