Fatal Jeopardy

Extract

Steve Tierney grabbed the dictaphone and tried one last time to finish his report. But he knew in his heart it wasn’t going to happen. He just couldn’t concentrate. As his eyes wandered, he noticed his hand trembling a little.
‘I’ve come a long way!’ flashed through his mind. He took a deep breath, got up from his uncomfortable seat and put the dictaphone on his cluttered desk. Tierney’s office was on the Lower East Side, because he couldn’t afford anything else. But maybe this was his chance to climb a rung up the ladder from small-time gumshoe to undercover agent for gentlemen. But it was all still pretty uncertain. It was going to be a close shave and if his luck didn’t hold, the blade was going to be slitting his throat. Tierney needed to watch out and he knew it. The temptation had simply been too great. You never get a chance like this twice…
Tierney crossed over to the window and looked out into the darkness. It was already late. He’d really wanted to be home long before, but in his line of business you couldn’t watch the clock.
He suddenly thought about his wife Karen and their son, Michael, who would be 10 in a few weeks’ time. “For their sake I should never have got involved in this damned mess!” he thought painfully. But it was too late now for regrets. He had to stick it through and hope that everything would work out. Once it was over, all three of them would benefit from it and have a better future. No more night-time spying on straying husbands, no more endless hours spent hanging around cash machines in the hope of tracking down credit card fraudsters…
Security consulting for big businesses – that was the kind of thing Tierney pictured himself doing in the future. With regular office hours if possible. And, of course, more time for his family. Just then, Tierney twitched involuntarily. This happened more often now. His nerves had taken a beating since getting involved in all of this. He’d heard a noise at the door. Someone rang the bell, but it had long since given up the ghost. So whoever it was knocked a few seconds later.
Tierney had taken his shoulder holster off and put it on the desk. His hand now reached out for the weapon. It was a Baretta, and he felt a lot better with the gun nestling in the grip of his right hand.
With the gun in position, he went towards the door, where the person was knocking for the second time, now sounding more impatient.
Tierney looked through the spy hole. A man stood in the hall. He didn’t recognize him.
“What do you want?” called Tierney.
“Open up. I need to talk to you!” came the voice through the door. “And I don’t want the world and his wife listening in on us. Or aren’t you taking clients on any more?”
Tierney took a moment to think. His brain was working overtime. The guy outside was probably not a client – although Tierney was well-known for being available day and night. However, as things were, he just didn’t believe it. Another possibility was far more likely. Someone had probably sent some kind of hired killer to conveniently get rid of Steve Tierney.
“Just a moment,” called Tierney without the slightest intention of actually opening the door to the stranger. He was just stalling for time. Tierney crept backwards looking around his shabby office, in which he sat like a mouse in a trap. There was no way of getting out of here. There was no balcony, no fire escape, he couldn’t even jump out of the window - the frames had warped so much that he’d had to nail them down in winter so as not to perish from the cold while seeing to his confounded paperwork.
Tierney’s office was hardly a place to take cover. There wasn’t a single place to hide. The furniture and fittings were sparse. Apart from his desk there were only a few shelves mounted on the walls, housing the files where he kept his case notes.
Tierney had just reached his desk when he heard an ugly noise. It sounded almost as if someone had sneezed hard, but Tierney knew it was something else.
A gun with a silencer! The fellow had made short work of shooting out the lock. The door opened a slit.