My Gun Is Quick Page 24

  “But I won’t deprive myself of the pleasure of killing you, mister rat. It will make up for the blonde and Lola. I’ll kill you so I can live with myself again. I’ll tell them we fought it out and I killed you. But you’ll know the truth. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

  The pain in his eyes wasn’t physical any longer.

  “They’ll be up here in a minute. I’ll be waiting for them. I’ll let them take me down and tell them there’s no use going back in again. I’ll let you burn until there isn’t a thing left to identify you.”

  A stream of water hit the side of the wall, centered on the window and turned the room into a steaming inferno.

  “A ladder will be pushed up here in just a minute now. When it comes I’ll pull the trigger. Think about it, think hard.”

  A truck was being run into position. The shouts below grew louder. I crouched into the protection of the same timber that had him pinned down. The ceiling over the corridor outside fell in with a crash, dragging the front wall with it. I heard the crackling and looked up. Directly overhead the ceiling began to buckle, sagging in the middle with flame lancing through the cracks.

  I looked at Berin and laughed. He turned his head and stared right into the muzzle of his own gun. Minutes, seconds. Fractions of time. The ceiling was swaying now. The killer’s face was a vile mask of hatred, praying for the ceiling to get us both. He was going to go first if it happened that way.

  Something banged against the side of the window and slid over the sill: two prongs with a crossbar between them. A ladder bobbed as someone came up it, covered by the stream of water.

  Berin had his mouth open, screaming with all the furies of the gods dethroned, but my laugh was even louder.

  He was still screaming when I pulled the trigger.