No, he says. His eyes go off, following his mind somewhere I don’t want to go. This is bullshit. I start to tell him this is bullshit when he says:
I couldn’t, Burdon. I didn’t have a choice.
Choice? I say.
No choice, he says. Then:
They wanted you, he says.
They? I tell him. They, Jules? Who the fuck are they?
The helicopter hovers outside the shattered east wall of the church, its landing lights strobing over the ruins, the haunted faces, the lines of departing automobiles, as it drifts down to the lawn. I see the helicopter and I see another helicopter, the one on television, the one grazing the roof of the Hotel Excelsior. The Feds who weren’t Feds. Or maybe they were Feds. Or maybe—
How far does this thing go, Jules? How far up the fucking chain does it go?
Burdon, he says, it doesn’t go up. It doesn’t go down. It goes around. It goes around and around.
Jules—
Listen, he says. This is business, okay? I do what I’m asked to do. And I do what I’m told. How else do you think I could have stayed in business for all these years? Do you think it was dumb luck? Do you think the law never noticed? I was just doing … business.
Well, I say. Try telling that to Gideon Parks. Or that kid over there. What is this all about, Jules? It can’t be just about guns.
Damn it, Lane. Use what’s left of your head. Of course it’s about guns. Maybe not for them. But for me? It’s always about guns. You ever listen to that Gideon Parks? Getting nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize wasn’t enough for him. The Reverend Parks, he actually wanted peace. He wanted to disarm the gangs, put those punks to work, put them in school. And the people, the kids even, they were listening to him. My God, the Mayor of New York was giving him money. Bills were being introduced in Congress, and these days real patriots like Senator Blaine, the ones who can stop that sort of nonsense, are in short supply. Disarming America? Disarming us? Imagine that, Lane, can you? What kind of world would that be?
So you killed him, I say. For his words, you killed him. For wanting peace, you killed him.
Blessed are the peacemakers, Jules tells me. Isn’t that what the Good Book says? Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God?
Well, Jules tells me, we just speeded up his appointment.
And if there’s something else to be said, it’s not happening, because there’s a shadow sweeping down on us and there’s a voice to go with that shadow, and the voice says:
Boss.
It’s CK, and CK says: Chopper’s here. Let’s get you and yours out of here.
Okay, Jules says, and he doesn’t look at me again. He says to CK: You coming?
No, sir, CK says, and there’s that blank face and he says: We got some unfinished business.
Jules sighs and says: Yes. Well, do what you have to do. But for Christ’s sake, Clarence, do it right this time. And get those goddamn bearer bonds.
Then he’s straightening his tuxedo and he’s marching down the aisle and he’s gathering in his latest blonde and Meredith and her beau, and there’s Senator and Mrs. Blaine and a couple cronies, and that’s Agent Smithee with them, and Agent Smithee ushers them into the narthex and down the yellow brick road to the waiting helicopter. Next stop, somewhere far, far away.
So now it’s CK’s show.
I stand there for a while with my hands in my pockets and CK stands next to me, and we watch the lights flickering through the broken cathedral windows, and soon enough the wings of that helicopter stir, speeding up, and together we watch that black dragonfly lift off the lawn and right about now I look at CK and CK is watching that helicopter like he’s hypnotized, he can’t take his eyes away from it, and I wonder and then I think and then I know why, and that’s when I say to CK, I say:
No.
CK doesn’t blink. He just says: Yes.
The helicopter hovers ten or so feet off the ground and its nose rotates slowly toward the ruined church. Toward us.
I say to CK: Who’s flying the bird?
CK says: Hoyt Lindgren. Then: You know him?
Oh, yeah, I say. Flown with him. Steady guy.
The helicopter rises, completing the semicircle, angling toward the northwest and its flight path, probably to National Airport.
CK says: What a shame. What a crying shame.
The helicopter leans into a steeper angle and begins to climb: Fifty feet, a hundred feet.
CK says: I really hate to lose a good pilot.
