Claire had said she’d bought a rifle.
The noise ended as abruptly as it had started: first the scream, then the glass, and finally the flurry of shots. None of the rifle fire seemed to have been aimed in Parker’s direction.
In the new silence, Parker moved along the edge of the screened-in porch toward the stoop and the screen door. Looking back to his left, he could see now what was in front of the bedroom door: a chair, facing the bedroom, with somebody sitting in it. Tied to it. Unconscious, or dead. The chair was turned away so that Parker couldn’t see who it was or anything else about him.
The porch lights were a nuisance, but the screaming had given him a greater sense of urgency. He went up the stoop, crouching, looking every way at once, and another scream sounded from the bedroom; louder, more shrill and hopeless than before.
Parker pushed at the screen door and the latch was on. He kicked the sole of his foot against the wood of the door just above the knob, and the door popped wide open, as though in invitation. He jumped through, looked to the right and ran left, toward the bedroom. He stopped behind the chair, looked over the shoulder of the thing sitting in it, and saw Claire sitting in the middle of the floor, clutching a rifle in both hands. Behind her, the hall door was barricaded with the dresser. To the left, the bathroom door had been locked, but had now been broken open, and two shaggy-looking men were standing just inside the doorway. One of them, moon-faced and grinning, started toward Claire as though he were a child and she a piece of randy. The other one, more hawklike, stood back with the small smile of the spectator on his mouth.
Parker lifted the hand with the automatic in it. The hawklike one saw the movement, saw him standing there, and yelled, “Manny! Back!”
Manny? Parker fired at him, but Manny was already turning and the bullet didn’t hit him right; it caught him in the upper left arm and knocked him sprawling on his face on the floor in front of the bed.
Claire had flung the rifle away and lunged for the side of the bed, to press herself against the floor there.
The hawklike one had suddenly developed a gun. He fired twice, both bullets going wide, and shouted, “Manny, for Christ’s sake, get up!”
It was tough, from outside the room, to get a good shot at either of them. Having already wounded Manny, Parker tried for the other one, but the shot missed, and after it the guy ducked back through the doorway. And Manny had gotten his feet under him; in a scrabbling lunge, half-run and half-crawl, he catapulted himself across the open space and through the bathroom door and out of light.
Parker knocked over the chair with the dead man in it, to get it out of his way. The glass door was locked; he reached through the broken part and unlocked it, then slid it open and stepped inside.
Claire was still cowering on the floor beside the bed. Parker left her there for now, and followed the two men.
He was slowed down because he couldn’t go through any doorway or around any corner without first bring sure they weren’t waiting for him on the other side. Hut when he got to the kitchen he saw the outside door standing open, and heard the roar of a car starting up. The kitchen was a mess, chairs overturned and slop everywhere; he saw it without thinking about it yet, and ran to the front door.
The light switch on the wall beside the door turned on two outside lights, an ornamental fixture beside the door and a floodlight mounted over the garage doors. Parker hit that switch on the way by, and where there had been darkness outside the doorway there was now the gravel driveway and two cars: a white Plymouth and a dark blue Corvette. They had been parked side by side in front of the door, the ‘Vette nearest the house, and it was the ‘Vette that was now in motion, backing fast and curving to put its taillights against the garage doors and point its nose down the driveway toward the road.
Parker got one shot at it while it was broadside to him over there, the driver shifting out of reverse.He didn’t bother to try for the driver, who was in any case crouched low in the seat and was a chancy target in this light. He shot the left front tire, and when the ‘Vette surged forward, spraying gravel back onto the garage doors, Parker fired a second time and put out the left rear tire. The ‘Vette slued badly, but kept moving. Parker ran forward three strides, turned sideways to the fleeing car, and tried to plant a bullet in the right rear tire, but apparently missed. As the ‘Vette was grinding through the turn onto the road, swaying and bumping badly with both left tires out, Parker made a try for the gas tank, firing two shots into the car’s body. Then it was out of range of the floodlight, though for a few seconds longer he could still hear it.
He half-turned and ran to the garage to get out Claire’s Buick, but there were padlocks on the doors that hadn’t been there thirty-six hours ago.
The Plymouth? He went to it and opened it and the keys weren’t in the ignition. He hadn’t really expected them to be, but it was worth a try.
So they’d made it. For now.
Parker went back into the house, shutting the door behind himself and switching off the lights again. He kept the automatic in his hand and walked back through the bathroom into the bedroom.
Claire was sitting on the bed. She looked weary, but not hysterical. She lifted her head when he walked into the room, and said, “They got away?”
“For now. How are you?”
“A nervous wreck. I’m glad you got here.”
He went over and stood in front of her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I came as fast as I could.”
“I know you did.” She patted his hand. “It was very scary, waiting. I’m going to have nightmares for a while.”
“Can you tell me about them? Can you talk yet?”
“Not till you get rid of that.” She moved her head slightly, without turning it, the gesture indicating the porch.
He glanced that way and saw the overturned chair with the body tied to it. He still hadn’t seen the face, still knew only that it was male and naked and dead and messy. He said, “Was that one of them?” Thinking there might have been a falling-out among them.
But she shook her head. She was looking straight ahead, at his belt buckle, as though she had to have a very
