Panting, he crawled back to the window that looked out on the Upslingers’ side yard.
The news vehicles were crawling slowly and dubiously down Crestallen Street. Suddenly a new police car shot around them and blocked them off, tires smoking. An arm dressed in blue shot out of the cruiser’s back window and began waving the newsmobiles off.
A bullet struck the windowsill and jumped into the room at an angle.
He crawled back to the easy chair, holding the Magnum in his bloody right hand and screamed: “Fenner!”
The fire slackened a little.
“Fenner! ” he screamed again.
“Hold on! ” Fenner yelled. “Stop! Stop a minute! ”
There were a few isolated pops, then nothing.
“What do you want?” Fenner called.
“The news people! Down behind those cars on the other side of the street! I want to talk to them! ”
There was a long, contemplative pause.
“No! ” Fenner yelled.
“I’ll stop shooting if I can talk to them!” That much was true, he thought, looking at the battery.
“No! ” Fenner yelled again.
Bastard, he thought helplessly. Is it that important to you? You and Ordner and the rest of you bureaucratic bastards?
The firing began again, tentatively at first, then gaining strength. Then, incredibly, a 304
man in a plaid shirt and blue jeans was running down the sidewalk, holding a pistol-grip camera in one hand.
“I heard that!” the man in the plaid shirt yelled. “I heard every word! I’ll get your name, fella! He offered to stop shooting and you-”
A policeman hit him with a waist-high flying tackle and the man in the plaid shirt crunched to the sidewalk. His movie camera flew into the gutter and a moment later three bullets shattered it into winking pieces. A clockspring of unexposed film unwound lazily from the remains. Then the fire flagged again, uncertainly.
“Fenner, let them set up! ” he hollered. His throat felt raw and badly used, like the rest of him. His hand hurt and a deep, throbbing ache had begun to emanate outward from his thigh.
“Come out first! ” Fenner yelled back. “We’ll let you tell your side of it! ”
Rage washed over him in a red wave at this barefaced lie. “GODDAMMIT, I’VE
GOTA BIG GUN HERE AND I’LL START SHOOTING AT GAS TANKS YOU SHITBIRD
AND THERE’LL BE A FUCKING BARBECUE WHEN I GET DONE! ”
Shocked silence.
Then, cautiously, Fenner said: “What do you want?”
“Send that guy you tackled in here! Let the camera crew set up! ”
“Absolutely not! We’re not giving you a hostage to play games with all day!”
A cop ran over to the listing green sedan bent low and disappeared behind it. There was a consultation.
A new voice yelled: “There’s thirty men behind your house, guy! They’ve got shotguns! Come out or I’ll send them in!” Time to play his one ratty trump. “You better not! The whole house is wired with explosive. Look at this!”
He held the red alligator clip up in the window.
“Can you see it?”
“You’re bluffing! ” the voice called back confidently.
“If I hook this up to the car battery beside me on the floor, everything goes!”
Silence. More consultation.
“Hey!” someone yelled. “Hey, get that guy!” He poked his head up to look and here came the man in the plaid shirt and jeans, right out into the street, no protection, either heroically sure of his own profession or crazy. He had long black hair that fell almost to his collar and a thin dark moustache.
Two cops started to charge around the V-parked cruisers and thought better of it when he put a shot over their heads.
“Jesus Christ what a snafu! ” somebody cried out in shrill disgust.
The man in the plaid shirt was on his lawn now, kicking up snow-bursts. Something buzzed by his ear, followed by a report, and he realized he was still looking over the 305
chair. He heard the front door being tried, and then the man in the plaid shirt was hammering on it.
He scrambled across the floor, which was now spotted with grit and plaster that had been knocked out of the walls. His right leg hurt like a bastard and when he looked down he saw his pants leg was bloody from thigh to knee. He turned the lock in the chewed-up door and released the bolt from its catch.
“Okay!” he said, and the man in the plaid shirt burst in.
