“Bill,” Keesha began, all excited. “There’s a lady in there that’s really a man!”

“I’m not surprised, darlin’,” I told her. “This is Austin.”

“Austin,” she said. “Ohhhh.” I almost laughed. Maybe she never knew what town she was living in before, but on the other hand, maybe she knew completely.

“What’d ya’ll get?” Hank asked.

Keesha looked up at Julie.

“Well,” Julie said. “We’ve got a few dresses and some jeans and shirts and stuff.”

“That’s mighty fine,” Hank said. I looked over at him. The old bastard was enjoying himself.

“Well,” I said. “Let’s go.”

The day might have been coming to a close, but I had that sinking feeling; an awareness that things were more than likely about to heat up.

CHAPTER NINE

What is it in our nature that makes us think just because we can't see danger immediately in front of us that we're going to be pretty much alright? I just don't know.

Julie lived in northwest Austin west of Loop 1 and south of Highway 183 in a duplex that resembled a medieval castle. The duplex stood near the crest of a high hill and looked like none of its neighbors.

We drove by slowly. Hank and I were still in the roadster and the rest of the crew was in the Suburban. More and more the situation was coming to remind me of a high school band trip.

Hank and I checked out all the parked cars along the road. No light blue Ford F-150 pickups. No North Texas Bubbas lying in wait.

Hank and I drove past the duplex and took a good look.

Nothing.

Two blocks down we turned around in a cul-de-sac, came back and parked across the street from Julie’s place. We waited.

It was full dark. To the east there was the purplish twilight above the glow of the city against the sky. From where we sat, between the trees I could see the UT Bell Tower bathed in bright orange light, about the same magnitude of brightness as the three-quarters moon just above it. The orange glow there meant that UT had won their baseball game.

Along came Dock’s Suburban and the twin spears of bright light from his headlights. He pulled up onto the long, narrow driveway. His lights went off. The interior lights came on as Julie opened the passenger door and closed it behind her. She sprinted across the street to us.

“Okay,” she panted a little, “This is it.”

“Lemme see your keys, Julie,” Hank told her.

She fished in her jeans pocket and I heard the rattle of keys.

“I haven’t been here in awhile, Hank,” she said. “I don’t know what the place is going to look like. Those idiots could be inside there laying for you, for all I know. It’s the door on the left side. That’s mine. I don’t think the other side’s been leased yet.”

“It’s okay. I’ll check it out first.” Hank reached into the burlap sack beneath his feet and pulled out his silvery.45. He opened the door and climbed out.

“You get in with Bill for a few minutes,” he told Julie. “I’ll be right back.”

Julie slid in beside me.

The night was quiet but for the rrrrr-rrrr-rrrrrmelody of crickets.

Julie and I watched as Hank climbed up the front walkway. She interlaced her fingers with mine and squeezed.

Hank peered in through the front windows. He moved around to the west side of the place and disappeared for a few minutes. We waited.

He reappeared, traversed the front and disappeared around the east side of the duplex. I noticed a small “For Lease” sign perched halfway up the yard beneath the drooping branches of a Wisteria. Hank reappeared again and was about halfway to Julie’s front door when we both noticed Dock climbing out of his Suburban.

I heard Julie’s whisper: “Don’t do that, Dock.”

By the time Hank got to the front door and was inserting the key, Dock had made it within twenty feet of the front of the house.

Explosions have a life of their own. They are like universes unto themselves with their own internal laws of time and space, cause and effect. To a person caught inside one I imagine it must be like knowing what is going on-time being stretched, and instances lasting eternities-and being able to do nothing to control it. As a spectator, just on the periphery, it’s instantaneous.

My first thought, lasting about a hundredth of a second, was the lights had come on inside the duplex, but then the glow swelled in brightness becoming too bright for my eyes. The windows, the whole front of the stone duplex became convex and the roof lifted up several feet in the air. For an instant it was daylight.

Beside me Julie’s ponytailed head, neck and shoulders looked black, silhouetted against a brilliant orange-white halo, then wisps of her hair blew back toward me horizontal as the blast wave rolled over us and pushed her hard against me. My left hip and shoulder slammed against my door.

The roar was of lightning striking close by, but with a horrible rending sound that continued after it. And then came the rain: pebbles, stones, boards, splinters of terra cotta and whole individual u-shaped tiles that burst into fragments on the sidewalk and street.

Against the dying orange glow I could see the outline of a door, still in its frame lying in the grass not far from the street. An arm poked out from under it, as if gesturing, pointing out something that I may have missed.

“Sweet Jesus!” Julie shouted, but my ears felt like they were full of liquid wax, or like I’d been swimming under water for far too long.

We moved in tandem, untangling ourselves from each other, got our doors open and moved across the street as the rain of debris began to slacken. By the time my feet hit the pavement the roof of the duplex was falling inward.

Julie ran towards the Suburban.

I was going for what must be Hank beneath the shattered door. No thought, really, just motion and the dim awareness of something shifting inside my head. Not pain, really, just a knowingness. People were hurt, probably dead. There would be funerals and questioning eyes that couldn’t be answered and policemen with loud ties and tightly-trimmed mustaches holding clipboards and asking questions.

I got to Hank before Julie reached the Suburban. I was thinking that maybe it was a good thing the explosion had taken out my hearing. I wouldn’t want to hear the screams that might be coming from that direction any second.

I guess the door and frame covering most of Hank weighed about a good seventy pounds, but somehow it felt about as heavy as a good sack of bread as I shoved it to the side, sending it further down the hill.

I reached for Hank.

In the flicker of flame from the house I could see that his eyes were open and moving around in confusion.

I ran my hands over his body, beginning with his legs.

He made funny gurgling sounds. Trying to form words. The sounds were muffled, though, as my ears were still all cotton candy.

His legs felt good and solid. I pressed lightly against his hips. No give. I didn’t see any blood, no protruding bones. There were a few buttons missing from his shirt. The arms seemed okay. He still had his gun in his right hand. I took it from him and laid it in the grass. The fingers of his left hand seemed a little odd. One of Julie’s keys from her key ring was imbedded in his palm. I turned his hand over and felt the indentation from the key poking up against the inside of his skin on the top of his hand.

No screams from the driveway. Yet.

Unless Hank was bad off either on the underside of his body or internally, he wasn’t going to die in the next few seconds. I hoped.

Dock,I thought.

The last time I’d seen him he wasn’t far from the house. I looked up. No Dock.

Julie was inside the Suburban. The dome light was on and she was holding Keesha. Dingo was barking. Within seconds the dog was over beside us, licking Hank’s face.