Kill Zone by Loren D. Estleman Page B

don’t, Fay will.”
    He placed his palms on the deck and shook his head, gathering his feet beneath him. The woman shook her own head, mocking him, and moved to scoop up the rifle. He kicked out with one leg and felt the jar to his knee when his foot connected. She howled. It was a nasty thin tearing sound, like the shriek of an enraged cat. He launched himself up stumbling, spun around and ran, scattering passengers from his path. Ran with his shoulders hunched and his head sunk between them, his back burning where the bullets would go. Behind him the black woman was screaming curses. The rifle’s loose parts rattled. He made for the railing. He was a strong swimmer, had kept in shape at an age where most of his contemporaries were retired or taking their mail in hospitals. If there was a boat nearby, if he could tread water while his arms rested. It was a better chance than he had at the moment. His hands gripped the clammy beaded steel of the railing and he tensed his muscles to swing himself over.
    He almost made it.

CHAPTER 14
    â€œJust once I’d like to eat in a place where the food was as good as the view,” complained Bill Chilson, spreading butter on one half of a roll the approximate size and consistency of a cue ball.
    Randall Burlingame sipped his wine and chuckled. “It comes into the building fresh, but a lot can happen in seven hundred and forty feet.”
    â€œIt should take the elevator.”
    They were dining in the revolving restaurant atop Detroit’s tallest hotel, decorated in leatherette and plush to resemble the inside of a candy box and just now overlooking through its tinted wraparound windows the shadowy skyline of Windsor across the river. Although it was not yet evening, a dusky gray screen blurred and flattened the details.
    Chilson sneaked looks at the FBI bureau director over his meal of pressed sawdust masquerading as roast beef. He admired Burlingame, who, although he had been up since midnight, looked as fresh as if he had just had eight hours’ sleep. Chilson himself had managed to catch a few winks at his room in the hotel, but he knew that the only break Red had taken was to shave and change shirts. He was an iron man, and if not for all that time wasted hassling with Hoover, would have been warming a chair in an office on the top floor of the Bureau’s Washington headquarters years ago.
    â€œWhat’s the good news the Secret Service is bankrolling this gourmet dinner for?” Chilson asked.
    â€œWe’ve got a line on this Macklin.” Burlingame put away a steaming forkful of mashed potatoes. He never blew on his food, never waited for it to cool. His companion decided his mouth and tongue were lined with asbestos. “He’s a button like we thought, been with the Boniface family since old Papa Joe Morello got his tonsils taken out the hard way in Victor’s Barbershop. Talk is Macklin worked the razor on that one.”
    â€œChrist, he must be fifty.”
    â€œComing up on forty. He got an early start. Anyway, he’s Boniface’s chief samurai, and maybe the last of the loyal old guard. No wonder the old man saddled him with this one.”
    â€œRecord?”
    â€œOne arrest eleven years ago, suspicion of ADW. It never got to court. Victim refused to identify him and then went away on a vacation he’s still not back from. That just came in from Washington. We dug up an informant, someone close. Been feeding one of our field men for months, but it was all locked up in his own file and he’s been out sick all week. Of course it’s all hearsay. But good enough to work on.”
    â€œHow does it help us?”
    â€œIt’s the first chink we’ve found in Macklin’s armor. If we hang on to it he may just lead us all out of this mess.”
    â€œWho’s your informant?”
    Burlingame stuck a covered wicker bowl under Chilson’s nose. “Another roll?”
    Smiling, the