“Madame Serpentina wanted me to do something, and I had to think and think before I came up with this. I don’t believe it will stop them. Not really.”
“It’s sure as hell slowing them down.”
The three policemen were fighting their way through the mob. It might have been a riot.
“I think we should go up and stand in front of the door,” Barnes said. “It may be the last thing we can do.”
“Watch your step. Candy threw some water out of her window a while back, and it froze.”
“I should have thought of that,” Barnes said. There was no rail on the stoop, and the two roomers clung to each other to keep from falling.
“Anyway, she did,” Stubb told him. “Candy’s a straight-forward girl. Hey, look at that!”
Down the street, a van with an elaborate antenna on its roof loomed through the falling snow.
“Channel Two News,” Stubb said. He took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve.
Barnes glanced at him admiringly. “You call them?”
“If I called them, they wouldn’t come. But I called a hell of a lot of politicians, and I figured somebody would tip them. There’s always somebody in politics who wants to make a little time with the media.”
Williams flourished the fire ax over his head. Beside it, Evans’s nightstick rose and fell. One of the salesmen yelled. A siren howled in the distance.
“More police,” Barnes said.
Stubb nodded. “I was afraid of that.”
“Think we ought to lock arms?”
“We’re not young enough, but sure.
They locked arms. Stubb used his free hand to take off his glasses and slip them into a pocket in his trenchcoat.
Evans was thrusting with his nightstick now, using its blunt end to punch the bellies of the salesmen. Williams and Proudy broke free and mounted the stoop, Williams still brandishing the ax. “Get out the way!” he ordered the two roomers.
The yellow machine’s operator revved its engine.
“Not us,” Stubb told Williams. A rusty, bulbless porch light thrust forward from the bricks. Stubb was just able to grasp its bracket to steady himself.
The salesmen surged after Sergeant Proudy. Beyond them, a little class of varicolored children and a gaggle of old people watched with interest, wiping their noses on their sleeves. The camera crew had taken in everything at a glance and was already shooting as a reporter advanced with a microphone. Down the street, a black-and-white police car skidded around the corner.
“It’s you,” Sergeant Proudy said to Barnes. “Where’s Free?”
“Yes, it’s me,” Barnes told him.
Williams asked, “Why you want to do this anyway? What this old house mean to you?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Stubb said. “To tell you the truth, I’m damned if I know.”
“Well, move. I’m just going to have to carry you off.”
Stubb shook his head.
Sergeant Proudy threw his arms around Barnes, pinning Barnes’s own to his sides. From nowhere, as it seemed, there was an explosion of white dust. Sergeant Proudy began to sneeze violently, and on the third sneeze, he released Barnes.
Williams yelled, “Get out the way!” and shouldered Stubb aside. Swiftly the red ax flashed up, then slammed forward. There was a scream of wood as Williams wrenched at the blade.
Behind him, Mick Malloy lost his balance on the icy steps and fell heavily against Nate Glasser and Ozzie Barnes. Both of them fell against Williams. The long, sharp wrecking spur of the fire ax flew wildly back just as Sergeant Proudy straightened up from yet another sneeze.
Vaguely through the falling snow and the fog of myopia, Stubb saw the white of bone and the gush of blood.
The Casualty
When Captain Davidson stepped out of his car, the street was calm again. The television crew had departed for a more visual disaster, and of the varicolored kids and old folks, only a corporal’s guard remained. Four policemen, in attitudes diversely self-important, oversaw the conversation of the salesmen. A fifth drooped some distance away. “Now then,” Captain Davidson demanded. “What’s going on here?”
A big, red-faced policeman stepped forward. “They got him in there, sir.”
“The hell they have.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were here when it happened?”
“Yes, sir. I been here the whole time. I come with him. I’m Evans, sir.”
