“Drop it,” Keller said.

But he didn’t drop the knife. He moved it from side to side as if trying to hypnotize a subject, and Keller looked not at the knife but at the man’s eyes, and reached behind his own back for the gun in his waistband. But of course it wasn’t there, it was tucked away in the glove compartment of a locked car, damn it all, and he’d be lucky if he ever saw it again. He was facing a man with a knife, and all he had was a plastic bag from Walgreen’s. What was he going to do, give the guy a haircut?

The woman was trying to tell him that the man had a knife, but he knew that. He didn’t listen to her but focused on the man, focused on his eyes. He couldn’t tell their color, not in that light, but he could see a keen manic energy in them, and he let go of his shopping bag and balanced his weight on the balls of his feet and tried to remember something useful from the various bits and pieces of martial arts training he’d had over the years.

He’d had classes and one-on-one instruction in kung fu and judo and tae kwon do, along with some Western-style hand-to-hand combat training, though he’d never trained in any disciplined fashion, never stayed with any of it for any length of time. But every trainer he’d ever known had offered the same instruction when you were unarmed and the other guy had a knife. The thing to do, they all would tell you, was turn around and run like hell.

The chances were considerable, they’d all agreed, that he wouldn’t chase you. And Keller was sure that was true with this drooling blond madman. He wouldn’t run after Keller, he’d stay right where he was and get back to raping the woman.

Keller watched his eyes, and when the man moved, Keller moved. He sprang to the side, kicked high in the air, and caught the wrist of the hand that held the knife. He was wearing sneakers and wished they could have been steel-toed work shoes, but his aim and his timing almost made up for whatever the sneakers lacked, and the knife went flying even as the man roared in pain.

“Okay,” he said, stepping back, rubbing at his wrist. “Okay, you win. I’m going.”

And he started to back away.

“I don’t think so,” Keller said, and went after him. The guy turned, ready to fight, and swung a roundhouse right that Keller ducked underneath. He straightened up and butted the guy in the chin, and when the guy’s head snapped back Keller reached out and grabbed hold of it, one hand closing on a fistful of greasy yellow hair, the other cupping the bristly chin.

Keller didn’t have to think about what came next. His hands knew what to do, and they did it.

He let go of the man, allowed the body to slip to the ground. A few feet away, the woman was staring, her mouth open, her shoulders heaving.

Time to go, he thought. Time to turn around and slip off into the night. By the time she pulled herself together he’d be gone. Who was that masked man? Why, I don’t know, but he left this silver bullet…

He walked over to the woman, held out a hand. She took it and he drew her to her feet.

“My God,” she said. “You just saved my life.”

If there was a response to that, Keller didn’t know what it might be. The only ones that came to mind started with Aw, shucks. He stood there with what definitely felt like an Aw shucks look on his face, and she stepped back, took a look at him, and then lowered her eyes to look down on the man at her feet.

“We have to call the police,” she said.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

“But don’t you know who he is? This has to be the man who killed the nurse three nights ago in Audubon Park, raped her and stabbed her ten, twenty times. He fits the description. And that’s not the first woman he attacked. He was going to kill me!”

“But you’re safe now,” he told her.

“Yes, and thank God for that, but that doesn’t mean we can let him walk away.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”

“What do you mean?” She took a closer look. “What did you do to him? Is he…”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“But how can that be? He had a knife, you saw it, it must have been a foot long.”

“Not quite.”

“Close enough.” She was getting her composure back, he noticed, and more quickly than he would have expected. “And you had your bare hands.”

“It’s too warm for gloves.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It was sort of a joke,” Keller said. “You said I had bare hands, and I said it was too warm to be wearing gloves.”

“Oh.”

“It wasn’t all that great a joke,” he admitted, “and explaining it doesn’t do a lot to improve it.”

“No, please, I’m sorry, I’m just a little slow at the moment. What I meant, of course, is that you didn’t have anything in your hands.”

“I had a shopping bag,” he said, and found it and picked it up. “But that’s not what you meant.”

“I meant like, you know, a gun or a knife, something like that.”

“No.”

“And he’s dead? You actually killed him?”

She was hard to read. Was she impressed? Horrified? He couldn’t tell.

“And you just turned up from out of nowhere. If I were some kind of religious crank I’d probably figure you were an angel. Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well, are you an angel?”

“Not even close.”

“I didn’t just offend you, did I? Using the term ‘religious crank’?”

“No.”

“So I guess that means you’re not a religious crank yourself, or you’d be offended. Well, thank God for that. That was a joke.”

“I thought it might be.”

“It’s not very funny,” she said, “but it’s the best I can do right now, with just my bare hands. Ha! That got a smile out of you, didn’t it?”

“It did.”

She took a breath. “You know,” she said, “even if he’s dead, we’re still supposed to call the police, aren’t we? We can’t just leave him here for the Sanitation Department to pick up. I’ve got my phone in my purse, I’ll just call 911.”

“Please don’t.”

“Why? Isn’t that what they’re for? They may not prevent crime or catch criminals, but afterwards you call them and they come in and take care of stuff. Why don’t you want me to—”

She broke off the words on her own, and she looked at him, and he saw her take in the visual information, saw it all register. She put her hand to her mouth and stared at him.

Hell.

23

“You’re safe,” he told her.

“I am?”

“Yes.”

“But—”

“Look,” he said, “I didn’t save your life so that I could kill you myself. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

She looked at him, thought it over, nodded. She was older than he’d thought at first, well up in her thirties. A pretty woman, with dark hair that fell to her shoulders.

“I’m not afraid,” she said. “But you’re—”

“Yes.”

“And you’re here in New Orleans.”

“Just for today.”

“And then—”

“Then I’ll go somewhere else.” In the distance he heard the wail of a siren, but where it was headed and whether it was an ambulance or a police car was impossible to say. “We can’t just hang around here,” he said.

“No, of course not.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said, “and then I’ll get out of your life, and out of your city. I can’t tell you what to do, but if you could just forget you ever saw me—”

“That might be difficult. But I won’t say anything, if that’s what you mean.”

That was what he meant.

They left the park, walked along Camp Street. The siren — ambulance, police, whatever it was — had faded out somewhere in the distance. At length she broke the silence to ask where he would go next, and before he could think how to respond she said, “No, don’t tell me. I don’t even know why I asked.”

“I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.”

“Why not? Oh, because you don’t know. I guess you have to wait until they tell you where to go next. You’re smiling, did I say something ridiculous?”