Whistler's Angel (62 page)

Robert unsnapped his pistol. Lockwood spun at both sounds. Crow’s
dangling, kicking body shielded his own as Lockwood groped for the gun in his belt. Lockwood recognized Robert. “Where the fuck did you come from? Did I just hear Aubrey? Was that Aubrey?”

Arnold Kaplan, in the bedroom, was as startled as Lockwood. He had seated Leslie on the floor of the closet. He had quickly covered her mouth with his hand. He whispered, “Like I told you. Bad people. Sit tight.” But damn it, he thought, now she’s heard Aubrey’s name. He might not be able to save her.

Robert hadn’t fired. He had no clear shot. Aubrey called, “Robert? Do it now. Shoot them both,” to which Briggs responded, “No, he’s mine.”

Briggs had emerged, his gun aimed at Lockwood’s head, his free hand touching his paper-like face. He said, “See this? You did this to me. They got me because you left me, you shit.”

Lockwood had yet to tear his own weapon free. The big silencer was stuck in his belt. Briggs said, “What’s that? You got a problem there, Vern? Let me give you a hand. I’ll shoot it loose.”

And Briggs did. He lowered his sights and he fired. Lockwood, in that instant, had hurled himself backward. The muzzle blast was deafening, but the bullet missed its mark. Instead, it struck Crow in the buttocks. Crow squealed and bucked. Lockwood struggled to hold him. Lockwood managed to back up into the garage where at last he got the Glock free. He could no longer see Briggs, but he could hear Briggs moving toward him. He had a clear view of Robert who was bobbing and weaving, still trying to get a clear shot. He heard
Aubrey again shouting, “Shoot them both. Shoot.”

Lockwood’s best shot was at Robert, couldn’t miss him at this range. But
enraged by Felix Aubrey’s betrayal, he swung the silenced barrel toward the
door to the kitchen. He snarled, “You little faggot, you’re dead,” and squeezed the trigger. He added the word “Fuck” when nothing happened.

Suddenly there was Briggs. Briggs was filling the doorway, his pistol squarely aimed at the part of Lockwood’s face that was visible behind that of Crow. Briggs asked, “What did you do? Forget to chamber a round? Go ahead. Slap one in there. I’ll wait.”

Aubrey gasped, “Are you out of your mind? Get this done.” He had stayed out of sight in the kitchen.

Briggs called back, “No, you see…he needs two hands to do that. This prick’s got himself in a quandary here. He’s got to let go of Crow or he can’t work the slide. That’s unless he can work it with his teeth.”

“Then please end it,” called Aubrey. “Do it now.”

“In a minute,” answered Briggs. “Don’t forget I’m entitled. Let’s all take a little time to smell the roses.”

Aubrey called, “Robert? You do it. Do it now.”

Briggs raised a hand to Robert without turning his head. He said, “No, you don’t. You stay back.”

Aubrey called, “Mr. Kaplan, why are you not out here?”

Briggs said, “Hear that, Vern? A good question, don’t you think? You’ve been standing here waiting for your guy to save your ass. I got news. He’s with us. He’s not your guy.”

Robert said, “I’ll go see what he’s doing with that woman.”

Aubrey hissed, “Don’t you move. Don’t you lower your weapon.”

Briggs agreed. He said, “Yeah, stay. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing. We can’t leave her either. Even Vernon knows that.” He added, “Mr. Aubrey? Why don’t you come out here? It’s worth it to see the look on Vern’s face. Besides, you got questions to ask, am I right?”

“You say he’s under control?”

“No, he’s thoroughly pissed.”

“Under
your
control, you idiot.”

“Yeah, come look. I got him cold. Right now, old Vern is trying to think. You can tell because he’s pushing at his lips with his tongue. Right now, he’s deciding what to do with the loony. Drop him, try to run, try to throw him, or what? Except he knows that if he twitches, he gets my whole clip, the first half of which goes through Mr. Crow here.”

Aubrey called, “Then ask him what he’d done to Adam Whistler. Ask the damned fool…never mind…I’ll ask Kaplan. Shoot him, Mr. Briggs. Shoot him now.”

B
riggs fired, but he shot to hurt, not to kill. He aimed to the right of Crow’s swollen face. He aimed at Lockwood’s left elbow. Lockwood twisted away; he tried to swing Crow between them. The bullet missed the elbow, but it creased Lockwood’s arm. The muzzle blast caused another ringing in the ears of everyone there except Aubrey. The kitchen door had shielded Aubrey’s ears.

It was only Aubrey, therefore, who heard the sound that was coming from the street and was building. He heard the roar of an engine, a powerful engine, and he heard the grinding sound of gears trying to mesh. He heard the groaning thump that large vehicles make when their wheels go over a curb. Aubrey pushed the door open to see what it was. He saw nothing because the front room’s drapes had been drawn, but the sound almost seemed right on top of him.

He did see Briggs with his pistol still extended toward the door that led out to the garage. He caught a glimpse of Lockwood, Lockwood backing away, still desperately clinging to Crow. He was conscious of Robert, standing frozen in place, his face turned toward the front of the house. Robert was, only then, becoming aware of the sound that was building from outside the house. The house itself was starting to vibrate. In that instant, the wall of the front room exploded. The whole row of draperies and the windows behind them seemed to rise up and surge toward where Robert was standing. They enveloped him. They swathed him in fabric and glass. He seemed to melt under their weight.

