by Tony Masero
“Y´know,” said Legrand, breaking the silence. “There´s a story they tell about Main Street.”
The others turned to him curiously, glad of a break in the tension.
“They say that in the old days Lodrun was a rip-roaring place full of tough old boys and mountain men. That road out there was once a log run from up the hillside and on wild drunken nights, the loggers would ride cut timber down the slipway like they was sledges on snow. Crazy men. More of them was squished on that run than they could count.”
Legrand knew what he was about and so did Stoeffel. He was quietly pleased his deputy saw the need to distract them all with his tale.
“Then along come this preacher. A man called Lucius Everglade. A hell fire preacher, full of the power of the Lord. He saw all the houses of ill repute they had here and poured brimstone down on them as only a good Christian minister can. By then the timber trade was dying out as people wanted bricks and mortar `stead of tongue and groove. So it wasn´t that hard to get the righteous townsfolk to support him. He built that church there right across the old log run and I guess that was the end of the bad old days in Lodrun. Leastways, `til now.”
The smell of burning sifted into the room. A petroleum taint laced with the harsh scent of bubbling varnish. Legrand turned, tasting the air with his nose.
“This is it,” he murmured.
Stoeffel nodded silently and they all shifted, rising one behind the other, to crouch in a single file.
Black smoke swept down the sunlit street outside. First as a whisper then as a rolling black denseness. Shouting. Distant and desperate.
“Let’s go!” snarled Stoeffel.
They rose as one to burst at a run across the littered front office and out into the bright street. The plan was mapped in their minds and each broke in his own direction. Legrand going left, Summersby right and Stoeffel straight ahead to the dark side of the street opposite.
The beat of an automatic rifle spattered the tarmac at Stoeffel´s feet, the line ricocheting away behind him as he ran. He leapt across the far walkway in a single stride and dived into a shop doorway. Turning, gun in hand; he sought signs of life on the rooftops in front of him. No dark silhouettes came in view and he left the cover of the doorway to slide along Main Street and duck into the nearest alleyway. He looked back for one last glance.
Rose´s Moving and Storage billowed lurid flame and black smoke from its doorway. However they had managed it the Links had done a good job, it must be setting off red alarms in Bubba´s head right now.
A man came out of a side road and ran towards the door rifle in hand. He stood there in angry stupefaction as the black smoke boiled around him. Stoeffel recognized the slight build and mustached upper lip of Leonard Sachs from the sheet printouts. He snapped his gun arm up, steadying his aim with a wrist grip.
“Police!” he bellowed. “Drop your weapon.”
Sachs turned, leveling the rifle as he did. The pistol bucked in Stoeffel´s hand and Sachs spun sideways, arms flying out like chicken wings as if an invisible hammer had punched him. He dropped to the ground and began to drag himself desperately back towards the cover of the side street. Stoeffel saw he had only winged the man and took steady aim again, this time loosing a series of shots one after the other. Sparks flew from the sidewalk and the roadway around Sachs. Stoeffel could see him screaming in pain and fear as the fire and dirty smoke wreathed about him. A spreading red stain marked the wound in Sachs´s shoulder, a splash of it climbing up the side of his neck as he scrabbled on his one good elbow and knees towards safety.
Coldly, Stoeffel stepped clear of the alleyway and pumped the remaining four shots in the magazine into the writhing body. The slide on the gun bucked back empty as the last of the fifteen rounds left the Glock and Sachs lay still in the road.
Stoeffel slunk away into the shadows.
“That one´s for Jimmy Luke,” he whispered to himself as he started to run, a fresh magazine already in his hand.
He was gone by the time a dark shape inside the building loomed forward and kicked a blazing oil drum away from the blistered doorway. It bounced and rolled over Sachs´ still frame, spreading flaming gasoline soaked rags as it cantered down Main Street, to run to a standstill and lodge harmlessly against a curb opposite. Black smoke continued to rise from the smoldering drum and hung in a cloud of oily menace in the breathless air over the town.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Legrand headed downhill towards the railroad crossing, head down and at full tilt. He glanced back once at the sound of Stoeffel´s nine millimeter and saw the police chief standing in the road popping away as if he were at a county shoot.
Legrand ran on. It was a sure thing they had someone stationed at the railroad crossing, that being the main route out of town and Brian Links had earlier reported movement down here on Jimmy Luke´s two-way when he and his father had reconnoitered the town.
Legrand slowed and ducked into the alleyway beside the Low Down Coffee Shop. The sun was high now and the mountain air fresh and clear in the approaching winter season. He felt the sun´s heat through the thin air and could smell the sharpness of fresh sealant on the warmed wood of the Low Down´s walls. Holding the shotgun two-handed he peered around the corner of the building. The crossing was closed, an electronically controlled hazard-painted bar sitting halfway across the road guarding the tracks.
