underground in the minutes before dawn.
Earl is of a killing mind. But it's not rage, with rage's sloppiness, its rush, its phony bravado, its capacity to deflate, then disappear abruptly. Rather, it's focus. He knows certain realities: this fight will be short and violent and close. Who shoots first wins. Who's got the stronger will wins. Speed helps, courage is a plus, righteousness a treat, but this one comes down to who gets closest fastest.
He knows the area, having studied it out the window of Esmerelda's over those long two days, when there was nothing else to do. He sure isn't going to walk down Zanja Street like some damned fairy cowboy and announce himself with a cowboy line crafted in a bungalow in the San Fernando Valley. No, instead he'll slither through the Bambu from the alley side, enter through the kitchen, get in close, and of a sudden start shooting. One first to each gut, then back again higher to the chest, which ought to kill them both; if there's time and it ain't gone all to crazy, then put one under each boy's eye or into his mouth or ear: blow them brains everywhere. Close and fast, at muzzle-scorch range.
He is not particularly scared. He has done a lot of this work. He's killed in lots of places, in lots of ways. It's something he knows he's good at. It only bothers him afterwards, but up front, he's so intent on getting the job done, there's no fear or regret. His mind is narrow as a tunnel, and as dark. He thinks only of killing techniques and tactical possibilities; no other impulses flutter in his brain. Son, wife, history, father, mother, sex, money, all that is forgotten utterly. He is so ready to kill.
He gets to Zanja, circles around, sliding through the mob. A dark alley leads to the rear of the Bambu, and he studies it, seeing the door by the garbage cans. A cop lounges there, a rear guard so the boys won't get taken by surprise. Earl studies on it, then slides back to the street, finds a gal, grabs her hard. She looks at him in fear. With his hand he guides hers to the Colt under his shoulder and with his mean glare he communicates only that she must obey. It's certainly not polite but Earl doesn't care or know. He embraces her, whispers, 'Drunk, drunk!' and himself begins to wobble this way and that.
They careen down the alley, and the cop watches them approach.
'Hey,' he finally calls, 'you can no come this way, senor. No, you must go,' and speaks quickly to the woman in Spanish, in a far more threatening tone, and is so convinced of his moral authority that he doesn't even see the short, brutal arc of the Colt barrel as it slices through the air and thuds viciously into his jaw at the hinge, instantly blotting out his consciousness. He slips, falls like a sack of shot to the pavement. Earl shoves the girl away, and she ceases to exist for him.
He touches the door, finds it locked; a pocketknife springs the lock and he thinks to fold it before stepping into the kitchen, now largely empty, but there are two Cubans in the corner, talking of love, smoking. One sees him, makes as if to rise but is stopped by the four oily clicks of a Colt hammer ratcheting back. This man sees the snout of the gun and shrinks in its presence; he may be brave or a coward, but clearly there's killing about to happen and he wants no part of it.
In the cafe itself a few sit at tables, arguing politics or pussy, or possibly even movies or sports, full of the intensity of the moment. A waiter eyes him, notes it as strange that a norteamericano in an abused khaki suit and no tie is walking forcefully from a door that should disclose no norteamericanos, but then sees the blunt nose of the pistola and he too thinks little of his chances to stop what's coming-and turns instead to his own issue of survival, which he ensures by dropping swiftly to the ground, gesturing to his colleague to join him. In fact, as Earl walks, many people drop silently to the floor, as if he is a black death spirit, as if Odudua walks with him. And they are right: she does.
Earl steps out. Their backs are to him as they concentrate on the street. He walks silently, paying no attention to the other people sitting on the sidewalk, and when he's close enough he raises the gun andIt happens so fast.
The gun comes up and neither Latavistada nor Frankie Carbine sees and the range is but ten feet, but someone does see, the Indian, who happens to look over from his table of watchfulness close by. He is as naturally fast and aggressive as Earl, his reflexes maybe even faster, and he comes up from his seat screaming 'Arma! Arma! Arma!' drawing his own automatic from the flapped holster at his waist and in a moment of blind, nearly insane heroism steps between Earl and his targets. And of course Earl must take him first. The heavy Colt leaps against his hand, its old powder flashing brightly in the night, and Earl blows a huge 250-grainer through the Indian's chest, evacuating ounces of lung tissue and oxygenated blood. A fog erupts from the man as if he's a balloon full of liquid atomized by the power of the bullet. But no bones have been hit and though fatally wounded, the Indian is not dissuaded from his own mission, and his automatic rises toward Earl, who must then thumb fast into another shot and another, the last of which hits spine dead-on and pegs the dead Indian backward, where he falls and spills Frankie's table to the ground in a clatter of breaking glass. This takes maybe one full second, but that is enough for both Frankie and Latavistada to overcome their utterly stupefied shock, go to the floor, roll and draw and fire.