Which is when the helicopter explodes, erupting into a frantic flaming junkyard that rains charred metal and vaporized lives back onto the lawn.
CK turns and shows me his teeth. Connect the dots, he says. Connect the fucking dots.
This is—
I start to say it’s insane, but I think better about using that word, so instead I say:
This doesn’t make sense. You can’t sweep all this under the rug.
CK talks to me like he’s passing the time of day. Come on, Burdon, he says. It makes perfect sense. Jules was everything the nigger said he was: old and in the way. So now he’s neither of those things. And now, if push comes to shove, he’s the fall guy. It’s gonna make my friends real happy. And unlike you, I got friends. Lots of friends. And my friends, they’re the best in the business. They’re in those high places you might have heard about. They been doing this sort of thing for years.
CK sniffs that cordite air. Breathes it greedily, like a guy who’s decided to start smoking again, taking his first new drag.
Lots and lots of friends, he says. And you know what? My friends, they got some mighty big rugs.
He leans into me. His hand grips my wounded shoulder and he squeezes. I try to shut the pain inside. No way he’s going to hear me scream.
But you, Lane, you got nothing. He squeezes my shoulder again and my eyes wince shut; I wonder if it is possible to faint.
Old Jules was right about that one, CK says. You got nothing.
You’re wrong, I manage to say through the pain. My voice is ancient, but the words find their way out: I got something.
I do, I tell him. I really do.
He eases up on my shoulder. I try to stand steady. I get a deep breath, then another.
Look, I tell him.
I keep the movement slow, simple and slow, and what I do is bring my right fist out of my coat pocket to show him what I’ve got. Simple and slow and he’s with me; he wants to see and I want to show him.
I raise that fist between us and I roll the curled fingers over and then, simple and slow, I open my fist and I show him.
There in the palm of my hand is what I’ve got, and it’s all I’ve got: A nine-millimeter bullet. The one that was in Renny Two Hand’s fist when I found his body in the ravine. I didn’t know then why he was holding that bullet in his hand, but now I know.
Now I know.
I tilt my palm toward CK. The bullet rolls onto my fingers. I pinch the bullet between my thumb and forefinger. I bring the bullet close to CK’s face, right to his eyes, and I say again:
Look.
He looks. He looks hard. He squints at that shiny hard-nosed cylinder and he sees but he doesn’t see, because what I show him is there but it isn’t there.
Because what I have is a bullet, just a bullet, and a bullet needs a gun, right?
Wrong.
I shove the bullet into his eye.
The sound isn’t a scream, the sound from his mouth is a choked exhalation of air and astonishment, and my finger and thumb worry the bullet into the remains of his right eye, this goo, this jelly, this sticky mess, until he falls away from me, falls to the floor, and I’m past him and right smack into Prince Charming.
Whatever Prince Charming’s trying to say, it’s too late for talking, and he’s good, he’s fast, his right shoulder dips and he comes up with his pistol, but my fist slams down on his forearm, and the pistol spins away, clattering into the pews. I try to step back but my balance is gone. Prince Cha
rming uppercuts me and I manage to duck my head, take the knuckles glancing on my cheek and above the ear, into the hard part of the skull. Still it hurts, Jesus it hurts, but Prince Charming yells too and now he’s shaking his hand like maybe he broke a finger or two in the bargain. I can’t back away, so I step in, punching into his gut and then raising up and butting my head into his face. I hear a nice crack, feel the bite of teeth against my hair and scalp, and he’s dancing away from me. But not for long.
His arms take me into a bear hug and now I can smell copper, blood, it’s my blood, it’s his blood, I don’t fucking care, I grab at my Glock in the front of his pants. Prince Charming’s arms pull up to my neck and I’ve got the butt of the pistol but it won’t come free, I can’t get it free, so I just start pulling the trigger. The blowback kicks the Glock out of his belt and Prince Charming screams and screams and then he shuts up and falls down.
I dig into his pockets and repossess another one of my Glocks, scoop some magazines from the floor. Then I step over the body and start shooting.
