Bad Guys by Linwood Barclay

went flush red, his shoulders tensed, and even Stan, as fearless as he’d been a moment earlier, looked like he was getting ready to move sideways in a hurry if he had to.
    But then Stan’s attacker began to notice that he was getting a lot of attention. People had stopped looking at cars and boats and motorcycles and turned their heads in the direction of the commotion, not sure whether to intercede, watch, or move on. The guy glanced around, his lips pressed firmly together, breathing in and out in short bursts through his flat, wide nose. He gave Stan a final shove up against the SUV and strode off in the direction of the paddock exit.
    “You okay?” I said once I’d reached Stan.
    He was unruffled, just checking his cameras for any damage. “Fucking little Nazi,” he said. “Thought I was at an Afghan checkpoint there for a minute.”
    “He was crazy,” I said. “I thought he was going to explode there for a second.”
    “A suicide bomber without the dynamite,” Stan said flippantly. “Anyway, good thing he decided to take a hike.” He smiled, nodding his head toward the crowd. “Too many witnesses around. I’ll have to watch myself in dark alleys for a while.”
    Once I was sure Stan was fine, I rejoined Lawrence.
    “Let’s bid on the Virtue,” I said. “But I don’t want to go over eight-five. Eight-six, maybe. But that’s it. Maybe eight-nine.” I’d started sweating again.
    Lawrence said, “You’re grace under pressure, aren’t you?”
     
9
     
    THE OLDER WOMAN who’d been eyeing the Virtue the same time I was bailed out at $8,800. And I managed to go through the bidding process without tugging my ear or nodding my head in such a way as to end up with a $100,000 yacht by mistake.
    There was some paperwork to deal with, forms to fill out, and then the car was ours. And not just any car. But a fuel-conserving, environment-saving, socially responsible automobile. And yet, I had a feeling, once I got home with it, I was going to be made to feel like Charlie Brown after he came back with the spindly Christmas tree.
    Actually, it wasn’t quite mine yet. Lawrence wrote the check, and once I’d repaid him by the end of the day, he’d transfer the ownership to me.
    We split up outside the government auction headquarters. Lawrence left in his Jag, and I had the Virtue. I decided that its first adventure would be a drive down to the newspaper. The car’s mileage was relatively low, and it had cleaned up nicely. The ashtray didn’t even appear to have ever been used for anything but candy wrappers, and the coils on the lighter weren’t smudged with ash. What were the odds, a drug dealer who didn’t even smoke? Lawrence’s theory was that it had been a drug dealer’s wife’s or daughter’s car. How else to account for its pristine condition?
    It was roughly the same size as our old Civic. Sleeker looking, too, but not necessarily peppier. I floored it as I got onto the highway and merged with traffic, and it felt a tad, well, anemic. But it hadn’t been my intention to buy a sports car. This vehicle was going to do just fine, and when you figured that I got it for about half the price of a new one, it was a hell of a good deal. There were times when I wasn’t even sure the car was still on. Sitting at red lights, when the electric motor took over to conserve fuel, the car was practically noiseless, like a golf cart. It wasn’t until the light changed, and I tapped the accelerator and moved, that I was certain the car was still in the game.
    I found a metered spot on a side street around the corner from the
Metropolitan
building, walked past the huge bay doors where the papers rolled down off the presses, were bundled, and loaded into dozens of waiting trucks. I took the stairs up to the second-floor cafeteria and grabbed a coffee on my way to the fourth-floor newsroom.
    I set my paper cup down next to my “work station,” part of a cluster of four desks separated by chest-high