“You thinking about trying a vending-machine snack anyway,” he said.
“Too much work to break into one,” I said. “And I’m not so hungry I’m willing to chance it.”
“Yep. You know, I bowled here a couple of times. Did you know this is where you could meet men if you were gay?”
“I bet it’s where heterosexuals could meet folks too,” I said.
“You know, you’re probably right. Sometimes I wish life were simple like back then.”
“You mean when you had separate water fountains and toilets?”
“No. After that. When I could come here.”
“I’m not so sure those days were the sweet spot we make them in memory.”
“You might be right,” Leonard said.
We got bored and tired all over again, and we bold adventurers went back to the spare couches, chose one apiece, stretched out. I was asleep so fast, I don’t really remember putting my head against the dusty backrest of the couch.
41
I wasn’t out long before the wind woke me up. The rain was coming down hard again too. I could hear it running through the roof somewhere, dripping into the bowling alley.
I had gone from a dead sleep to being wide awake, and right now that wind and that rain seemed to be the only sounds in the world. I got up with my light and discovered that near the wide front doors, just over them on the inside, there was a leak. The ceiling had been taking a weather beating for a long time, and the rain was slipping in and running onto the floor, and the floor had warped slightly and that part of the place smelled of mildew and what I assumed from experience was rat turds.
I hadn’t seen that leak when I was on the second floor. That seemed real important to me right then, like maybe I was surveying property I intended to buy. I guessed it had been leaking through the roof above the shower and draining along the edges of the shower, breaking open the ceiling over time. A few more years and that whole section would come down.
I thought I should try to go back to sleep, but then I heard something outside that wasn’t the wind and the rain but a loud growling sound. I went to the wire-mesh window on one side of the door and looked out. There was a row of lights on top of something moving toward the bowling center.
It was coming up the long drive toward the bowling alley, splashing through the rain. I could tell the way the lights were set and the way it moved that it was the vehicle Leonard had described after looking out the front door of the cop shop. It came to a stop about fifty feet from the front door.
But how had they found us?
“Hey,” I called out as I turned off my flashlight. “The assholes are here.”
It took me a couple of calls to wake Manny and Leonard up, but when they were awake, they got their long guns and came over and stood near me and looked out the window.
Nikki didn’t have a gun, but she came over too. I was glad I had forgotten to give her one of those pills that would knock her out. It was best we were all alert now.
“How the hell?” Leonard said.
And then the walkie clipped to Manny’s belt squawked.
“Ah, shit,” Manny said.
She pulled the walkie off her belt, touched a button, and a voice said, “You know, I have a tracker in the walkie-talkies to make sure I have all my men in place. I got the gear to track you without having to do anything other than climb inside my truck. This thing has a nice movie screen, impossibly comfortable seats, a winch, this bullhorn, and the nice spotlights you are currently experiencing. It even has a wet bar. Fact is, right now I’m sipping a glass of premium scotch. Anyway, I know you’re in there. Look, send snow girl out, and we’ll make it quick for her, and the rest of you, we let you go.”
Manny clicked the walkie. “We been through this.”
“Yeah,” said Keith’s voice. “I know you know I’m bullshitting you, but I wanted to see what would happen. I thought maybe you had turned stupid.”
“Look, we’re going to be generous,” Manny said. “If you surrender to us now, no one gets hurt.”
We could hear Keith laugh.
Manny dropped the walkie-talkie on the floor and put her foot on it and it snapped into pieces.
“Sort of figured he wasn’t going to surrender,” she said.
Now came a loudspeaker voice from a device attached to the security vehicle. It was louder than the walkie-talkie, and it was Keith laughing at us. He didn’t say a word, just laughed like an idiot, and then there was silence.
“Seen too many James Bond films,” Leonard said.
While we watched through the long glass window, the door to the vehicle opened on the right side, and a big man got out. He was the big black man who had been driving the garbage truck. He had a long gun of some sort. He was the man I had shot. He was a black Hulk. All he needed to do then was say “Me smash.”
A moment later an SUV pulled up behind the security vehicle and five shapes got out of it. I couldn’t make out any of them, really.
“See Kung Fu Bobby out there?” Leonard said.
“There’s one guy smaller than the others, I think that’s him.”
“Yeah, could be,” Leonard said. “What is that motherfucker, a cat? Ought to be in some kind of circus act or trying out for the Olympics or something.”
“Maybe you can rep him?”
“Think I could make him and me a lot of money.”
I saw the big black man raise his weapon. “Quick,” I said. “Step away.”
And step we did. The glass beside the door burst apart and the wire woven inside the glass was twisted. The bullet smacked something in the background but, fortunately, none of us.
We hurried to the couches. I’m not sure why, but it had suddenly become our gathering point.
I said, “They’ll be coming in, and pretty quick. Maybe the front door, maybe the back, probably both. They’ll hook the winch on that truck out there to the van and pull it away. It’ll be easy.”
“Upstairs,” Manny said.
“I don’t love that idea,” Leonard said.
“Until you got a better one, I’m taking Nikki up there with me. I might be able to hold them off better from that position.”
“Oh God,” Nikki said.
