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Same rounds we use.

Byrth took out one of the magazines. He snapped back the top of the polymer box to reveal the shiny brass bullets inside.

“This’ll take just a second, if you don’t mind,” he said.

“No problem,” Payne replied. He added, “So you like the.45, too?”

Byrth clenched a magazine in his right hand and was pulling rounds from the box and using his thumb to feed them one by one into the top of the magazine.

“Too?” Byrth repeated. “I take it you’re a fan, then.”

Payne said, “You ever hear the story of the pacifist who got in the cop’s face and whined, ‘How come you carry a.45, tough guy?’ ”

Byrth grinned and made a soft grunt.

“Yeah,” he said. “And the cop replied, ‘Because they don’t make a fucking.46.’”

“That was no story,” Payne said. “That was me.”

Byrth chuckled.

Payne then discreetly reached inside his shirt and brought out his Colt Officer’s Model, taking care to keep it concealed from passersby.

Byrth nodded appreciatively. “I sometimes carry an Officer’s as my backup.”

He fed the eighth round to the magazine he’d been charging, then took a single round from the polymer box. He picked up the pistol, pulled back its slide, slipped the single round into the throat, and let the slide go forward. The moving of the slide backward caused the hammer to go into the cocked position. He then used his right thumb to throw the lever on the left rear of the slide, thereby leaving the pistol “cocked and locked.” And he slid the charged magazine into its place in the grip of the pistol.

He reached back into the clamshell box and took out the black leather skeleton holster. He unbuckled his belt and threaded the holster onto it so that it rode on his right hip inside his navy blazer. He secured the pistol in it. Finally, he loaded a second magazine, then a third. These he slipped into the front pockets of his pants, one magazine in each pocket.

He looked at Payne with what Payne thought was a look of satisfaction.

“Okay,” Byrth said with a smile. “I feel whole.”

“I know what you mean,” Payne said, securing his Officer’s Model back under his waistband.

“Excuse me, Jim,” Payne said motioning with the phone as they drove up I-95. “This won’t take a second.”

Jim Byrth shook his head in a gesture that said, No problem, then casually took in the river view.

Payne noticed motion at Byrth’s left hand, which he rested on his left thigh. He looked more closely and saw that Byrth had a small dry white bean on the top of his fingers. He manipulated the bean by moving the fingers in series-tumbling it end over end from his pointing finger to his middle finger to his ring finger to his pinky, then tumbling it back to the pointing finger.

He moved the bean quickly. It was evident that Byrth had had plenty of practice.

Some kind of nervous energy going on there, Jim?

Payne turned his attention to the highway. Into his cell phone he said, “Hi, Amy. Can I call you back in a bit?”

He listened for a moment.

“Yeah, that’s what I want to talk with you about.” He paused. “No, Amy, I didn’t ‘kill another one.’ I could do without your attempt at sarcasm.”

That caused Jim Byrth to twitch his head in interest.

“So then do you want to meet someplace later?” He paused. “Okay. That works. See you then.” He was about to push END but had an afterthought. “Amy? You still there?”

He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the screen. It showed that the call was dead.

Dammit! If she’d just been talking to someone at Temple’s Burn Unit, she might know something about that Dr. Amanda Law.