The footsteps, twenty feet away.
The murmur of the Lincoln's exhaust.
The beating of Ralph Baless heart.
Stevie talking like a crazy drunk. Arguing with himself.
The blonde giggling.
Then Stevie said, "A quarter, mister. Please?"
And son of a bitch, if Gaudia wasn't stopping and stepping forward with a bill.
Ralph Bales started across the street, holding the Ruger, a huge gun, barrel-heavy in his hand. Then: the woman's shrill scream and a swing of motion, a blur, as Gaudia swung her around as a shield putting her between him and Stevie's. One pop, then two. The blonde slumped.
Gaudia was running. Fast. Getting away.
Christonthecross…
Ralph Bales lifted the heavy gun and fired twice. He hit Gaudia at least once. He thought it was in the lower neck. The man stumbled onto the sidewalk, lifted a hand briefly, then lay still.
Lombro's Lincoln started away, accelerating with a sharp, gassy roar.
Silence for a moment.
Ralph Bales took a step toward Gaudia.
"Freeze!"
The scream came from only five feet away. Bales almost vomited in shock and the way his heart surged he wondered if he was having a heart attack.
"I mean you, mister!"
Ralph Bales's hand lowered, the gun pointed down. His breath flowed in and out in staccato bursts. He swallowed.
"Drop the weapon!" The voice crackled with a barely controlled hysteria.
"I'm dropping it." Ralph Bales did. He squinted as the gun fell. It didn't go off.
"Lie down on the ground!" The cop was crouching, holding his gun aimed straight at Ralph Bales's head.
"Okay!" Ralph Bales said. "Don't do anything. I'm lying down."
"Now!"
"I'm doing it now! I'm lying down now!" Ralph Bales got on his knees then lay forward on his stomach. He smelled grease and dog piss.
The cop circled around him, lacking the Ruger away and talking into his walkie-talkie. "This's Buffett. I'm in downtown Maddox, I've got a 10-13. Shots fired and two down. Need an ambulance and backup at-"
The Maddox police and fire central radio dispatcher did not find out exactly where Donnie Buffett needed the backup and ambulance-at least not at that moment. The cop's message ended abruptly when Stevie Flom stepped out of the alleyway and emptied the clip of the Beretta into his back.
Buffett grunted, dropped to his knees, and tried to reach behind him. He fell forward.
Ralph Bales climbed to his feet, picked up the Ruger. He walked over to the unconscious cop and pointed the big gun at his head. He cocked it.
Slowly the heavy blue muzzle nestled itself in the cop's damp hair. Ralph Bales covered his eyes with his left hand. His heart beat eight times. His hand tensed. It relaxed. He stepped back and turned away from the cop, settling on one head shot for Gaudia and one for the blonde.
Then, as if they were a couple of basketball fans eager for some beers after the game, Ralph Bales and Stevie Flom walked briskly to a stolen black Trans Am with a sporty red racing stripe on the side. Stevie fired up the engine. Ralph Bales sat down in the comfortable bucket seat. He lifted his blunt index finger to his upper lip and smelled sour gunpowder and primer smoke. As they drove slowly to the river Ralph Bales watched the aura of lights rising up from St. Louis, to the south, thinking that all he would have to do now was take care of the witness-the guy with the beer-and that would be that.
TWO
Yellow light fading in and out, going to black, black to yellow, motion, shouting, more blackness, deep deep pain, can't breathe can't swallow… The fragments of yellow light. There they go, slipping away…
Don't leave, don't leave me …
Donnie Buffett focused for a moment on Penny's terrified face. Pale and framed with dark hair. The sight of her terror terrified him. He reached for her hand. He passed out.
When he opened his eyes again his wife was gone and the room was dark He had never been so exhausted.
Or so thirsty.
After a few minutes he began to understand that he had been shot. And the instant he thought that, he forgot everything-Penny, the sickening loose feelings in his back and guts, his thirst-and he concentrated on trying to remember something. One word. A short word. The one word that gave purpose to his entire life.
The Word. What is the Word? He slipped back into, unconsciousness. When he woke again he saw a Filipino nurse.
"Water," he whispered.
"Rinse and spit," she said.
"Thirsty."
"Rinse and spit." She squirted water into his mouth from a plastic bottle. "Don't swallow."
He swallowed. He vomited.
The nurse sighed loudly and cleaned him.
"I can't feel my legs. Did they cut my legs off?"
"No. You're tired."
"Oh."
The Word. What the hell was it? Please, dear Mother of our Lord, let me remember…
He fell asleep trying to remember the Word and when he awoke a short time later he was still trying to remember it. Sitting across from him were two men in rumpled suits. When he looked at them he smiled.
"Hey, he's smiling." The man who said this was blond and square-jawed.
'Yo, Donnie," the other man said, "I won't ask how you're doing, 'cause your answers gonna be: what a dumb-ass question-
I feel like shit." He was dark-complected, with short, slick hair. He looked at Buffett with real affection. He gripped Buffett's hand warmly.
"They got me from behind. There was another one behind me."
Bob Gianno, the dark-complected detective, continued, "The mayor's coming down to see you. He wants to wish you luck."
Luck? Why do I need luck? I've been lucky, I don't need luck. What I need is to get out of this bed.
Buffett's lips were rising and falling.
"What's that?" Richard Hagedorn, the blond detective, leaned forward.
"Why can't I…" He shook his head and said indignantly, "I had my body armor on."
"He got you below it. That's what they said at the press conference."
"Oh." Press conference? There was a press conference about me?
Gianno said, "We met your wife, Donnie. She's really pretty."
Buffett nodded blankly.
The detective continued, "Guess you know why we're here. What can you tell us about the hit?"
The periphery faded fast, dissolving again into a million black dots. Yellow light, white light. His organs seemed to shift. Floating. He felt deep pain that was all the more terrifying because it did not seem to hurt. He tried to remember the word.
The Word. The WORD. The answer lies in the Word.
"I…" His voice ended in a rasp. He inhaled hard.
"Maybe we should-" Hagedorn began but Buffett wiped sweat away from his face with the blanket and said, "All I saw was one perp. Cauc, balding, dark hair. Back was to me, I didn't make the face. Thirty-five maybe." A pause. The air hissed in over the dry tissue of his mouth and burned like alcohol on a cut. "Make him five ten, eleven. Weighed one ninety.
Wearing a dark jacket, shirt, jeans, I think. I don't remember. Had a big gun."
"A.44."
"Forty-four," Buffett said slowly. 'The other one, the one shot me…"
"You make him at all?"
Buffett shook his head no. Then asked, "Who was the hit?"
"Vince Gaudia and some squeeze."
"Man," Buffett whispered reverently. "Gaudia." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Peterson's gonna be pissing red."
Hagedorn said, "Hell with Peterson. We're gonna get the scumbag that did you, Donnie."
Buffett said, "I didn't see the third one, either."
"Third one?" Hagedorn asked. He and Gianno exchanged glances.
'The guy in the Lincoln."
"What Lincoln?" Gianno was taking notes.