But it wasn’t the weight of the draperies alone. The draperies were followed by a great silver mass that thundered through the front wall behind them. It had a rounded top, a red star on its side. Aubrey realized, of course, that he was looking at a truck, but his brain had not yet allowed him to believe that a truck could be driving through the house. He saw something else red in the cab of the truck. It was hair. On the driver. Red hair.

He saw a burst of flame come from the driver’s side window and he heard a jackhammer’s roar. He saw that Briggs had spun to confront this hellish thing, but his reaction had been far too late. For an instant, Briggs rose up. He seemed to be floating. He’d been standing on his feet, but they’d been pulled out from under him. His legs, in that instant, were as high as his head. Briggs settled to the floor, it seemed, in slow motion. He had dropped his gun. He was grasping his knees. He was trying to hold them together. He was screaming.

Felix Aubrey felt himself go light-headed. One part of his brain was telling him to run and another was telling him that this couldn’t be real. It had begun to seem dream-like; it was all in slow motion. As the truck rumbled toward him there were other fleeting images. One was of Lockwood. He saw Lockwood again. Lockwood was now unencumbered by Crow. He was working the slide of his pistol. He was looking at the truck and he was looking at Briggs. He seemed undecided as to what he should do. Suddenly, he was shouting at Briggs. He wanted Briggs to look up at him, to stop writhing and look. Lockwood
seemed intent on shooting Briggs in the face. He wanted Briggs to see the bullets coming.

But another burst of flame came out of the truck. Another jackhammer’s roar. The door where Lockwood stood erupted in splinters down at the level of his legs. The eruption made him jump; he did a jig in the doorway, but he didn't seem as badly hurt as Briggs. He staggered out, stepping over still another pair of legs. These other legs were bare except for socks and they were moving. They belonged to Joshua Crow. He was crawling. Lockwood, in a blink, had vanished from sight. Crow was trying to get to his feet.

The truck had paused, but it was moving again. Aubrey thought he heard another engine starting. Yes, he did. In the garage. Lockwood must have reached a car. Next he heard the tearing and the snapping of metal as the car pushed another car aside. He only heard these sounds; he wasn’t able to look because he couldn’t take his eyes off this mass moving toward him. It was grinding over furniture, splintering the floor. A woman had jumped from the passenger side. In her hands she held a weapon, some sort of a shotgun. She had it at her shoulder. She was calling a name.

She called, Letty…Leslie…something like that. It seemed to Aubrey that she should have been calling something else. She was looking for the girl that Kaplan had brought here. Whistler’s girl’s name was Claudia, but she didn’t call that name. She was calling for someone named Leslie.

She looked his way. She saw him. But she paid him no mind. He found himself staring at her. She was lovely. This was hardly a time to make that observation, but for some reason he couldn’t help it. Shotgun or no, there was a gentleness about her. She seemed perfectly calm and unafraid. It was strange, but he found himself wanting to help her. He started to say, “Over there. In that bedroom.” But he could no longer see where she was, where she’d gone, because the big silver truck had kept coming.

He tried to back up, to get out of its way. He managed a few steps back into the kitchen. Beyond those, his legs, like his brain, would not function. He stood as if frozen in the middle of the kitchen. There were cabinets on the walls to his left and to his right. They began to tilt toward him, spilling out all their contents. The walls, the counter, bulged toward him as well. Dishes and glassware fell and shattered around him. He raised his hands to his face and he covered his eyes because he knew that the truck would be coming through next. It would crush him if he looked. So he tried not to look. A part of his brain thought that seemed to make sense. He had no recourse but to trust it.

From what seemed a great distance, he heard spoken voices. A man’s
voice called a name, that name Leslie again. A woman’s voice answered, “I can’t find her. She’s not here.”

The man answered, “Then let’s go. She must be in that van. They had to have stashed her in the van.”

S
uddenly, there was a great flash of light. It was blinding. And hot. Yet Aubrey heard no explosion. The sound it made was more of thump and a whoosh.

The man’s voice said, “This house is going up. Get out now.”

Aubrey’s legs must have started working again. He found himself moving toward the rear kitchen door that opened on a patio outside. It was the door at which he had waited for Robert while Robert was parking their car. Had Robert come back yet? He was no longer sure. He seemed to remember Robert going under that truck, but that, too, now seemed only a dream.

The car, thought Aubrey. Where did Robert put the car? He would have to wait for Robert to come back. Then he’d ask him. In the meantime, he might as well sit. There were no chairs on the patio, but there were wooden planters. Aubrey sat down on the edge of a planter. He kept his hands over his face.

He heard a woman’s voice, this one very near. This one was calling his name. He thought at first that it must be that same lovely woman. He giggled.
He had no idea why.

The woman spoke again. She was nearer than before. From the sound she stood only a few feet away. She said, “Felix…the girl. Where did they take her?”

He parted his hands. He saw the woman who had spoken. It was not the one who had jumped from the truck. This one was much smaller, even smaller than he was. And she had red hair. And her eyes were very strange. This was the one who had driven that truck. Her face and her hands were blackened with soot and the sweater she was wearing was scorched. One eye had been injured. She did not seem to mind. Her eyes were like the eyes of a cat.

She asked again, “Felix? Where is she?”