“I’m going to do my best to protect you,” Manny said.
“Her best is damn good,” I said.
Nikki nodded, but she was beginning to tremble.
Manny headed for the stairs, Nikki following, Leonard and me pulling up the rear. When we got to where the stairs turned, me and Leonard stopped. I said, “I’ll stay here at the corner, see if I can hold them a bit. Maybe you can find a way out up there.”
“Yeah, we’ll just turn ourselves to water and slip down the drain. Shit, Hap, we get up there, we might as well bend over and kiss our asses good-bye. Or there’s always the roof. We might find a hole somewhere leads up there, but then they can climb up and shoot at us until they hit something.”
“I’m sorry to say I’m not exactly full of fresh ideas.”
“I got one,” Leonard said. “You stay here, and I’ll go down and get behind the pin racks, take a position in an opening. They might not expect that, and it’ll give me some cover.”
“You know I should do that, not you.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you can’t shoot like me. I need to catch the first ones in.”
Leonard sighed.
“Shit, you’re probably right. Hate it when you’re right. I’ll stay here at the stairs, maybe we can get them in a cross fire or some such.”
“Just don’t get me in that cross fire. I’ll be the handsome white man hiding in one of the pin openings. I want to stay handsome and alive.”
“You ain’t handsome.”
“Then let’s just make sure I stay alive.”
Manny came back down the stairs. “What the hell, boys?”
I told her.
She gave Leonard her long gun. “You’ll need this, and I’ll take your han
dgun to add to mine, maybe give one to Nikki. It might come to that.”
Leonard gave it to her. I reached for my handgun.
“Keep it,” Manny said. “I think you might need a lot of ammunition.” She gave me some of her ammunition to go with the long gun, and Leonard gave me some of his; all the sets matched. I had automatic rifles and a shotgun and a pistol now. If I only had crossing bandoliers.
“I’ll try to barricade upstairs, protect Nikki,” Manny said. “But that will leave you out here, Leonard.”
“I’d rather be where I can see Hap.”
“All right.”
“If you can get out with Nikki, get out,” I said.
“Believe me, I’d have no trouble leaving your asses behind, but I’m not sure there’s a way out. Nice knowing you boys.”
“Same to you,” I said.
Manny went back up and I slipped down the stairs and skulked to one of the wooden lanes and went down it with my body bent. I slid in on my side where a bowling-pin drop was open, wiggled on through.
When I was in the path behind where the pins were racked, I tracked along the openings back there, found one I thought best, one where I could see the front door. They came through the back door, they had to come along the side of the alley, and since I was in the center, eventually I would see them as they came forward. And Leonard would have them right in line for a shot.
I looked and saw Leonard’s shadow at the place where the stairs turned, and then his shadow slipped out of view behind the wall. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves a little, but it was the kind of calm that wouldn’t last, and the air tasted like the dust from a mummy’s shroud.
The truck lights went away and left the windows at the front of the bowling center dark, and then I heard that big damn truck rolling along the side of the building, and then it was at the back. A 747 could have landed with less noise than that mechanical beast.
And then I heard the sound of the winch out back being snapped into place, and then I heard it pulling the van away from the door, as I suspected they would do, and then the front door cracked and turned my attention there as wind and rain spilled into the room.
Someone was trying to be clever and push it open in the dark slowly, but I saw it.
I saw it all right.
But nothing happened, not right away. Damn, they were coming from both ends of the building, and soon the place would be swarming with them.
I took a deep breath, told myself, “I still live,” using the mantra of one of my favorite childhood fictional heroes, John Carter of Mars.
42
Things began to slow and I felt fear crawling along my spine like a centipede. I was tired and I was dealing with a lot of assholes, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it from all angles, even if I had a fair view of everything. I placed the gun on the alley beneath the pin rack and waited. My hands were sweating and I felt warm, even though the air wasn’t all that humid.
In fact, the front door was wide open now, and the wind and rain were coming inside, and it was a cool wind, I guess, but I sure wasn’t cool. My blood was boiling with fearful anticipation. I thought: I have killed before, and I can do it again, and maybe I can do it too easily. All these goddamn guns, and all these bad places I put myself into, and no matter how I justified it, I was a goddamn killer. I had crossed the line a long time ago, and you can’t uncross that line, and that’s what’s scary.
I wiped my damp hands on my pants, picked up the long gun.
I saw a shadow slip through the door, a shadow with an automatic rifle, I presumed. I had him in my sight, and I eased the trigger slowly as I gently let out my breath. I can’t describe why I can shoot like I can, but I’ve always had the knack. I learned early on how to shoot, but there was nothing classical about it. I didn’t really care for guns at all, but if you put one in my hand, it was like a natural extension. Where I pointed, I could quite often hit, and right then I was pointing at that shadow, and as my breath was eased and the trigger was pulled, I saw the top of the shadow, where the head was, become a black swarm like bees flying out from their hive. The shape collapsed in a heap to the floor and the shadowy swarm splattered against the wall.
