Kickaha put the officer’s cap on and emptied the .38 which he took from his holster. Anana swung down after having dropped the beamer and the Horn to him. She said, “Why did you do this?”
“He would have blocked our retreat. Besides, there’s a car that isn’t damaged, and we’re going to take that.”
The fourth policeman was sitting in the car and talking over a microphone. He did not see Kickaha until he was about forty paces away. He dropped the microphone and grabbed for the shotgun on the seat. The beamer, set for stunning power, hit him in the shoulder and knocked him against the car. He slumped down, the shotgun falling on the street. Kickaha pulled the officer away from the car, noting that blood was seeping through his shirt sleeve. The beamer, even when set on “stun” power, could smash bone, tear skin, and rupture blood vessels.
As soon as Anana was in the car, Kickaha turned it northward. Down the street, coming swiftly toward him, on the wrong side because the other lane was blocked, were two police cars.
At the intersection ahead, as Kickaha shot past the red light, he checked his rear view mirror and saw the police cars had turned and were speeding after him.
Ahead the traffic was so heavy, he had no chance of getting onto it or across it. There was nothing to do but to take the alley to the right or the left, and he took the left. This was by the two-story brick wall of a grocery store building.
Then he was down the alley. Kickaha applied his brakes so hard, the car swerved, scraping against the brick wall. Anana scrambled out after Kickaha on his side of the car.
The police cars, moving more slowly than Kickaha’s had when it took the corner into the alley, turned in. Just as the first straightened out to enter, Kickaha shot at the tires. The front of the lead car dropped as if it had driven off a curb, and there was a squeal of brakes. The car rocked up and down, and then its front doors opened like the wings of a bird just before taking off.
Kickaha ran away with Anana close behind him. He led her at an angle across the parking lot of the grocery store, and through the driveway out onto the street.
The light was red now, and the cars were stopped. Kickaha ran up behind a sports car in which sat a small youth with long black hair, huge round spectacles, a hawkish nose, and a bristly black moustache. He was tapping on the instrument panel with his right hand to the raucous cacophonous radio music, which was like Scylla and Charybdis rubbing against each other. He stiffened when Kickaha’s arm shot down, as unexpectedly as a lightning stroke from a clear sky, over his shoulder and onto his lap. Before he could do more than squeak and turn his head, the safety belt was unbuckled. Like a sack of flour, he came out of the seat at the end of Kickaha’s arm and was hurled onto the sidewalk. The dispossessed driver lay stunned for a moment and then leaped screaming with fury to his feet. By then, Kickaha and Anana were in his car, on their way.
Anana, looking behind, said, “We got away just in time.” “Any police cars after us?” he said. “No, not yet.”
“Good. We only have a couple of miles to go.”
There was no sign of the police from there on until Kickaha parked the car a block and a half from Urthona’s.
He said, “I’ve described the layout of the house, so you won’t get confused when we’re in it. Once we get in, things may go fast and furious. I think Red Orc will be there. I believe he’s gated there just to make sure that Urthona is dead. He may be alive, though, because he’s a fox. He should have scented a trap. I know I would’ve been skittish about going into that house unless I’d sniffed around a lot.”
The house was well lit, but there was no sign of occupants. They walked boldly up the front walk and onto the porch. Kickaha tried the door and found it locked. A quick circling of the beamer muzzle with piercing power turned on removed the lock mechanism. They entered a silent house and when they were through exploring it, they had found only a parrot in a cage and it broke the silence only once to give a muffled squawk.