A World of Thieves

and stopped short.

Buck raised his pistol at her and put a finger to his masked mouth. The woman stood silent. He beckoned her into the parlor and she came. She looked scared but not so much as I’d expected. She was tall and middle-aged and had the weathered face of somebody who’d spent much of her life out of doors, a country woman’s face. Hands rough and big-knuckled.

At the far end of the hallway and to the left, next to the back door, was an arched passageway to the kitchen. There were three doors on the right side of the hall—the first to a den, the next to a bathroom, the last to a billiards room. That last one was the one we wanted.

“Take the sacks,” Buck said softly to the woman, and the Warren guy handed them up to her, making a face when a drop of grease spotted his pants leg. Russell took the woman by the elbow and steered her into the hallway to where she couldn’t see the sofa—or the swat Buck gave the guy across the nose with the barrel of the .45. She heard it, though, and the groan he let out, and she tried to look around Russell to see what it was, but he gently pushed her back and shook his head.

It was a wonder the Warren guy stayed conscious. He had his hands over his nose but the blood ran out between his fingers and down into his sleeves and dripped on his white shirt and pants. His eyes were streaming and he was gasping against the pain and moaning low. You bust somebody’s nose like that, it hurts so bad he goes nearly mute—and lets go of any notion he might’ve had to try to jump you.

Buck gave me a wink, then whispered into the woman’s ear and steered her down the hall ahead of him. He and Russell stood to either side of the farthest door and Buck nodded at her and she carefully balanced the sacks on one arm and opened the door with her free hand. Somebody in the room said, “Hey now—about time that chili-belly chow got here!”

Buck shoved her into the room and he and Russell ran in and Buck shouted, “Hands on the table—on the table—now, now, now!”

Somebody started swearing and there was a smack and a yelp and the same voice said, “Ah goddam, ah shit!” the way you do when you hit your thumb with a hammer.

I knew Russell was holding them under the shotgun and I heard Buck tell them to empty their pockets, to pull them inside out. He told somebody to clear the table, put it all in the bag, faster, goddammit, faster.

I stood by the front door, pointing the .380 down the hall, ready to shoot whoever I had to. The Warren guy was trying to stem the blood from his broken nose, but each time he put his head back he’d start choking and have to sit up again and add to the mess on his clothes. The woman came out of the room and stopped short when she saw me. I gestured with the pistol for her to get the hell out of there and she hurried through the rear passageway into the kitchen.

They weren’t in there two minutes before coming out again, Buck first, gun in one hand, the pillowcase with the money in the other, two revolvers in the front of his waistband. Then Russell backed out of the room, saying, “First man out gets splattered.” He shut the door and came sidling down the hall, watching behind him.

“Go,” Buck said. I slung open the front door and went out fast, taking the porch steps two at a time, running up the walkway and hearing Buck coming behind me and laughing low.

I went through the gate and started for the Ford—and then there was a loud blast and somebody cried out.

I turned and saw Buck at the gate, looking back at Russell down on all fours on the walkway. The woman was at the door with a smoking single-barrel shotgun, breaking it open to reload again. She darted behind the wall as Buck brought up the .45 and fired three fast rounds, two smacking the wall, the third caroming off the doorjamb and smashing something of glass in the living room.

Russell up now, using the Remington like a cane and striding awkwardly. Buck hustling to him, putting an arm around him from the side, starting back toward the gate. The woman leaned around the door and fired in the same instant I did. My bullet by pure chance hit some part of the shotgun and it seemed to wrest itself from her hands. She yipped and ducked out of sight.

But Buck and Russell were down. As I ran to them Buck rose to one knee, still holding the moneybag and his pistol. Russell was cursing low, struggling to get up on hands and knees. I stuck my gun in my pants and bent down to take hold of him and lugged him upright and felt the warm dampness of his back.

“Jeeesus!” he said.

“Go on!” Buck said.

I half-dragged Russell out the gate and to the Ford, glancing back to see Buck up on his feet and backing toward the gate. At the idling car I opened a rear door and pushed Russell onto the seat but he slipped to the floorboard, swearing, his legs still outside the car.

Gunfire sounded behind us—Buck’s .45, other pistols.

I shoved Russell’s legs up onto the seat and shut the door. Then looked back for Buck but didn’t see him.

And then did. Sprawled on the walkway and not moving at all.

Dead. The word in my mind like a whisper.

A bullet whined off the car roof not a foot from my head and another punched into the front door at my hip. I crouched and ran around to the other side of the car and scrambled in behind the wheel—gunshots cracking, men shouting and swearing, slugs clanging through the hood panel and ringing off the engine, thunking the sides of the car, popping through the window glass.

I yanked the gearshift into low and gunned the Ford out into the street and went wheeling around the first corner at a wide lean, skidding a little and nearly hitting a car parked at the curb. I took rights and lefts at random, glad as hell for the emptiness of the streets at this hour but not sure now which way the highway was. Then we were at the edge of town and I got my bearings and knew the main road was to my right and I cut over in that direction. But then the motor started missing and began to lug. I pumped and pumped the accelerator to no avail. Maybe a bullet hit the gas line or the fuel pump, something. Before we’d gone another block the engine quit altogether and I coasted into a grocery store parking lot.

Except for the moon, the only illumination on the street was from a small naked bulb burning over the entrance to the grocery. I sat in the silenced car with my hands locked on the steering wheel. Russell groaned in the back. I couldn’t form a clear thought. Then I saw a sales lot just across the street, with a dozen or so cars on it.

A truck was coming down the street and I waited for it to go by and saw its headlights wash over some bum curled up on a bench at the corner. Then the truck was past and I told Russell I’d be right back, but I wasn’t sure he even heard me. I jogged over to the lot and slipped into a little Model A roadster with its top up and ducked my head under the dashboard. It didn’t take but a minute to snip and strip the ignition wires with my clasp knife and twist them together. I hit the starter and the motor cranked right up.

I drove across the street and pulled up beside the sedan, looked all around to make sure the coast was clear, then got out and opened Russell’s door and told him we had to change cars. I helped him out of the Ford, saying sorry, man, sorry, as he flinched and moaned and cursed me for the pain I was causing him. He wanted to know where his shotgun was and I said probably back in the yard where he dropped it and he cursed me for that too.

“Love that shotgun,” he said.

I got him into the roadster, his coat sopping now, my hands slick with his blood. I shut his door and went around and got behind the wheel. He was slumped in the seat, grunting with almost every breath. I got us rolling.

“Buck?” he said.

I shook a cigarette out of my pack and leaned forward to light it, steering with my forearms, then held it out to him but he turned away from it.

“Where’s he?” he said.

“He went down,” I said.

“Went down got caught or…went down got killed?”

“Killed.” The word brought up a surge of bile behind it and for a moment I thought I’d throw up. I swallowed and cleared my throat hard. My eyes burned. I said it again to prove I could. “They killed him is what I mean.”