Church and emptied his pistol into the fleeing car.
As Nance?s car passed our doorway, showering dirt and debris toward us, the Mufalatta Kid sent one
burst into its rear window. He could handle a shotgun, all right, but it didn?t slow down the escaping
car. It cut left into Marsh, glanced off a police car, sideswiped a brick wall, and was gone, with Stick
growling off after it.
Fire trucks and ambulances arrived. More confusion.
The Church was burning out of control. Graves? people tumbled out into the street, coughing and
rubbing their eyes. A fast body count showed three of Nance?s men dead to two of Graves? gunmen.
Graves was not in the roundup.
Dutch said, “He must?ve slipped us in the confusion.”
I didn?t believe that. I went back to the side door and ran upstairs. Smoke swirled through the Church.
Flames were snapping at the far end of the room.
Graves was sitting on his wooden throne, tie askew, suit and face smoke-smeared, a bullet hole high
in his left chest, his .38 aimed at the floor. He looked up with surprise as I stumbled through the
smoke to the booth.
He raised the pistol and pointed it at my head. His rasping voice said, “Shit, dog lover, you don?t
know when you?re well off.”
“Why don?t you get out of here while you can,” I said.
“I ought to kill you on general principles,” he said.
“What?s stopping you?”
His finger squeezed and an electric shock sizzled through me. The hammer clicked harmlessly.
“Out of bullets, poet,” he said, laughed, and threw the gun at my feet.
67
BODY COUNT
Dutch and I piled into the Kid?s car and followed the ambulance to the hospital. It was like a frontline medcorps unit. Doctors, nurses, and attendants raced in and out of doors in bloodstained robes,
while several of the wounded lay on stretchers in the hallway, waiting their turn in the emergency
room.
“How bad is this one?” a hawk-faced nurse asked as they wheeled Graves in, a blood bottle stuck in
his arm.
“Bullet in the chest and bleeding,” the attendant said.
“Room three,” she snapped officiously, and then to Graves, “Do you have hospitalization?”
Graves looked up at her and managed a smile.
