In the Hour Before Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

basalt and marked out fifteen paces. There had been a time when I could draw and hit a playing card five times at that distance inside half a second, but a lot had happened in between. I dropped into a crouch, drew and fired, arm extended, gun chest-high. The echoes died flatly away across the oily sea. I reloaded at once and went forward.
    Two hits out of five . Even if the other three rounds hadn’t been too far off target it still wasn’t good enough. I returned to the firing line, adopted the conventional target stance, gun at eye level, and fired at each card in turn, taking my time.
    I got all five as I had expected, put up fresh cards and tried again. I still stayed with the target stance, but this time emptied the gun fairly rapidly.
    Once more a hit on each card . I was ready to go back to square one again. I put up more cards, turned and found Burke at the bottom of the path. He stood there watching, anonymous in his dark glasses, and I turned on the firing line, drew and fired, and five shots so close together that theysounded like one continuous roll. As I reloaded, he went forward and got the card. Four hits—three close together, one at twelve o’clock. A whisker higher and it would have missed altogether.
    â€œA little time, Stacey,” he said. “That’s all you need.”
    He held out his hand and I gave him the Smith and Wesson. He tried the balance for a moment, then pivoted and fired using his own rather peculiar stance, right foot so far forward that his left knee almost touched the ground, gun straight out in front of him.
    He had five hits, three close together, the other two straying towards the right hand edge. I showed him the card without comment. He nodded gravely, no visible satisfaction on his face.
    â€œNot bad. Not bad at all. A tendency to kick to the right a little. Maybe you could lighten the trigger.”
    â€œAll right, you’ve made your point.” I started to reload. “Why didn’t you bring the heavy brigade with you?”
    â€œPiet and Legrande?” He shook his head. “This is between you and me, Stacey—no one else.”
    â€œA special relationship, is that what you’re trying to say? Just like America and England.”
    He didn’t exactly boil over, but there was angerthere, pulsating just beneath the surface of things.
    â€œAll right, so I got out a little later than I’d intended. Have you any idea how much organizing it took? What it cost?”
    He stood there, waiting, I think for some gesture from me and when it didn’t come, turned abruptly and walked to the water’s edge. He picked up a stone, pitched it away from him half-heartedly, then slumped down on a rock and sat there gazing into the distance looking strangely dejected. For the first time since I’d known him he seemed his age.
    I holstered the Smith and Wesson and squatted beside him. I offered him a cigarette without a word and he refused with a small and peculiarly characteristic gesture of one hand as if brushing something away from him.
    â€œWhat’s happened, Sean?” I said. “You’re different.”
    He moved the sunglasses, ran a hand over his face and smiled faintly, looking out to sea. “When I was your age, Stacey, the future held a kind of infinite promise. Now I’m forty-eight and it’s all somewhere behind me.”
    It sounded like the sort of remark he’d spent a lot of careful work on beforehand, a characteristic of the Irish that didn’t just start with Oscar Wilde.
    â€œI get it,” I said. “This is dust and ashes morning.”
    He carried straight on as if I hadn’t said a word. “Life has a habit of catching up on all of us sooner or later, I suppose. You wake up one morning and suddenly for the first time ever, you want to know what it’s all about. When you’re on the margin of things like me, it’s probably too late