Now Ricci stood with his hands wrapped around the butt of his gun. The Killer had started to retreat, backing slowly away down the lane, using the hostage figure as a shield, keeping her in front of his body. He was about a foot taller than Screaming Woman, easily a foot, and Ricci was convinced he could take him down nice and clean, do it without so much as ruffling her hair. One shot to the head, over and out. But there would be an undeniable risk to Screaming Woman. Say the Killer was holding her at gunpoint, the weapon’s snout pressing into her back. Say he had a knife against her throat. Ricci knew her situation was chancy even if his marksmanship was true. A slight jerk of the Killer’s hand, an automatic dying spasm, could result in Screaming Woman becoming what Ricci had called a civilian casualty when he wore a detective’s badge. On the force, protection of the innocents overrode your pursuit of the guilty. When losses occurred it was despite every intent and effort to avert them. But would a loss in this case be unintentional or incidental?

Ricci stood there with his hands around the gun, its trigger a tease to his finger. The finger moving slightly back, increasing its pressure—

“Tough choice. Good thing you don’t have to make it.”

Ricci turned his head toward the sound of Nimec’s voice. He had stepped over from his firing lane, the earmuffs off, goggles down around his neck, his Beretta already holstered at his side.

Ricci looked at him but didn’t say anything. His features were blank.

“Didn’t you hear the beeps?” Nimec said. He was tapping his unprotected ear. “We’re done.”

Ricci stared at him in silence a while longer, his Five-Seven still held out, the pupils contracted to black pinpoints in his ice blue eyes.

Then he looked back down the firing lane.

The lane had gone completely dark, its target and hostage figures fixed in position. A lighted red sign high on the back wall was blinking the words:

AUTO TIMEOUT

Ricci slowly lowered the gun and slid it into his leather.

“Yeah,” he said. “Done.”

Quiet hung over the room, as rife in the air as the smell of discharged ammunition.

“Tom, we need to talk,” Nimec said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Here’s fine.”

“It might be better to do our old usual tonight. Sit down in my pool room over a couple of Cokes.”

“Here’s fine,” Ricci repeated, his tone no more expressive than his features.

Nimec almost felt as if he’d phoned one of those automated customer service lines and gotten stuck on the starting option. He studied the rough, jutting angles of Ricci’s face and shrugged.

“There’s some general stuff I’d like to cover,” he said. “With me going to Africa, it’ll be you in charge—”