“Who the hell is Panikos?” The tone was suddenly full of bafflement and indignation. Perhaps too full.

“You want to know who Panikos is?” Gurney smiled. “He’s the biggest fuck-up in the business.”

At that moment he noted a fleeting change in those cold eyes—something that appeared and disappeared in less than a second. If he had to label it, he’d say it was a glint of pure hatred.

It was replaced by a display of disgust. “You’re gone, man. You’re completely gone.”

“Maybe,” said Gurney calmly. “Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe, like you, I’m going to shoot the wrong man too. Maybe you’re going to catch a bullet just because you ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. That kind of thing happens, right?”

“This is bullshit, man! You’re not going to shoot me in cold blood in front of a thousand people at this fucking fair. You do that, that’s the end of your life, man. No escape. Picture the fucking headline, man—‘Crazy Cop Shoots Defenseless Kid.’ That’s what you want your family to see in the paper, man?”

Gurney’s smile broadened. “I see what you mean. That’s very interesting. Tell me something. How’d you know I was a cop?”

For the second time something happened in those eyes. Not hatred this time, more like a one-second hiccough in a video before normal play resumed. “You gotta be a cop, right? You gotta be a cop. Obvious, right?”

“What makes it obvious?”

Black Hoodie shook his head. “It’s just obvious, man.” He laughed humorlessly, revealing small, sharp teeth. “You want to know something? I’ll tell you something. This conversation is bullshit. You’re too fucking nuts, man. This conversation is over.” In a quick sweeping movement, he turned the rest of the way toward Gurney, his elbows rising at the same time like the wings of a bird, his eyes wide and wild, both hands still hidden in the folds of his oversized black shirt.

Gurney pulled out his Beretta and fired.

Chapter 61

Perfect Chaos

After the pistol’s sharp report, as the slight black-clad figure fell to the ground, the first sound Gurney was aware of was Madeleine’s cry of anguish.

She was standing no more than twenty feet away, evidently on her way back from the corrals. Her expression reflected not only the natural shock of witnessing a shooting, but the dreadful incomprehensibility of her husband being the shooter and the victim being, to all appearances, a child. Hand to her mouth, she seemed frozen in place, as if the effort to make sense of what she was seeing occupied her so completely that no motion was possible.

Other people on the concourse were in a state of confusion, some backing away, some angling for a better view, asking one another what had happened.