Sirens were sounding off in the distance. A couple more shots.
It seemed to be slowing down.
The sound of a thunk came just as the door vibrated against my hand.
A bullet had come my way.
I lowered my hand and decided to follow the kind dispatcher’s advice.
The sirens grew louder and louder, and it seemed that was that for the gunshots. I didn’t hear any more snap, crackle, or pop. I stared up at the dark ceiling, which was quickly illuminated by the flashing blue lights of the police cruisers.
Stronger lights were eventually set up, and the sound of the sirens drifted away. It seemed safe enough to finally get up and see what was going on in my neighborhood.
I opened the door again and peered out. Lots of lights up there, lots of movement, lots of shapes carrying flashlights.
There was a lump of something on my driveway, about thirty feet away. I went deeper into the house, got my flashlight and my borrowed cane, and made my way out into the darkness.
Flashlights were bobbing up and down as cops started coming down my driveway. I went closer to the lump and switched on the flashlight.
A dead man was sprawled out on his back.
I moved the light around. He was in loose black pants, white T-shirt shredded and bloody, and open black leather jacket.
Unmoving, not breathing, and very dead.
Ramon.
The bigger half of the Pepe and Ramon Traveling Enforcement Show, and the man who had punched me in the jaw yesterday.
I’d like to say I felt sorry for the big guy, but I didn’t. But I was still curious as to how he ended up here.
Up on the driveway a cop yelled, “Freeze, right there! Show your hands!”
I switched off the flashlight, dropped the cane, and then the evening got more interesting.
One and then two Tyler cops approached me, flashlights and pistols in hand. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I’m Lewis Cole,” I said. “I live in that house. I heard gunfire, came out to see what’s going on.”
One cop kept his flashlight on me, and the other flashed it on the ground. “Holy shit,” the second cop said. “What’s going on is a crap show. Do you have ID?”
“Back in the house.”
The first cop said, “Hey, I know him. He’s a friend of the detective sergeant. He’s okay.”
With that, I could feel the tension go away. I could have been standing there with a bloody axe in my hand and one cop saying to a brother cop “He’s okay” meant I was okay.
Another question came my way. “Do you know this guy?” The first cop knelt down and checked the neck for a pulse. “Christ, this one is gone.”
I sort of knew Ramon, but not enough to name him or give anything else up for the cops. “No, I don’t.”
“Mind going back into the house?”
“No—but would it be all right if I just stand on the steps?”
“Why?”
“I’m a magazine writer. I just like to see what’s going on.”
“All right,” the first cop said. I couldn’t tell anything much about them, except they were young, lean, and had close-cropped hair. “Just stay out of the way.”
“I’ll do that.”
With some difficulty, I picked up the flashlight, switched it on. I was going for the cane when the near officer picked it up for me. “What happened to you?”
“Had a run-in with a couple of surgeons,” I said.
“Who won?” he asked. “You or the surgeons?”
“Still don’t know.”
I ducked back into the house to get a jacket, then stood on the granite steps watching more and more lights show up, flashing so much up at the parking lot of the Lafayette House that it looked like a thunderstorm was coming through. Soon the blue lights were joined by some red lights from the fire department ambulances. More cops traipsed down my driveway and set up high-powered lights on tripods to illuminate Ramon’s body. There were flashes as photographs were taken, and measurements were made, and I could make out voices from the parking lot. The harsh glare of lights from the television crew lit up.
Television. That meant something big had just happened, right here in Tyler Beach, and right here on my doorstep.
Cops started moving up and down my rugged driveway, and then one form separated itself from the line and came over.
“Detective Sergeant Woods,” I said.
“Mr. Cole.”
She joined me on the concrete steps. “What a mess,” she said.
“You mean the dead guy over there?”
“No, there’s more up at the parking lot.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Why don’t you tell me what you saw or heard, and I’ll try to fill in the blanks.”
“Okay,” I said. “About thirty-five minutes ago I was getting ready to go to bed—”
“Pretty late for you,” she said.
“Certainly is,” I said, “but I dozed some on the couch earlier.”
“Very well,” she said. “What happened thirty-five minutes ago?”
“Sounded like the O.K. Corral up there. Shooting broke out, pretty fast and plentiful, and then tapered off.”
“How many shooters?”
“Four, maybe five.”
“Then what?”
“I went to the door, opened it up, wanted to see what was going on.”
“Pretty dumb,” she said.
“Pretty me,” I said.
More television lights were lit up, harshly illuminating my side of the parking lot.
“What did you see?”
“Muzzle flashes from up the way.”
“Did you see that guy get dropped?”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
I moved and aimed the flashlight to the lower half of my wooden door, noted the fresh scarring of wood.
“When your folks get around to it,” I said. “There’s a bullet in there. Random shot I guess.”
“I’ll be damned.” She looked down as well and squatted, put a finger in the hole. “Feels like the slug’s still there.”
“A couple of feet lower, you’d be digging it out of my skull.”
She twisted her finger into the door some more, then stood up. “All right, fair’s fair. This is what we got up there, best we figure. Two sets of folks rolled in separate vehicles. One’s a Mercedes, not sure about the other. Some sort of SUV. People got out, started chatting in the
