He was right on top of the guy now, but he still couldn’t see what his adversary looked like. His vision wouldn’t clear, and the hall light was still dimmer than it should have been. His eyes burned as if acid had gotten into them, and he figured it must be sweat and blood pouring down from the gash in his forehead.
He reached inside his coat and pulled his .38 Police Special out of his shoulder holster, but he couldn’t see the other guy swinging at his hand and couldn’t duck the blow that came. Something hard whacked his knuckles, and the gun flew out of his grasp.
Grappling, they rolled against the wall, and Dan tried to drive his good knee into the stranger’s crotch, but the bastard blocked him. Worse, the guy either kicked or struck Dan’s other knee, the bum knee, which was his weak spot. A reptile-quick flash of pain slithered up his thigh and chased its tail around and around in his stomach. Being hit on that knee could sometimes be like taking a kick in the balls; it knocked all the wind out of him, and he almost let go.
Almost.
The guy clambered over him and tried to scramble away, toward the kitchen, but Dan held on to the scumbag’s jacket. The perp crawled, and Dan half crawled and was half dragged along behind him.
It might have been funny if they hadn’t both been hurting and breathing like well-run horses. And if they hadn’t been deadly serious.
Vision swimming and dimming, Dan launched himself forward in one last desperate effort, trying to lever himself on top of the intruder and pin him. But the perp apparently decided that the best defense was a good offense, so he stopped trying to get away and turned back on Dan, cursing so hard he sprayed spittle, pounding and flailing with what felt like four or five arms. They rolled back down the hall a few feet before finally coming to a stop with the intruder on top.
Something cold and hard poked against Dan’s teeth. He knew what it was. The barrel of a gun.
‘Stop this crap now!’ the stranger said.
With the muzzle vibrating against his teeth, Dan said, ‘If you were gonna kill me, you’d have done it already.’
‘Push your luck,’ the intruder said, and he sounded just angry enough to pull the trigger whether he wanted to or not. Blinking furiously, Dan cleared his vision slightly, not much, just enough so he could see the weapon, blurry, huge as a cannon, jammed into his face. He saw the man beyond the piece too, although not distinctly. The ceiling light in the hall was above and behind the son of a bitch, so his face was still pretty much in shadows. His left ear hung in an odd way, dripping blood.
Dan realized that his own eyelashes were gummed with blood. Blood was still seeping into his eyes along with copious streams of salty sweat, which was half the reason he couldn’t clear them.
He stopped struggling.
‘Let go … you … bulldog … bastard!’ the intruder said, kneeling on top of him, heaving each word out with a new breath, as if the words were lead ingots that had to be cast off with great effort.
‘Okay,’ Dan said, letting go of him.
‘You crazy, man?’
‘All right,’ Dan said.
‘You half tore my fuckin’ ear off!’
‘All right, okay,’ Dan said.
‘Don’t you know when you’re supposed to stay down, you stupid son of a bitch?’
‘Now?’
‘Yeah, now!’
‘Okay.’
‘Stay down!’
‘All right.’
The intruder eased back, still pointing the gun at him but no longer holding it against his teeth. He studied Dan warily for a moment, then stood up. Shakily.
Now Dan could see him better, but it didn’t much matter, because it was no one he remembered seeing before.
The guy backed off, toward the kitchen. He held the gun with one hand and his bleeding ear with the other. Defenseless, not daring to move lest he be shot, Dan lay on his back on the hall floor, head raised, blood trickling into his eyes, smelling blood, tasting blood, heart hammering, wanting to go for it, wanting to rush the bastard in spite of the gun, having to control himself, able to do nothing but just watch the guy escape. It made him mad as hell.