Free The Lasko Tangent by Richard North Patterson

arrived in record time. I pushed one toward Gubner and picked up mine. I felt pretty good, sort of. But not perfect. Lehman appeared in the window, walking with the comic stagger of a penguin. He looked as if he had been shot, but didn’t know he was dead. Which he was, in a way. I sipped on the martini and watched my new star witness walk across the street.
    I saw the black car before I knew what it meant. It seemed to have pulled out from the sidewalk. Lehman was crossing Arlington, not looking. From the bar, I saw the car accelerating silently toward him. I half-rose, a strangled yell in my throat which tasted like gin.
    Then Lehman saw the car. He stood stock still for a split second, as if he had expected it. Then he gave a pathetic little skip, stretching forward to the sidewalk. The car smashed into Lehman in mid-stretch, his hands reaching toward the Garden. I saw him flying above the car in slow motion, arms flailing like a spastic rag doll. He seemed to snap in mid-air as the black car moved by. Then he fell in a precipitous dive, hit on his head, and folded into a shapeless heap. The heap didn’t move.
    Gubner’s mouth was hanging open. I ran from the table, shouting for an ambulance. I smashed into someone in the entrance of the bar and bounced him off the wall. I kept moving. Lehman lay where he had fallen, alone. A few pedestrians stared at him from the sidewalk. A sticky splotch of blood spread like oil from his head. I reached him and felt for his pulse. Nothing. Then I looked at his face. It was a garish nightmare. But out of it stared one pale blue eye. It still looked sad.
Nine
     
     
    Gubner was squatting next to me, chanting “Oh, my God” over and over, like an incantation. I got up, feeling sick. A lump of passers-by were gawking at me. I went for the nearest one, a thin middle-aged man, and grabbed him by the lapels. “Be useful, you moron. Go to the Ritz and make sure the cops come.” The voice I heard was very clear and very cold. It was mine. The man nodded soundlessly, gaping at my bloody hands. I stared at him for a second, then dropped him from my grasp. He clambered off to the Ritz. I watched him to the door. Then I went to the iron fence, grabbed it, and threw up.
    After a moment I stood, staring at the swans and the flowers in the Garden. Then I turned back to the street. Gubner was still stooped by Lehman’s body, standing guard. The squad cars arrived in a squeal of sirens, with an ambulance. Three policemen got out and squatted around Lehman. A white-coated man probed him with his fingers. Then he and another man lay Lehman on a stretcher and bore him to the ambulance. The ambulance moved away. No sirens and no hurry.
    Gubner and the cops drifted to the sidewalk. It all had a strange, dreamlike quality, as if I were stoned, watching a movie. The street was eerily empty, like a stage without props or actors. The only trace of Lehman was the splotch of blood.
    I liked being alone. But I forced myself to cross the street. A crowd had gathered. One of the cops was asking questions, a big sharp-eyed man with dark sideburns and mustache and a low voice. He turned to me. I pulled myself together, and told him who we were. What had I seen, he asked. It was a Cadillac, I thought, late model. I hadn’t seen the hit-skip driver. Or the license plate. I guessed the car was going thirty-five, forty, and accelerating fast.
    He was watching me closely. “Anything else?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I think he was murdered.”
    The cop’s eyes narrowed. He turned and barked something to another cop. Then they trundled Gubner and me into the back of a squad car. A crew-cut cop drove while the sharp-eyed one asked some more questions. We didn’t speak unless spoken to. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had stumbled into a surrealistic film. Gubner leaned against the corner of the car, white and waxen. We had stepped outside of our profession. And Lehman was dead.
    The police station was down