he was crying, but I wasn't sure why. He stopped over Mark Thurman. Mark Thurman looked up at him, and Riggens said, 'This is all your fault.' Then he raised his gun to fire. Jennifer Sheridan picked up Pete Garcia's pistol and shot Floyd Riggens in the chest. The bullet kicked him back, but he kept his feet. He opened his mouth and looked down at himself and then he looked at Jennifer Sheridan and fell.
Outside, Warren Pinkworth put the blue sedan in gear and sped away. Eric Dees shouted, 'You fuck,' fired two times at me, then dove behind the counter. Everything went still and quiet and stayed that way.
Pete Garcia rolled onto his side and moaned.
Jennifer Sheridan dropped Garcia's gun, then grabbed Mark Thurman by the shirt and dragged him toward the rest rooms. He had to outweigh her by a hundred pounds, but she kicked off her shoes for better traction and made a sort of groaning sound and did what she had to do. The floor was gritty with shattered glass, but she seemed not to notice.
Gravel crunched outside the concession stand, and Joe Pike took a position behind the broken double doors.
I said, 'That's it, Dees. It fell apart. It's over.'
Eric Dees moved behind the counter.
Pike looked in through the broken doors and I pointed at the counter. 'Dees.'
Eric Dees moved behind the counter again.
Pike said, 'Don't be stupid, Eric. Let's go home standing up.'
Dees said, 'What else have I got, Joe?'
Eric Dees charged around the near end of the counter, firing as he came, and when he did, Joe Pike and I fired back.
Dees went down hard, and I ran forward and kicked his pistol away, and then it was over. Dees was on his back, blinking at the ceiling and clutching at his chest. Most of the pellets had taken him there. A dozen feet away, Pete Garcia said, 'Oh, God,' but he didn't say it to anyone in the room.
Pike came up beside me and looked down. 'Hey, Eric.'
Eric Dees said, 'Joe.'
Pike said, 'There a radio in the unit?'
'Yeah.'
'I'll try to raise an ambulance.'
Pike went out to the green sedan.
Dees opened and closed his mouth and blinked up at the ceiling again. He said, 'How's Pete? Is Pete okay?'
I checked Pete Garcia and Floyd Riggens, and then I went to Mark Thurman. Jennifer Sheridan said, 'He's bleeding.'
The bullet had caught him low on the left side. She had ripped away part of her blouse and was using it to press on the wound. There was plenty of blood. Her hands were covered with it.
'Let me see.'
She pulled away the little compress and a steady rhythmic surge of blood pulsed from his abdomen. Artery.
He said, 'I gotta stand up.'
She said, 'You've got to stay down. You're bleeding, Mark. I think it's an artery.'
'I want to get up.' He pushed her off and flopped around and finally I helped him stand. When he was up he pushed me off and tried to walk. It was more of a sideways lurch, but he did okay.
Jennifer said, 'Damn it, Mark,
Mark Thurman stumbled sideways. I caught him and helped him stay up. He said, 'You gotta help me.' He had lost a lot of blood.
Jennifer Sheridan said, 'Make him lie down.'
'He's okay.'
I helped Mark Thurman lurch across the concession stand to Eric Dees. Mark Thurman dug a slim billfold out of his back pocket, opened it, and held it out. It was his LAPD badge. He said, 'Do you see this?'
'What in hell are you doing?' Little bubbles of blood came out of Dees's nose when he said it and I wasn't sure if he was seeing the badge or not.
Mark Thurman breathed hard and sort of wobbled to the side but he kept his feet. His shirt and his pants were wet with his own blood. He said, 'I'm doing something that I should've done a long time ago, you sonofabitch. I am an LAPD officer, and I am placing you under arrest. You are under arrest for murder, and conspiracy to commit murder, and because you're a lousy goddamned officer.' Then Mark Thurman fainted.
Eric Dees was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.
Jennifer Sheridan rode in the back of the ambulance J when they brought Mark Thurman and Pete Garcia to the Lancaster City Hospital. Pike and I followed behind in Mark Thurman's Mustang.