People say that violence solves nothing, but they’re wrong, they’re so very wrong. I loose my Glocks on these killers and it solves them, oh, yes, it solves them.
I K-5 the first guy, single shot, center of mass, end of story.
The next guy’s caught in the open too, and he spins like a dervish when I fire twice and put him facedown into the carpet.
Number three jerks a sawed-off from beneath his trenchcoat and starts down the aisle. I dive left, firing as I go, take him twice in the chest, and he’s history. The fourth guy jack-in-the-boxes out of the last row and almost gets his weapon up when I spray him with death. Behind him the fifth guy, it’s Martinez, he scrambles for cover behind a pew. He reaches his pistol around the wood and snaps a couple wild shots my way. Not even close. I steady my grip and blow his hand off. He tumbles back and I finish him.
I empty the magazine into the next two guys and then I’m across the aisle, diving and sliding on the wood floor, my ruined shoulder taking the impact.
I crawl beneath the pews, feeling nothing but pain, getting my breath and my brain together. I lose the empty magazine, snap in a full one, and take inventory. Somewhere behind me is CK, still curled on the floor, no doubt, hand to his ruined eye. He won’t have let go of that Magnum. But there’s no one back there with him, which leaves five or six or seven guys between me and the door to the narthex.
Footsteps, coming from the left. I hug the carpet, watch high-powered rounds punch a ragged line of quarter-sized holes through the back of the pew. Count down the number of shots as the fool runs his magazine.
Then I stand, raising the first Glock and then the second, I stand and I offer them death with both hands, blasting my way into the aisle, blasting him and him and him and him and finally McCarty, who shouts something incomprehensible, his body undone, as he collapses into death. Then:
Silence.
Nothing.
But it’s not over. No way it’s over. I roll out of the aisle and it’s back to go: collect two hundred dollars and start reloading. But I need more than these pistols.
I look for what this is going to take: A shotgun. It doesn’t take long. There are always more guns—always—because it’s our right, our goddamn right to own them. And there, across the aisle, is the gun I need: An Ithaca police pump in the grip of a dead guy.
But where is CK? Where the fuck is CK?
I can’t feature the voice. It’s out in the narthex and it’s barking names, probably putting the troops into position, somewhere beyond the door, getting ready for their version of the bounding overwatch, a little SWAT dance that goes something like this: Teams of two make the entry, alternating between point and cover positions. The point man boogies through the door in a low crouch or a dive. He flattens and starts rocking full auto while his partner scoots in to a better firing position and opens up while the point man advances, takes cover, and starts firing again while his partner moves. Like playing leapfrog. It’s a tough act to pull the curtain on, and outside that door are lots of guys, but inside there’s just me. They’re going to come in pairs and more pairs, and there’s … how many of them? Twenty, thirty, maybe more, with backup on the way. Oh, yeah, they’re going to come, and they’re going to keep coming.
And me, I’m laughing.
I’m laughing because I’m here and I’m alone and I am so very, very fucked.
I thought I had a plan. But it was just a script for a suicide.
I back off, the shotgun leveled at the door, and find the place I want, pick a pew, any pew, as if wood is going to matter with what they’re going to be throwing at me, and I settle in about fifty feet from the door, which gives me some cover and enough distance to make whatever the point man shoots a Hail Mary. I set the shotgun down in front of me and check the first of my Glocks. It’s been fired to lock-back, so I replace the magazine. I rack that pistol, stick it in my belt, and check the second one. It goes into the Bianchi holster at my back. Then I heft the shotgun. It’s the best goddamn defensive weapon going. But it’s only got eight rounds.
I wait and I wait, wondering if they’ve got fireworks or maybe tear gas to start the show, that would ruin my whole day, and when I’ve waited enough, I dry my hands on my pants and I aim the shotgun at that pair of doors and I count one, I count two, I count three, and that’s when the shooting starts again, but the shooting is outside, the shooting is out there in the narthex, the alcove, the lobby, whatever, and holes are blowing inward, through the wall, through the double doors, heavy metal renovation that punches out fat chunks of plaster and wood. There are screams, too, the kind you don’t think men can make until you hear them. Screams and gunshots and more screams.