Up close he didn’t look scared although he was panting hard. There was a scrape on his cheek from where the policeman had tackled him, and the left arm of his shirt was ripped. When the man in the plaid shirt was inside he scrambled back into the living room, picked up the rifle, and fired twice blindly over the top of the chair. Then he turned around. The man in the plaid shirt was standing in the doorway, looking incredibly calm.
He had taken a large notebook out of his back pocket.
“All right, man,” he said. “What shit goes down?”
“What’s your name?”
“Dave Albert.”
“Has that white van got more film equipment in it?”
“Yes. ”
“Go to the window. Tell the police to let a camera crew set up on the Quinns’ lawn.
That’s the house across the street. Tell them if it isn’t done in five minutes, you got trouble.”
“Do I?”
“Sure.”
Albert laughed. “You don’t look like you could kill time, fella.”
“Tell them.”
Albert walked to the shattered living room window and stood framed there for a second, obviously relishing the moment.
“He says for my camera crew to set up across the street! ” he yelled. “He say’s he’s going to kill me if you don’t let them!”
“No!” Fenner yelled back furiously. “No, no, n-”
Somebody muzzled him. Silence for a beat.
“All right!” This was the voice that had accused him of bluffing about the explosive.
” Will you let two of our men go up and get them?”
He thought it over and nodded at the reporter.
“Yes!” Albert called.
There was a pause, and then two uniformed policemen trotted self-consciously up toward where the news van waited, its engine smugly idling. In the meantime two more 306
cruisers had pulled up, and by leaning far to the right he could see that the downhill end of Crestallen Street West had been blocked off. A large crowd of people was standing behind the yellow crash barriers.
“Okay,” Albert said, sitting down. “We got a minute. What do you want? A plane?”
“Plane?” he echoed stupidly.
Albert flapped his arms, still holding his notebook. “Fly away, man. Just FLYYYYY
away.”
“Oh.” He nodded to show that he understood. “No, I don’t want a plane.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want,” he said carefully, “to be just twenty with a lot of decisions to make over again.” He saw the look in Albert’s eyes and said, “I know I can’t. I’m not that crazy.”
“You’re shot.”
“Yes.”
“Is that what you said it is?” He was pointing at the master fuse and the battery.
“Yes. The main fuse goes to all the rooms in the house. Also the garage.”
“Where did you get the explosive?” Albert’s voice was amiable but his eyes were alert.
“Found it in my Christmas stocking.”
He laughed. “Say, that’s not bad. I’m going to use that in my story.”
“Fine. When you go back out, tell all the policemen that they better move away. ”
“Are you going to blow yourself up?” Albert asked. He looked interested, nothing more.
“I am contemplating it. ”
“You know what, fellow? You’ve seen too many movies. ”
“I don’t go to the movies much anymore. I did see The Exorcist, though. I wish I hadn’t. How are your movie guys coming out there?”
Albert peered out the window. “Pretty good. We’ve got another minute. Your name is Dawes?”
“Did they tell you that?”
Albert laughed contemptuously. “They wouldn’t tell me if I had cancer. I read it on the doorbell. Would you mind telling me why you’re doing all this?”
“Not at all. It’s roadwork.”
“The extension?” Albert’s eyes glowed brighter. He began to scribble in his book.
“Yes, that’s right. ”
“They took your house?”
307
“They tried. I’m going to take it.”
Albert wrote it down, then snapped his book closed and stuffed it into his back pocket again. “That’s pretty stupid, Mr. Dawes. Do you mind my saying that? Why don’t you just come out of here with me?”
“You’ve got an exclusive,” he said tiredly. “What are you trying for, the Pulitzer Prize?”
“I’d take it if they offered it.” He smiled brightly and then sobered. “Come on, Mr.
Dawes. Come on out. I’ll see that your side gets told. I’ll see-”
“There is no side.”
Albert frowned. “What was that?”
“I have no side. That’s why I’m doing this.” He peered over the chair and looked into a telephoto lens, mounted on a tripod that was sunk into the snow of the Quinns’ lawn.