Chapter Forty

From your spot by the tunnel opening, you watch Myron hurry up the path.

Why so fast? you wonder.

Strawberry Fields is bustling. Tour groups huddle up while guides speak in a variety of tongues. The pedicabs—think a mix of bicycle and rickshaw—are lined up on the seemingly always-closed-to-cars 72nd Street ramp. The drivers hustle for the tourist trade, cajoling pedestrians with smiles and maps and photographs of the park wonders they would encounter should the driver be hired. Several horse and carriages await new riders. The horses, you realize, will freak out when they hear gunfire.

That's good. It will cause more chaos.

Myron Bolitar walks past the Imagine mosaic.

So close.

You pull down the bill of your cap, more out of habit than for anything approaching security. You are hiding at the mouth of a tunnel made from twigs and branches. Plenty of foot traffic passes you. Dog walkers stroll by for their pets' nightly relief.

Myron Bolitar has his phone pressed against his ear.

Does that matter—that he might be talking to someone on the phone when you shoot him?

You can't see how.

Your plan is not complicated. He walks by. You put the barrel of the gun against his head. You pull the trigger.

Myron is thirty yards away from you.

You now don a surgical mask. Better safe than sorry. They are rarer today—surgical masks—but far from uncommon, a hangover from the Covid era.

You are already wearing gloves, of course.

Twenty yards away.

You take out the Ruger LCR. You keep your arm at your side, your dark pants camouflaging your black gun.

Fifteen yards.

You snake your finger onto the trigger.

Seconds away now.

You feel the rush start coursing through you. The anticipation. No, this part isn't as satisfying as the actual kill. That's the sweetest—the moment the eyes close and the life leaves the body. But this, the foreplay of murder, is still a heady concoction.

And then, without warning, Myron deviates from the path.

What the…?

He slides quickly behind a tree and presses his back up against it.

Why, you wonder, would he do that?

Is he… hiding?

So it seems.

Does he know you're here, waiting?

You can't see how. You watch now as Myron turns his head left and right. Then he cautiously leans out just a little, just enough to look out.

You duck.

But he isn't looking in your direction.

He is looking back down the path.

As if he knows you are coming for him. Except, of course, he's looking in the wrong direction.

Did that make sense?

He's still on his phone.

Who is he talking to?

That doesn't matter.

You don't know what's going on or why Myron is hiding behind the tree. You debate your next move. Should you wait for him to start walking this way again?

No.

You can't risk that. You must act and act now. Suppose Myron is being followed. Or suppose he doubles back in the opposite direction, back toward Emily's apartment. You'll be out of position. You may lose him entirely. Your plan will be jeopardized.

Go!you tell yourself.

So you do.

You abandon the safety of the tunnel entrance and hurry toward him. His back is still turned. He keeps glancing in the direction of the Imagine mosaic while talking on the phone. That's good. He's distracted. He isn't looking toward you.

You're only a few yards away when Myron suddenly takes the phone away from his ear.

He looks at something on the phone's screen.

A lot of things happen at once now.

You raise the gun to shoot him in the head.

You also see what he's looking at on his phone. When you do, you freeze.

It's you.

How the…?

You stay frozen. But not for long. Barely a second. You push away the panic and snap out of it. You put the muzzle of the gun up to the back of his skull.

You start to pull the trigger—and as you do, Myron spins around and knocks your arm.

But it's too late for him. The bullet fires.

And his blood splashes on your face.