Louis turned and walked on, the cold inside him growing as his thoughts turned to his own fate. Gibralter planned to kill him tonight. He knew too much, just like the others. He felt the cold steel of his empty gun against his skin.
He stopped again.
“Kincaid, you’re getting on my nerves,” Gibralter said.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you,” Louis said.
“Get moving.”
“What are you waiting for?” Louis yelled. “Why don’t you just shoot me right now!”
“What, and make you a fucking martyr in her eyes?”
Louis swung his flashlight to Gibralter’s face. Gibralter moved but not before Louis saw the tightness in his expression.
“Who? Zoe? Is that – ” Louis demanded.
“Her name is Jeannie!” Gibralter interrupted, pointing the gun at Louis’s chest.
Louis held his breath. Gibralter slowly lowered the gun.
“You’re going to take a bullet in the back tonight, Kincaid, but it won’t be mine,” Gibralter said. “Now move!”
Louis walked on through the drifts, his mind churning as he realized what was going to happen. Gibralter knew he would have to face an investigation when this was over. Any bullet found in Louis’s back would come from Lacey’s gun. Gibralter would make sure of that. He had thought of everything. Every maneuver was designed, every move thought out three steps ahead. How could he get the advantage?
He had seen something in Gibralter’s eyes when he had said her name. It was small, almost undetectable, but it was there. A weakness, a fissure, a way in.
“Zoe,” he said.
From behind came only the crunch of boots on snow.
“Zoe,” he repeated, more loudly.
Silence.
Louis gave a small laugh as he walked on. “She likes to be called Zoe. You didn’t know that, did you?”
“Shut up.”
Louis’s heart was hammering but he knew he had to get Gibralter off balance. “Zoe,” he said loudly. “That’s what she wants me to call her when we make love.”
Silence. Louis drew in a harsh breath of cold air.
“You know what Zoe told me? Zoe told me you haven’t been able to satisfy her in years.”
“Stop!”
Louis stopped.
“Turn around.”
He faced the light, squinting.
“You want to play games?” Gibralter asked.
Louis could not see if the gun was pointed at him.
“You know what an end game is, Kincaid?”
Louis remained silent, his hand going up to shield his eyes against the light.
“The end game is the final strategy in chess,” Gibralter said. “It’s when most of the pieces are lost and the king is forced into action. Amateurs thing the king can be taken at this point. But in the hands of a master, the end game can have any number of outcomes.”
Gibralter moved his flashlight away from Louis’s face. Louis could see him smiling, shaking his head.
“Zoe, Jeannie, it doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “Weak move, Kincaid. A weak move from a weak man.”
He motioned with the gun toward the trees. Louis turned and trudged on. He was shivering violently now, the cold overtaking him. There had been no response about Zoe. A normal man would have retaliated. But there had been nothing.
Gibralter was a man and every man had a weakness. Where was Gibralter’s? But this wasn’t a normal man. This wasn’t even a man. This was nothing but a gun, a badge and a fucking uniform.
A cop. Not a man, just a cop.
Louis forced himself to let out another laugh. It echoed in the darkness. “A weak man! I’m a weak man!” he yelled. “That’s the ultimate insult to you, right,
He charged the final word with sarcasm, knowing Gibralter would pick up on it. He forced out a chuckle. “Nothing worse than a weak cop, right, Chief?”
Gibralter said nothing.
“What makes a weak cop? Why don’t you define it for me, Chief?” Louis said. “Why don’t you tell me so I can get my badge to shine as pretty as yours?”
Louis kept his eyes on the dim path created by the flashlight in his shaking hand.
“A weak cop doesn’t break the rules, right, Chief?” Louis yelled back over his shoulder.
The crunch of boots on snow.
“A weak cop doesn’t let his macho ego lead him into a dark alley alone without calling for backup, right, Chief?”
Silence.
“A weak cop doesn’t let a bunch of punks take away his gun, right, Chief?”
Louis listened for the click of a gun hammer.
“A weak cop doesn’t end up naked, spray painted, and handcuffed to a fire escape, right, Chief?”
He drew in a shuddering breath and forced out one last laugh. “And a weak cop doesn’t end up riding a fucking desk because he’s too scared to go back out on the street and do his job, right, Chief?”
“Stop!”
