“You saved my bacon, hon. You did just fine.”
“Lamar, you have to—”
“Don't you worry about me none. Now git. Take old Richard, too.”
He quickly went to the doorway and fired three swift shots at the only cop he could see. The gun had a liquid jerk to it as it fired, but it came back on target quickly; the officer sat down sadly. Then Lamar swept over to the other target and fired twice at it, smearing the windshield with a quicksilver of fractures.
“Wi-chud,” yelled O’Dell, picking Richard off the floor.
The bigger man half-carried him through the broken window.
There was glass everywhere, the sounds of gunfire, a general sense of panic loose upon the face of the planet, and Richard's own immense fear. He looked back and saw Lamar like some crazily heroic mythic sergeant from some war movie firing away, blazing like Rambo at the police.
Then he was in the car.
O’Dell punched it and the car backed savagely, hitting something and knocking it down with a terrific clatter, then roared ahead, seemed almost to tip as it lurched on two wheels into the street and then, in a burst of sheer acceleration, really whooshed down the road. But just as quickly it slowed to almost a halt, took a severe turn, and began ambling along at a content pace.
Richard sat up; they were in some quiet suburb, an undisturbed fifties world of small frame houses, overhanging trees, and green-filtered sunlight. Behind them, the turbulent sounds of sirens rose and rose and rose.
“Mar,” keened O’Dell.
“Mar.”
“That's okay honey,” said Ruta Beth, who’d taken the mask off to shake out her long hair.
“Daddy can take care of himself.”
Lamar dropped the mag out and slammed a new one in.
He pulled back the bolt, a weird kind of plunger deal atop the weapon, and let it fly forward. He looked over the sights and could see nobody. Two cop cars were parked aslant at each entrance to the parking lot, and he knew he'd hit one of the cops and the other had shown no signs of fight, having retreated behind his car, where he was bet-your-ass on the horn, calling in reinforcements.
Lamar licked his lips, which were dry as sand.
Well, goddamn, boy, he told himself, you done got yourself in some damned pickle.
He took off his ski mask and threw it away. If he was going out, he was going out as Lamar Pye, bad man and legend, the white boy with the biggest dick in the whole Mac. He shucked the raincoat, a great relief, as the goddamned thing was hot.
He fired five quick shots at the gas tank of one of the cop cars, hoping he'd get an explosion, but it never happened.
Instead a couple of poorly aimed shots came his way.
He fired quickly, emptying the magazine to drive them down, then slid back from the door and crawled low over glass until he reached the kitchen. A black teenager cowered against the sinks, crying.
“Don't hurt me none, sir,” the boy sobbed.
“Shut up. You ain't been hurt. I'm the one they's tryin' to hurt.” He almost shot the boy, but what would that prove? It might do him some good back in the joint if he let a nigger live where he'd killed a passel of whites.
He rose and ran to the rear delivery entrance and opened it. Two cops fired shotguns at him, but he ducked inside in the second before the buckshot arrived to spall the door.
You got to bring the fight to them, he told himself. Cops ain't used to that. They used to men folding up, but here I got to go at them and go at them hard, or they going to get my white boy's ass for good and only.
He went to the back wall, where, high up, there was a window. He could never get through it, but he could get a good, clean shot at one of the officers.
But as he was about to fire, he noticed what he had climbed up on. It was the sink, and next to it was the garbage chute. He kicked the flap that covered the chute and discovered a ramp about eighteen inches wide leading at a sharp angle into darkness, though he thought he saw a glimmer of light.
Fuck this, he thought. They got me covered if I stay here.
He dumped the AR and wedged himself into the chute. A sickening stench rose to his nose, the stench of decayed food, grease, decomposition. He thought for a second he wasn't going to make it, that his ass would hang him up, and the cops would come find him half in, half out. But he slid down with astonishing speed, was launched airborne into lightness, had a strange sensation of liberation, and then found himself amid fetid food and packaging in a Dumpster. He rolled out of it, wishing he had the AR. But he still had two .45s. He looked about quickly, finding himself in a well in the rear right side of the restaurant. Lamar stepped upward and found himself slightly flanking the two cops who had the back cover. He saw the Texas Highway Patrol car parked out back, too; now he got it. The first patrolman had come in and parked at the rear, entered through the rear, and gone in to wash his hands. That's how come Richard hadn't seen him.
He shook his head. From out front came the crackle of shots and the sounds of sirens as yet more reinforcements arrived. Time to kick ass, he thought and ran toward the police car.
It was simple murder, the best kind. The guys never knew he was on their left. He just ran at them, a gun in each hand, and when they looked up it was too late to do anything.
It seemed to happen in slow motion; it had an incredible clarity to it, like a football replay on the TV. He watched as the one half rose to bring his shotgun to bear, but the man seemed to be climbing through molasses or motor oil, his eyes big as eggs, his fingers scrambling at his gun like some kind of honky-tonk piano player as he tried to find the trigger. Lamar's first shot hit him in the throat.
The Adam's apple seemed to explode as if rigged by demolitions experts, and the blood spurted from it in a dark red spray. The other took more killing. As he spun away into the fetal position, Lamar shot him twice, only to discover he had a vest on, so he leaned in close and shot him in the head. He watched the hair fly—why was this familiar?-and the dust or mist rise as the body went into that complete stillness that was sheer animal death. He stood over them and emptied his magazines into them, feeling for just a moment the most powerful king on the face of the earth.
Lookame, loo kame he thought, exultantly.
He threw both handguns and one of the police shotguns into the back of the cruiser, slid in, found the key, and started the car. Another cop car came around the corner, and Lamar gunned straight at it until it swerved. He banged it hard, shattering glass. Then he backed and turned to face the fence that kept him in. It was a Cyclone. Lamar knew it to be weakest dead center between poles, and so that's where he aimed the car, punching it.
The big Crown Victoria smashed the fence, slowed, then blasted through vegetation; something lashed and shattered the windshield. But in a second burst of energy the car bashed through, seemed to drop a bit, then landed in a backyard. Lamar pushed the accelerator down, smashed over a patio—driving lawn chairs this way and that and sending a picnic table full of hamburgers and deviled eggs flipping crazily through the air—crunched a hedge, and peeled across the front lawn until he hit the street, took a hard right, and really leaned into it. Behind him, he heard the sound of sirens.
CHAPTER 16
Bud got there by ten p.m. and the crime scene was still a damn county fair. He'd listened all the way in on the radio.
The identification had come quickly enough through elemental police work: The serial number of the recovered AR-15 was checked against the National Criminal Information Center computer files, which promptly revealed it to have been Ted's, taken at the Stepford farm. Within minutes, a faxed bulletin from Oklahoma authorities with Lamar's mug on it was shown to the busboy who’d gotten a good look at Lamar; he ID'd him immediately. So by six p .” the APB for Lamar, O’Dell, and Richard and an unknown fourth gang member had been issued.
But so far, there'd been no arrests, although the brass had ordered a full roll-out of all North Texas and
