Kill Zone by Loren D. Estleman Page A

the trigger on someone, Pete? Do you get a boost out of the way their eyes bug out just before you do it, do you give them a chance to plead for their lives? Or do you prefer shooting them from behind? I guess that would be the safest way, the most efficient for an efficiency expert like you.”
    â€œIt would be. If I were a killer.”
    â€œStop playing! Don’t lie about it like I’m a kid asking about sex. I want you to tell me what I know. Do you kill people for a living?”
    â€œI’m an efficiency expert,” he said.
    She must have slid the heavy brass ashtray into one of the voluminous pockets of the robe before coming upstairs. He jerked his head right and the heavy projectile dusted his left ear. When she saw she’d missed, Donna screamed—a terrible animal shriek—and rushed him, clawing at his face with her long nails. But he turned his left shoulder into her and bowled her into the file cabinet, slamming shut one of the open drawers, and got her into a tight bearhug. Her blows bounded dully off his back, her screams tore his eardrums. He increased pressure and after a few seconds the noise died and she went slack in his arms.
    She had fainted, with a little help from the alcohol in her brain. He picked up her feet, hoisted her into an unromantic fireman’s carry, and bore her, his discs groaning, through the doorway and down the hall to the bedroom. He stopped once to lean against the wall and catch his breath, then finished the trip and dropped her, not gently, onto the bed. While the springs rocked to a halt he stood there wheezing and waiting for the black spots to fade. Sixteen and a half years ago he had swept her through the front door and up the stairs and still had enough energy to make love to her. She was heavier now, but she had been pregnant with Roger even then and no wraith. He determined to step up his weightlifting next session. Then he determined not to. What if it didn’t help?
    Donna was snoring with her mouth open and her hair in her eyes. He went through the pockets of her robe and excavated a crumpled pack of cigarettes and two books of matches from a wad of stained brittle Kleenex and gray lint and put them in his own shirt pocket. Then he backed out, closing the door behind him. He wondered where in hell Roger was.
    His left ear burned where the ashtray had grazed it. He stopped in the bathroom to examine it in the mirror. The flesh was red. He wet a facecloth and held it against the ear until the pain lessened. Then he changed shirts, put on a fresh necktie, brushed back his thinning hair, and left the house carrying his jacket. It was a warm day in spite of the overcast.
    He had left the gun in the safe and kept no weapons in his car. That was another way to end your career in a hurry, lugging unregistered firearms everywhere you went. He only carried one when he had use for it. Just now he was dry-stalking; the hunt itself would come later.
    He spotted the federal men by the second corner. There were always two of them, and they always drove nondescript cars and followed no closer than a block behind. The gray Plymouth pulled over to the curb a hundred yards back while Macklin was waiting for the light to change, but no one got out. A high black four-wheel-drive pickup was stopped next to him in the right lane. Macklin let his car creep ahead a few feet, and when the green light came on he goosed the accelerator and cut across the pickup’s path, angling right into the cross street. By the time the flustered truck driver blew his horn, the shiny Cougar was approaching the next street over and Macklin bumped the curb turning right again and cut across an empty lot, barking his suspension on the sidewalk. A minute later he hit one of the Mile Roads and blended into the late lunch-hour traffic on Telegraph. There was no sign of the Plymouth in his rearview mirror. He paid no attention to the brown Cordoba that pulled onto Telegraph half a