Griffin with it. Griffin swung the heavy metal butt of the crossbow around, clipping the drunk on the temple. The skin didn't break, but a discolored splotch of blood pooled into a dark full moon on his forehead as he sank to the floor, unconscious. Kelly Furst stepped over the body as if nothing had happened. Richard Danton kicked the unconscious man in the crotch as he passed by and giggled.
Few in the crowded corridor seemed to notice. And those that did notice, didn't care.
Somebody reached out and touched Kelly's dreadlocks as she walked by. White people were always doing that, so she ignored it and kept walking.
When they finally bullied their way to Angel's door, Griffin took a deep breath, rolled his eyes in expectation, and knocked.
There was a pause, so he knocked again, using the butt of the crossbow. A chip of carved wood with a fox's tail flew off.
'Who is it?' Angel asked.
'Benny and the Jets, who'd ya think?' Griffin answered. 'Cap wants you down in his room, pronto.'
'Okay,' she said. 'Come in.'
'How about that?' Griffin said to the others as he turned the knob. 'For once she doesn't bite my head off.'
'On the floor. Move!'
Griffin stood paralyzed for a moment, taking it all in. There was more time in a crisis than people realized. Like when he used to quarterback, fading back with the ball, looking for an opening to run through or a free man to pass to. He'd look at the line and see about eight tons of padded beef charging at him, those black antiglare semicircles under their eyes making them look like zombies. Their hands would be groping toward him like claws. But he didn't panic. He waited, looked around, made his move.
And that's what he did now. He saw that Ravensmith bastard yelling at them, his hand anchored at his chin with an arrow riding the drawn bowstring. He saw the fucking nigger giant with a dumb sword in one hand and a.38 Dan Wesson Model 15-2 VH in the other. He saw the pretty bitch kneeling on the floor next to Angel, a knife pressing into her throat. Three of them against four of us. But the nigger had the gun.
He felt the adrenaline swirling through him. Just like the state championship game against Clayton. All they needed now was fucking cheerleaders. He thought of how angry Rhino would be and what he was like when he was angry. Then a funny image popped into his mind from nowhere. It was a picture of Sylvester Stallone in the ring facing another nigger. Sly was giving him the cold stare and saying, 'Go for it!'
So that's what Griffin did.
He nudged the safety on the crossbow as he zagged off to the side, hearing Kelly and Danton following his lead. He pivoted toward Blackjack, wanting to take out the gun first. But even as his finger tensed around the trigger, he heard the loud popping sound and the tugging at his chest as the bullet burrowed through his heart. The last thing he saw was his arrow whacking into the ceiling. Then he felt his sphincter muscles weaken and his bladder open, his pants filling with warm liquids. He knew he was dying and wanted to say something memorable as his last words, but all he could manage was, 'Shit.' It didn't matter. No one heard him anyway.
Danton was giggling as he hefted his spear, not sure who to throw it at. Before he decided, Eric planted an arrow in his chest. Danton dropped heavily to the floor, his eyes open and still startled at the suddenness of death.
Just as Eric released his arrow, Kelly Furst snatched the Remington.41-caliber rim-fire derringer from her pocket and squeezed off a round at Eric. The bullet chopped through the bow before whizzing past Eric's ear. Before she could fire the second round, Blackjack's gun jumped in his hand again and Kelly was flipped off her feet and into the wall, her head thudding with a dull echo.
Angel didn't struggle, didn't make a move. Tracy kept the blade's edge snug against the windpipe, discouraging any involvement.
'Let's go,' Blackjack said urgently. 'Security will be here in a couple minutes to investigate the gunshot. You remember what BeBop said?'
Eric ignored him, walking quickly to Griffin's prone body, prying the stiff fingers from his crossbow. He grabbed the arrows too. 'Okay. Now we can go.'
' 'Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us…' ' Tracy was lying on the 400-year-old bed, her hands clasped behind her head, trying to remember jingles from television commercials. If she closed her eyes, she could clearly see the happy teenage faces marching behind the counter of a Burger King.
She opened her eyes, awkwardly adjusting herself to sit up more, afraid she might drift off to sleep. This would be the worst possible time for sleep.
' 'Bud-weiser,' ' she sang softly. ' 'This Bud's for you.' ' She looked at her watch again. It was still a 5:23 A.M. Through the window she could see the morning light starting to freckle the Halo. Abruptly she stopped singing about Budweiser and sang, 'Somewherrre, over the Halo.' The cane Eric had made for her was stretched out on the bed next to her. She pulled it closer. 'Come here, Toto.'
She studied her watch again. 5:24. What could be keeping them? The longer they waited, the more danger they were in. Surely, they knew that.
After they'd snatched Angel from her room, Blackjack had convinced Eric to let him take her back to the ship. 'I can make her talk there, man,' he'd said, his smooth black face shining with sweat. 'And talk she will.'
Eric had hesitated, but finally agreed. 'It would be safer.'
The calmness with which they'd discussed what was obviously the torture of Angel chilled Tracy. Despite the gruesome stories Eric had told her about Angel, Tracy had trouble seeing herself as part of a gang of torturers. Especially of a woman. Her feminist instincts reacted against it. Wasn't she just helping men abuse a woman. Okay, silly in a way, but in another way, maybe not so silly.
Even sillier, Tracy found herself a little in awe of Angel. The small slender Vietnamese woman seemed so damn confident, so in control. Even if she was doing evil and cruel things, she was doing what she wanted the way she wanted. For the first time she understood a little of how Blackjack must have felt when he'd decided to become a pirate. Like he was shrugging out of a heavy harness of what others expected of you, of what you expected of yourself. Now you could do anything!
What impressed Tracy most about Angel was that she was not afraid of anything. She crossed all moral boundaries without hesitation. Stealing, mutilation, murder-nothing was too far. Not that Tracy would want to venture in that nether land herself, still it made her jealous that others could so easily.
Even physically, Angel was superior. Goddamned flips and somersaults and handsprings like some circus acrobat. Eric had warned her that Angel was an accomplished gymnast, but Tracy had thought that meant a few pirouettes on the beam or that she could stand on her head for five minutes. She'd had no idea.
Tracy stroked the wood of the cane. Once part of an airplane, it had flown through clouds. This wood had learned the ways of lightness; so had Angel. But Tracy was even more earth-bound than ever. Not only would she never do handsprings like Angel-who was at least four years older, damn it-but she wouldn't even be able to walk lightly anymore. She'd drag her shattered hip around after the rest of her body like a shy and distant relative.
' 'Mmmm mmmm, good,' ' Tracy sang, ' 'mmmm mmmm, good. That's what Campbell's soup is. Mmmm mmmm, good.' ' Where the devil was Eric? When Blackjack had hustled Angel off to The A rgo, Eric had decided to scout around Liar's Cove a bit, see if anybody knew anything about Dirk Fallows.
So the two men had gone off and left the gimpy woman to tend the home fires while one tortured another woman and the other looked for his kidnapped son.
And she sang commercials and wondered if she'd ever see television again. Christ.
A knock on the door made her snap up Eric's loaded crossbow that he'd left with her.
'Coming through,' Eric's voice filtered through the door as he entered. He finished chewing something, swallowed, and said, 'Hi.'
'What're you eating?'
