The Samaritan Read Online Free Page A

to Caroline, I addressed her. “Give him your car keys.”
    “What?”
    “I don’t give a shit about the car, friend,” Zoran said softly. “I just want my money.”
    From the tone of his voice, I guessed he was lying and it wasn’t really about the money. Or at least, not primarily. It was about the principle—a man in his position could not be seen to be ripped off in this way.
    I nodded in Caroline’s direction. “She spent last night in a hotel on North Andrews Avenue, checked out this morning. If she still has your money, it’s in the red Audi coupe around the front.”
    Caroline started to say, “How the hell do you—” then shut up.
    And then she ran.
    Zoran made a split-second calculation. The choice was staying with me or chasing Caroline. If he stayed with me, his money and his opportunity for redress would disappear once again. If he chased Caroline, he’d be leaving me with the gun I’d dropped. He made the smart move, the most ruthless move. But not quite fast enough.
    As he pulled the trigger, I was already diving for the pistol.
    A .45-caliber slug carved itself into the wall behind where my head had been a moment before. As I hit the ground, I swept the heel of my shoe hard into the back of Zoran’s knee as I simultaneously picked up the gun I’d dropped. His knee buckled, and he fell as my fingers closed around the weapon. He fumbled his grip a little, recovered quickly, and started to bring his gun back toward my face. I smashed his wrist with my left fist as the gun discharged, the loud bang echoing and reverberating from the walls of the alley. Before he could take another shot, I had the muzzle of the H&K pressed into his forehead, equidistant between his eyes. His eyes brightened for a moment in surprise and then narrowed.
    “Don’t be an idiot,” I said.
    Mere seconds had elapsed since the sound of the gunshot, but I was keenly conscious of two sounds that marked the passage of time: Caroline Church’s footsteps fading into the night and the sound of voices from the opposite direction. Now I was the one with the dilemma. Only that wasn’t quite true. Zoran was the one who was going to dictate what happened: whether he lived or died.
    His grip relaxed and the gun dropped from his right hand, smacking on the pitted concrete. A rational man. I gave him an apologetic shrug and slammed the butt of the pistol into his right temple. Nonfatal, but enough to give me time to make a graceful exit. He’d thank me in the morning, once the concussion wore off.
    I picked up Zoran’s gun as he dropped to the sidewalk; then I glanced out at the street. Caroline had vanished. If she was smart, she’d forget about the car and the fifteen grand and vanish into the night. But then, her actions so far hadn’t exactly been characterized by an overabundance of good sense.
    The shouts from the street were getting closer, and I remembered the third guy, less than a block away, who would certainly have heard the gunshots. And he’d be the only person within earshot who wasn’t using his cell phone to call the cops at that moment.
    I pocketed the two H&Ks and moved quickly to the nearest Dumpster, pushing it all the way back to brace it against the stucco wall. Then I pulled myself up on top of it, caught my balance, and jumped vertically. I caught the edge of the roof with both hands and pulled myself up and over the parapet, rolling to my feet. From below, I heard a scream and loud voices. I crouched down and risked a glance over the edge to the alley below. Three people at the mouth of the alley, and one of them was Zoran’s guy—the third man I’d seen outside the bar earlier. The other two were a middle-aged couple, tourists from the look of their clothes. The woman was doing the screaming.
    “Oh my God, is he dead?”
    The husband was crouched beside Zoran, checking for a pulse. The third guy was looking up and down the street frantically, his right hand jammed deep in the pocket of his coat.