He looked down with astonishment. A fiery arrow of pain pierced his left side. Pete didn’t see the muzzle flash because his back was turned when Linton fired. Someone looking on might have caught that quick flame of superheated incandescent gas emerging from the barrel in advance of the slug, that small penetrating missile followed by the sudden intense burst of light as gas and oxygen ignited. A pungent smell hung in the air.

Pete turned to Linton with amazement. “Why did you do that?”

He saw that Linton held the Glock, which he must have snatched from the path while Pete’s attention was diverted. He shouldn’t have taken his eyes off the man, but he couldn’t worry about that now. He tallied his wounds, neither of which seemed devastating. Linton had shot him once in the side. A second bullet had grazed his right calf. It wasn’t his injuries, but the insult that stung, the violation of the rules of fair play. He’d given up. He’d thrown in the towel. You weren’t supposed to go after a guy once he’d done that.

Pete shook his head, looking down at himself and then at Linton. “Help me out here. I’m hurt.”

Linton gave Pete the once-over, his glance taking in the blood seeping through his pant leg. Even to Pete, the bleeding from the wound in his side didn’t amount to much.

“You’ll be fine,” Linton said. His tone was light, with a touch of condescension, the sort of reassurance a specialist might offer a patient with a medical condition of no real consequence.

He slipped the gun into his coat pocket and turned away, strolling toward the parking lot. His pace was measured. He wasn’t hurried. There was no panic that Pete could make out, though it seemed clear he wanted to get out of the area in the event someone had heard the shots and dialed 911. Pete could conceive of Linton as a man who’d always wondered what it would feel like to shoot another man down. It must have crossed his mind, the idle thought of someone who’d never done much of anything except pull the wool over other people’s eyes. It made a certain amount of sense. If Linton had been good at what he did, he wouldn’t have had to cheat. The gun established his superiority, making him better than he was. It was as simple as that.

Pete felt a fine sheen of sweat break out on his face. He wasn’t sure he’d be fine at all. His early outrage had drained away and he wondered what kind of trouble he was in. Just like that, his vision crowded in on him and he toppled. The arms he flung out in front of him to slow his fall were useless. When his face hit the pavement, he registered little if any pain.