And then the back door was slung open, and though I couldn’t quite see it, I could hear them coming through. Three or four steps in, they would be visible if I angled myself a little, but now others were coming through the front door, and they were firing in my direction. I wasn’t sure if they saw me or had seen the gunfire, but now I held the trigger down and let the sparks fly, filling that doorway with hot destruction.
I figured they had a plan to get me busy on one end, then take me from the other, but I knew Leonard was facing the back door from the stairwell, so I decided to forget about the back door, concentrate on the front.
There was fire from the stairway toward the back door, and the firing was loud. Leonard was at work.
I emptied a clip, and while I was reloading one of those Manny had given me, I dropped down behind the alley for protection, and when I did, splinters from the alley floor in front of the loading rack were knocked up by wild shots. Some of the splinters sprayed me. One of them stuck in my cheek, another in my forehead.
I crawled along the floor with my weapons, holding the long gun, the pistols shoved into my coat pockets. I was pushing the shotgun before me. All those shells in my pockets made me feel as heavy as a bag of bricks.
I inched down two lanes, came up there, poked the rifle through, let loose again. This time I caught someone coming in the front door, probably thinking he was safe, that I was pinned down and couldn’t shoot.
He was wrong.
I cut him across the groin with one sweep, across the neck with another as he dropped to a knee. I thought I saw some sparks against his chest, where shots had hit his protective vest. The shooter fell over against the headless shadow already there, and I could hear him moaning, and it was a sickening sound. I wanted to shoot him again just to shut him up but knew I should save the ammunition. That guy, alive or not, was fucked, and good, and he was no longer a threat.
Leonard was breaking it down, shooting fast, flooding the back door like a fireman watering flames. After a moment, the firing stopped. It was clear Leonard had driven them back. I heard him click in a new clip.
We hadn’t been as easy as they’d thought, not the way we were positioned. They thought we were cake, and we were poison.
Come on, motherfuckers, come on back, run at it again.
I felt the fire rising up in me. I felt the thing I feared about myself most. A kind of anger that could surface and make me red-hot and madly savage or coldly efficient; sometimes, it was a little of both. It was a thing that squirmed in the primitive part of my brain. It came loose a little too easy, but right then, I needed it. I was down to survival, not philosophy.
I didn’t know how much was in the new clip, because the first one went pretty fast. I had held the trigger down on that one, like my finger was glued to it. I decided I had to be more careful. The shotgun was near me and I had the handguns. They were backup, but my best bet right then was the military-style weapon from the cop-shop armory.
I dropped back out of sight, my ears open for any sound. After a moment, it was all too much, and I slipped up for a peek.
No one was moving. The moaning was still going on. And then there was a burst and a bright burn of gunfire stitched across the night and the moaner was put out of his misery. They had killed their own killer.
That was one way to do it. At least it was quiet for a moment.
I knew one thing: Mercy from them was not an option, not if they cleaned up their wounded like that. I had a feeling when it came down to us it wouldn’t be that quick. No way. Wilson Keith was a vengeful asshole. He was going to make it as miserable for us as he could manage.
I was trying not to breathe too loudly, but my breath was still a little ragged. It felt as if it were climbing out of my lungs wearing a sandpaper suit.
Leonard
opened up again, fire jumping from his position. I heard the sound of hot lead smacking flesh and bone.
And then there was a ramming noise and the back wall moved, and then there was a crashing sound, and some of the ceiling came down behind me.
Keith’s vehicle had slammed into the back door of the bowling alley, pushed forward, and stopped. I could see the nose of it. The tires rotated savagely. Keith’s killer machine was stuck; it had broken the doorway apart, but the back end had hung up somehow. I could tell that by the black smoke wafting up from the front tires. There was a cracking sound, and the vehicle edged in a little more, its headlights bright, its row of lights on the roof brighter. The tires grabbed the floor and the truck broke completely free of the wall and came charging into the room like a bull looking to gore a matador.
A window was down on the driver’s side, and a long gun was hanging out of it, and it was firing in Leonard’s direction. Leonard jumped behind the wall, out of sight. The truck stopped and the driver got out holding his weapon.
It wasn’t Keith. It was the big black guy.
The weapon in his hand looked like something out of a science fiction movie. He was crouched and ready, but he wasn’t firing.
Then there was a loud blast followed by a crash and a tinkling of glass. The light from the vehicle was so bright that even though the big man was not in front of it, I could still see him clearly in its spreading glow, and in that moment, when the glass fell from on high, the top of the big man’s head split wide open and his knees folded and he hit the floor with one leg twisted behind him in a way no one could naturally make his legs go, not even that kung fu son of a bitch, wherever he was.
I glanced up. I saw Manny briefly, she having been the one who’d made the shot that shattered the glass upstairs and split the big guy’s head wide open. She darted into the shadows with her gun in her hand. The gunfire from the other side of the vehicle that was sprayed up there was way too late. They had lost one of their best men, and Manny was still an active shooter.
During all the confusion, with the glass shattering, Leonard had moved off the stairs and behind the low wall near the couches. There was a gap there so bowlers could make their way to the bathroom, get better shoes, or cross over to the vending-machine room. I discovered he was there because suddenly he was firing from that position, and whoever was at the vehicle wasn’t firing back.
The Elephant of Surprise Page 13
