moment, spun wheels, hit gas and brakes trying to get it back, leaped over the banquette, missed an
alcove of garbage cans and Dempster Dumpsters, and wasted about thirty feet of the fence
surrounding the compound. My car came to a halt, its ruined radiator hissing crazily.
I fumbled with the keys, got them out of the ignition, jumped out, and ran back toward the trunk. The
other car did a wheelie and headed back toward me, stopping ten feet away. I was still struggling with
the trunk latch when I heard Turk Nance say from behind me:
“You need driving lessons.”
While we were looking for him, Nance had followed me. Doe was out of the car beside me.
“Get back in the car,” I said as quietly as I could.
“What?s going on?” she squealed.
Too late. Nance was standing in front of me, his Luger at arm?s length, pointed at my face, his reptile
eyes dancing gleefully, his tongue searching his lips.
I reacted. Without thinking. Without figuring the odds. Without thinking about Doe.
It was like an orgasm, a great flood of relief. All my frustrations and anger boiled up out of me into a
blind, uncontrollable rage. Nance was more than lust a psychotic who had killed people I knew and
who?d tried to kill me. He vas every broken promise, every shattered dream, every pissed-away value
in the last twenty years of my life.
I didn?t think. I grabbed the gun by the barrel and twisted hard, heard the shot and felt the heat surge
through the barrel, burn my hand, and howl off down the street. I hit him, knocked him into the alcove
of garbage cans, hit him again, kneed him, thrashed him back and forth, from one wall to the other,
and then hit him again and kneed him again. He started to fall and I held him up and kept hitting him.
I could hear Doe screaming my name hysterically but I couldn?t stop. Every punch felt good, every
kick. He started screaming, trying to get away from me. His shirt tore and he fell to his knees and
scrambled toward the street like a crab. I slammed my foot down on his ankle to stop him, twisted it,
and hit him in the hack of the head several times with my fist until my hand was burning with pain. I
dragged him up and kicked him in the small of his back and he vaulted in a clean diver?s arc into the
garbage cans.
it wasn?t enough. I snatched up a garbage pail lid and slammed it down on his head, three, four, five
times, until it was a mangled wreck, then threw it away, dragged him to his feet, and jammed my knee
into his groin again. I grabbed a fistful of his shirt, held him, and hit him halfa dozen more times,
short, hard shots, straight to the face. I hit him until he was a bloody, limp rag.
Doe was leaning against the wail, her hands stifling her screams, her eyes crazy with fear and shock.
“Stop it, Jake, for God?s sake, please stop it!” she cried.
