Free Deadly in New York by Randy Wayne White

seemed to be some kind of meeting going on inside. There was a line of cars parked outside, and Hawker could occasionally see the silhouettes of men crossing before the shades.
    He looked at his Seiko Submariner watch. The green numerals said it was 11:14.
    Hawker wondered what kind of a meeting it was. Arriving in the middle of a Mafia hoe-down wasn’t something he had expected.
    As he sat in the van, his brain scanned the various possibilities of what he might do.
    The one thing he couldn’t do was go through the front door—not without drawing one hell of a lot of attention, anyway. Two stocky guards in cheap suits sat outside the doorway, smoking, expressionless.
    It had been Hawker’s plan to slip inside, waste anybody who got in his way, then collar one of the Mafia goons and beat him until he revealed where Blake Fister was and how they communicated with him.
    Divide and conquer—that’s what he wanted to do. But it wasn’t going to be that easy.
    Hawker found a stick of chewing gum in his pocket and waited.
    He was still waiting at midnight.
    Twice he thought the meeting was breaking up when handfuls of men came out and drove off in their cars. But, each time, other cars arrived, and more men filed in—like replacements.
    Finally, tired of waiting, Hawker decided he might be missing an ideal chance to get into the building unnoticed. He got his bag of weaponry from the back of the van and stepped out onto the street through the rear doors.
    It was a hot, muggy night on the New York waterfront. Out on the Hudson, a tug nudged the silhouette of a massive black barge up the river. Its yellow beacon and green starboard lights added a yuletide note to the white glare of Hoboken. Somewhere, a diesel horn moaned.
    Hawker walked calmly down the street, away from the Mafia headquarters. When he was about two blocks away, he cut back across. There was an alleyway beside the building, and he turned down it.
    The alley was sour with the stink of garbage and urine. All of the windows of the headquarters had been painted black, so there was no way Hawker could look in. But there was a fire escape—about nine feet above street level.
    Hawker slung the knapsack over his shoulder. He jumped up and grabbed the under-rung of the fire stairs. He was just about to pull himself onto the first step when a voice stopped him cold.
    â€œFreeze it right there, motherfucker! Don’t drop. Don’t climb. Don’t do a god-damn thing—just hang there!”
    Hawker saw a huge figure materialize out of the shadows at the end of the alley. The man had a hoarse, gravelly voice that barely exceeded a whisper. He was crouched low, his right fist thrust forward. The stainless-steel revolver he held reflected the weak alleyway light.
    The figure came closer. Hawker could make out the wide, meaty bulldog face. The man wore a gray suit, and his hat was cocked jauntily over one eye. A cigarette, freshly lit, smoldered in the corner of his mouth.
    Silently Hawker cursed himself for not fixing the silencer onto his Browning before he entered the alley. Even if he did get an opening to use it, the noise would bring the entire goon squad flooding onto the street.
    The man with the gun stopped a body length away. Hawker could see his face clearly now. He was grinning. His left eye was wedged shut against the cigarette smoke that curled into it.
    â€œYou fucked up bad,” the man said as if amused. “You fucked up real bad. No matter why you’re here; no matter what you plan to do, ’cause you’re dead. You’re dead just as sure as I’m standing here.”
    â€œBullshit,” Hawker bluffed. “Ask Fister before you go shooting that cap pistol of yours. He sent me. Said something about the feds might be bugging the place. Wanted me to slip in at night and check all the telephone wiring up top.”
    The man smiled and nodded, but he did not lower his weapon. “So why