They don't aim. It's all too close and fast for aiming and that's why gunfights always involve a lot more shooting than hitting. It's a part of human nature to shoot and shoot, to lose oneself in the thunder of the gun. This is exactly what the literature of such events tells us: that at such close ranges in such frenzies of adrenaline-crazed trigger-jacking, misses happen with extraordinary regularity. The gunshots rise as one noise, so loud, their reports echoing back and forth in the narrow congress of Zanja. Frankie's machine pistol has fallen away, so with one hand he pulls a.45 and starts spraying bullets into the night. Latavistada is also shooting, slightly more directionally. He hits a woman in the knee and a man in the arm, both behind Earl, but it doesn't matter; he can't stop shooting.
Some of these bullets fly to the street, ripping into windows or autos. A car twists and crashes against curb, then lurches onto sidewalk, slamming finally against Esmerelda's apartment building. People flee in the orange light but no one in the fight notices, for those without weapons and an enemy are as insubstantial and meaningless as ghosts.
As Earl scrambles sideways to the low wall that marks the cafe from the sidewalk, he throws out three more shots, thumbing them off fast and uncontrollably. Moving, shooting, knowing that moving makes him a hard target, especially for men who are not aiming. Everyone is shooting from instinct. He too misses because that is the way of the gunfight; there's too much chemistry in his blood and his eyes are swollen, his heart is pumping, his muscles are super in their strength but now clumsy, and he is inured from fear or noise or pain. He gets to the wall, and throws himself over.
The inadequacy of the classic single-action sixgun is at this point exposed. To reload is a good thirty seconds of work, during which time either of his antagonists may approach and shoot him. But both their guns are empty, too. There's a brief intermission, a strange quietude where not a sound is heard except the scuffle of the men on the cobblestone ground, the tinny ping of still-bouncing shell casings, the slide and scrape of the reloading process as bullets are shoved into guns or magazines, cylinder rotated in a whirr of clicks, magazines inserted with a slam and a clang of heavy metal hitting heavy metal, with a slight vibration into it.
Then, almost simultaneously, the guns are all loaded again.
Earl has meanwhile decided to abandon plan one and move on to plan two. The problem is, there is no plan two. He simply looks around for a place to retreat into, sees that the street is death, forward is death, and the only possible destination lies forty feet away, a doorway lit by the orange lamps of the Shanghai, with Chinese characters running up each side. Without willing it he's off, running full-out toward the entrance, ducking behind a line of cars which may or may not contain human beings, but certainly aren't going anywhere soon.
Latavistada recovers first. He sees the running man behind the cars and knows a pistol hit on a runner at that range simply isn't in the cards, so he diverts to the big Mendoza next to him on the ground, seizes it, locks it under his arm, pivots, braces and fires. However, the weapon is too heavy and Latavistada can't quite catch up. The gun pounds, the muzzle flashes, the empty shells spin in the air, the bullets trace their stitchery across the automobiles. Bullets pierce glass, or atomize it, tossing geysers skyward, smearing windshields with a blur of hazed webbing. They sing through steel with a whang, they deflate tires, they shred roofs, they pop doors, they make the cars shiver and rattle and then settle. They don't touch the running man, for Latavistada is too slow, and then they stop.
He has run dry. He kneels, pulls a big magazine out of his coat pocket, runs through a fast reload and sees Earl as he darts toward the theater. Up he comes, and bzzzzzzzt goes the gun again, and a stitch of geysers pulling yet more debris and dust into the air flies across the building, but the bullets don't quite intercept as Earl ducks into a doorway whose depth provides enough angle to survive the burst.
The door is locked. Earl leans against it once. It does not give. He blows apart the lock with his.45 and slides
