to a new belt. But instead of racing out, Earl merely scrunched along the now blasted hallway, raised his BAR along the same axis the bullets had just traveled, and fired an entire magazine upward through the shattered wall of Mary Jane's.
He rammed another magazine in, fired it in a flash. Then he slithered around the stairwell and looked upward. He could see nothing in the floating smoke and plaster and wood powder.
An odd noise came to his ears. He tried to identify it but his ears rang so from all the firing that it took a second or two. Then he had it: it was a steady drip.. drip… drip.
Earl looked and saw?blood. It coagulated on the top of the stairway, paused, then dripped down, drop by drop by heavy drop, until a tide overtook the individual drops and began to drain off the top of the stairs in a jagged track.
'Hey, up there,' he called. 'This don't have to go on. Ain't no lawmen hurt yet nor no citizens. Y'all throw your guns down and come on out.'
He thought he heard the scurrying of men, a hushed argument.
As he crouched there, the blood rolled down the steps with more force, and to his left and right raiders came to flank him, setting up good shooting positions.
The silence wore on, but then they heard what sounded like shuffling.
'Get ready,' whispered Earl.
They could track the shuffling down the hallway until at last a figure emerged. It was a Negro girl, about twenty, in a slip and a pair of high-heeled shoes. Her face was swollen, her eyes red and huge. She clutched herself with her arms. Her lips trembled. She seemed shaky on her heels.
'You be careful, missy,' Earl said. 'You come on down and you'll be all right. We don't mean to hurt you or your friends none.'
'Sir, I?'
The bullets hit her in the back, blowing her sideways against the wall; she jackknifed, her eyes rolling up, then fell forward off the top stair. She rolled down the stairway, arms and legs flung this way and that, her head bobbing loosely. Earl grabbed her, and held her close, getting her blood all over him. He felt her struggle to rise, watched her eyelashes flutter as if to make a last claim on life, and then she died in his arms. He was holding her hand so tightly he thought he'd break her fingers.
'Hey, you lawmen,' came a low Grumley voice. 'You come on up and git more of that. We got lots of it up here fer you too. And we got four more nigger gals up here and they ain't gittin' out alive, 'less you go and get our truck.'
'Your truck is blown all to shit,' Earl called back. 'I lit it up my own self and whoever was aboard is burnt crispy. You hurt any more of them gals and I will personally see that you leave here in a pine box. You come out or you'll toast in hell tomorrow morning, that I swear.'
He turned to the closest man to him, who happened to be Frenchy.
'You know where my car is?'
'Yes sir,' said Frenchy.
Earl took Frenchy's Thompson and spare magazines, unscrewing the stock bolt as he spoke.
'You head on back there and open the trunk and git me some more of them BAR magazines. I'm clean out. You bring 'em to me, 'cause I may need 'em.'
'Can I have my gun?' said Frenchy nervously.
'Go on, git the goddamn magazines!' said Earl, pushing him rudely back down the hallway.
He had the bolt out and tossed the stock away. He turned to Stretch.
'I'm going to head up for a lookie see. Y'all stay here.'
'Earl, you ain't got no goddamn vest.'
'I can't move with the goddamn vest. You hold here but you wait on my signal. You got that?'
'Earl, we ought to wait till?'
'You do what I tell you!' Earl said, his dark, mad eyes boring into the boy, who turned away under the assault.
Bitterly, Frenchy ran by other crouching raiders out into the alley. Twice he was stopped by men who wanted to know what was going on, but he ran onward.
He got to the alley and saw that each end was now blocked by police cars, whose red lights flashed into the night. A light came on him and he pulled his vest aside to show the badge on his chest, and ran ahead, getting to EarPs car.
He opened the trunk, and found a boxful of BAR mags, all loaded.
Suddenly two policemen and some kind of plainclothes detective were there by him.
'What the hell is going on, bud?' asked the detective.
'We may need backup. They have four Negro girls held hostage upstairs. We killed a batch but there's more.'
'Hell, we ain't going in there. Sounds like a goddamned war.'
'You go to Becker!' Frenchy said hotiy. 'He'll tell you to come up and support us.'
'I ain't getting no men shot up over nigger whores, bud. You goddamned Jayhawkers started this one, you finish her up. I don't work for no Fred Becker.'
'Where is Becker?'
'He's up front posing for photographers and I got a feeling he's pretty goddamned upset over this goddamned battle thing y'all got going in Mary Jane's.'
'Yeah, well, fuck you and the mule you rode in on, Zeke,' said Frenchy, and then turned and ran with the mags.
He was halfway there when he heard the sound of tommy guns.
Earl slithered ever so slowly up the staircase, climbing over the debris of screws and what-not. When he reached the halfway point he could see over the edge into the hallway. Spread out and gazing resolutely at the heaven he'd never enter lay a mean-looking old Grumley boy, his eyes black and blank as diamonds. He lay in his own blood and a litter of hundreds of shells. Another boy lay a few feet away, his hands clenched around his belly, which blossomed blood.
Earl pointed the Thompson at him.
'You best show me your hands or I will finish you right here,' he said.
'I am so gutshot I am going nowheres, so you go ahead and finish me, you law town bastard,' said the man, who turned out to be but a boy of twenty, though his face was clenched in pure adult hatred.
'Lay there then and bleed,' said Earl. 'It don't make no matter to me.'
He slipped up another step, saw that the feed lid on the big German machine gun was still up, meaning it could no longer be fired. He slipped a bit farther forward, grabbed the snakelike curl of ammo belt that lay beneath the gun, and gave it a yank. He held it, then yelled, 'Watch out, coming down,' and flicked it downward. He signaled with his fingers: three, then he pointed to his handgun.
Obediently, three raiders?Slim, as senior man, Terry and Carlo, who were next in the stick?yielded their Thompsons to others and slid up the steps until they were just below him.
'They must be down at the other end in one of them rooms, but they got them gals. If you have to shoot you use your pistols and you aim carefully, you got that? You shoot at Grumleys, not at motion. They may push the gals out first. Shoot their legs, their pelvises and wait for the girls to break free. Then you go for chest or head. Got that?'
'Earl, they got machine guns!'
'Y'all do what I tell you or I'll get three more birds and you can go wait in the cars.'
'Yes sir.'
'I'm going acrost the hall. You cover me, you got that?'
'Yes sir.'
'You make sure you got your goddamn vests on.'
'Yes sir.'
'Okay. On the count of three. Ready. Three!'
Earl jumped across the hall, almost slipped in Grumley fluid and empty shell casings, but made it. Just as he ducked into a room, a man at the end of the hall stuck his head out with a tommy gun and blasted a lengthy burst