The doors burst open and it’s one of them, only one, and he’s running and falling, running and falling at the same time, and I stand and let go with the shotgun and he’s down and he’s dead.
I’m into the aisle. I bob and weave toward the narthex, expecting the doors to go wide again at any moment with a rush of bodies firing full auto. I’m almost there when the doors burst open but it’s the same routine, it’s one of them, only one, and this time it’s Prince Charming’s partner, Agent Smithee, the smiley-faced Fed, and he’s firing his handgun but not at me, he’s firing back at the doors, into the narthex, and by the time he stops and turns and looks at me, he knows he’s made a big mistake.
And he’s right, he’s made a very big mistake.
I blast the smile off his face and into forever.
And I don’t stop, I pump and keep blasting, and the next shot tears those doors apart and the pieces are still falling as I pump and fire and pump and fire until I click down on empty. I toss the shotgun aside, pull the first Glock.
What’s left of the doors swing, creak, swing, creak, shudder closed and into silence.
I kick through the broken doors and they collapse into pieces. What I find on the other side is not a narthex, it’s a slaughterhouse. Somebody’s spray-painted the place with blood. I count nine, ten, make that eleven bodies on the floor. All of them are dead, except for the one over there, in the corner, the one slumped with a bitter kind of smile on his face, a pistol in each hand and a couple bullet holes in his body.
The black one.
My old pal Jinx.
He drops the pistol from his left hand, then roundhouses the revolver in his right, tries to shovel it back into his shoulder holster, but he’s not looking and there’s so much blood on him that the pistol slides along the leather and falls clattering to the floor.
I come crashing to the hardwood next to him and I say to Jinx, I say to the guy:
Jesus Christ.
And he just says: Burdon Lane.
He looks at the bodies, looks at me, and he says:
I been a bad man.
From outside, at long last, comes the sound of sirens.
eighty f
Saved by the bell? I don’t think so.
I think this is going to get a lot
worse before it gets any better. If it gets any better.
My knees are burning. My pants are torn, my knees scraped raw from falling to the floor. Only now, looking at Jinx, do I feel the burn, the blood.
Took them long enough, I say to him.
He just says: Huh?
The cops, I tell him.
He just says: Oh.
There’s a ragged mess of a wound zigzagging along his right leg, something else soaking his shirt. He’s wearing blood. Some of it’s even his own.
The doors, the wide wooden doors of the cathedral, are twenty feet away. It could be a mile. We’re not going out that way. At least not on our feet.
Beyond those doors there’s another sound, and it’s closer than the sirens. It’s the sound of men with guns, men who won’t give up and go home, men who are going to kill or be killed.
The men beyond the door. They’re coming. Oh, yeah, they’re coming.
How many? I say to him.
Didn’t have time to count, he says, out of breath. But you saw, they got a fuckin army out there.
His wet hands come alive, taking his Ruger from the floor. He works a speedloader out of his pants and reloads the .38. Then he lamps the bodies around us. He doesn’t see what he wants.
He looks at me, says what I’m thinking:
Where’s your friend CK?
He’s—I start to tell him that CK’s back there in the sanctuary. But he’s not. He’s not there.
Jinx looks at me and I don’t like this grin. It’s a new one, not the wolf, not the predator. It’s an empty grin, the one that says something very bad is about to happen.
Doctor D could of shot him dead, Jinx says. But no. You had to be the one, didn’t you?
Yeah, I told him. And you know what? I still do.
He’s all yours, Jinx says. I’m done with my shootin.
I want to tell him that I doubt it, but that’s when they pull the curtain on our little homecoming celebration. A salvo of high-powered rounds blows overhead and ventilates the wall behind us. It’s a turkey shoot, nothing tactical, they’re out there unloading anything and everything they’ve got.
Run Page 23
