Mickey Kee stood at the open window for a minute, staring down at Kurtz's body through the hole in the metal canopy and then glancing up at the vehicle burning in the distance. He was curious about the explosion, but he hadn't let it deter him from his work.
His charge from Mr. Gonzaga had been—kill Kurtz, then kill Millworth. In Mr. Gonzaga's words, "Any fucking cop crazy enough to hire me to kill somebody is too fucking crazy to be left alive." Mickey Kee had not disagreed. Mr. Gonzaga had added that he wanted Kurtz's head—literally—and Kee had brought a gunny sack on his belt to transport the trophy. Mr. G planned to give Ms. Angelina Farino a surprise present.
Kee had been mildly disappointed twenty minutes earlier when Millworth and his two sidekicks had come into the station like the Keystone Kops shuffling along in body armor. He'd followed them to Kurtz, knowing that the time was not right to take care of Millworth, that it was too risky with all of that firepower in the hands of clowns. Now this explosion. With any luck, Millworth was no longer a factor. If it hadn't been the homicide detective's pyre, then Mickey Kee would drive to Millworth's house and take care of things there. The evening was young.
Moving silently even over broken glass, Kee circled the mezzanine and went down the stairs, across the rotunda, and out the front door. Kurtz's body had not moved.
Kee slipped his Beretta out of its holster and approached carefully. Kurtz had made a mess coming through the overhang. Rebar hung down like spaghetti. Plaster and rotted wood were scattered around the body. Kurtz's right arm was visibly broken, the bone visible, and his left leg looked all twisted out of position. His left arm was pinned under his body just as he had fallen on it. There was blood soaking the snow around Kurtz's head and his eyes were wide and staring fixedly at the sky through the hole he'd made in the overhang. Snow-flakes settled on the open eyes.
Mickey Kee straddled the body and counted to twenty. No breath rising in the cold air. Kee spat down onto Kurtz's open mouth. No movement. The eyes stared past Kee into intergalactic space.
Kee grunted, slipped away the Beretta, pulled the gunny sack from his belt, and clicked open the eight-inch blade on his combat knife.
Kurtz blinked and brought his left hand up and around, squeezing the trigger of the Compact Witness.45 he'd pulled out during his fall. The bullet hit Mickey Kee under the chin, passed through his soft palate and brain, and blew the top of his skull off.
The.45 suddenly grew too heavy to hold so Kurtz dropped it. He would have liked to have closed his eyes to go away from the pain, but Kee's body was too heavy on his damaged chest to let him breathe, so he pulled the body off him with his left hand, rolled over painfully, and began crawling on his belly toward the distant flames.