Dead warning lights glowed mischievously with a dull red but it was only the sunlight catching a corner of the glass. A disused, dusty windowed control box sat overlooking the tracks and Legrand guessed that if anybody was positioned hereabouts it would be up there. The raised box gave a clear view of the tracks, station yards and surrounding roads. Nothing was visible through the dusty windows though and since Stoeffel´s firing had ceased an uneasy silence had settled over the town once again. Only the single plume of black smoke trapped in the breathless air over Main Street indicated that anything was wrong.
He moved slowly. Edging along in front of the coffee shop, quickly glancing in the shop front windows to see that the place inside was deserted. Joe´s treasured doorway, framed with uneven panes of paneled glass, reflected the sunny crossing scene. The differing angles rippling with distortion in the cheap material. Legrand stood in shadow under the corner portico, his eyes quartering the yards below the control box. Nothing moved.
Legrand waited patiently. He could feel the string of tension wiring inside himself and he kept it there in the background as he looked for some sign of his opponent. Heat rose from the tracks and quivered in the air, making it hard to tell if there was motion or not in the distance where empty freight cars sat silently on sidings. Shadows were sharp black pools of darkness that could hold a hundred hidden foes but Legrand was looking for just one.
When it came the attack was sudden and merciless.
Not from the rail yards as he had expected but from inside the coffee shop he had thought deserted. Joe´s doorway erupted with a shotgun blast, which threw Legrand out into the street. The left side of his face and shoulder were aflame with glass and wood splinters, the door hit him hard as it came off its hinges but saved him from the worst of the shot. He hit the ground and his eyes rolled in his head in stunned surprise as his good hand automatically searched for his own shotgun. But the weapon had been thrown clear of his reach in the fall.
Legrand turned over on his back, wincing in pain as he reached for the pistol in his holster. A heavy set figure strolled out of the shattered doorway and stood looking down at him from the shadows. A bald headed man with a cleft upper lip that was twisted now in a satisfied smirk
Eric Leeward. The one who had nailed Leroy and released Brian Links.
“You ain´t gonna make it, Deputy,” he growled, indicating Legrand´s holster with his still smoking shotgun barrel. The sunlight gleamed on his shining skull as he stepped down towards Legrand, to stand over him as he slid the shotgun´s barrel grip to load another shell.
“Bye, bye, asshole.”
Legrand scissor kicked. One leg behind the man´s knee the other in front.
The shotgun went off raising a crater of tarmac from beside Legrand´s ruined face. Leeward barely moved, his thick legs absorbing the kick as if it were no more than a slight jar that threw off his aim momentarily. The shotgun came up and he cranked another shell into the chamber.
“Game little sucker, ain´t you?” he grinned, stamping down hard on Legrand´s ankle with a heavy work boot. “Now hold still a minute.”
With a wrench of pain Legrand felt the bone in his ankle give yet still he twisted, writhing wildly on the ground, determined not to give in without a fight. He swung his body this way and that with all the flexibility his long body would allow.
The man above laughed at his efforts, Legrand´s wild thrashing striking him as comic.
“Oooh-ooh!” he chuckled throatily. “Go for it, Deputy. This is better than a dude-ranch line dance.”
He tired of the amusement suddenly, thrusting the shotgun barrel down hard into Legrand´s face, cutting a gouge from his cheek.
“That´s it, partner. Time´s up.” Legrand felt the barrel pressing against his cheekbone and readied himself for the inevitable blast into oblivion.
The top of Leeward´s bald head levitated up in a geyser of brains and scalp that carried skywards. His staring eyes quirked questioningly for a moment before he fell forward, stiff and rigid like a pole-axed steer. He crashed down lifeless to lie across Legrand, the band of his metal belt buckle pressing into Legrand´s forehead.
Blinded by the body Legrand wondered what the hell had happened until he heard a voice say,
“Now that ain´t any sort of position for a police officer to be in.”
It was Brian Links. He rolled Leeward´s body to one side and Legrand saw Jimmy Luke´s silver Magnum gleaming in his hand.
“You sure saved my bacon,” he managed through swelling lips.
“Come on,” said Brian. “I´ll help you up. We´d better get under cover.”
He helped Legrand to limp into the shade of the coffee shop porch.
“Man, you look a mess,” Brian frowned at Legrand´s battered features. “Can you see okay?”
Legrand´s left eye was swollen and closing fast and he could feel the side of his face puffing up. He cupped his wounded shoulder in his right hand and something in his ankle felt like it was broken.
“I got one good eye left,” he managed. “Get me my shotgun, will you?”
“Come on,” said Brian. “You ain´t going nowhere but to the doctor’s.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Clement Ray Barnes held the high ground. It was he who had shot Jimmy Luke as he brought down old man Cobble from the church tower. He saw the men make the break from the police station and it was he who had fired at Stoeffel, until the police chief had disappeared from view beneath him under the overhang of Main Street buildings.
He sat atop the old Town Council building and searched the streets below through his sniper scope. A crenellated archway on the stone balustrade gave him good cover as he carried out his search and he stopped only to raise one tattooed arm and glance at his wristwatch. The chopper was due any minute now and it was damned bad luck that those dumb police bastards had to make their break right now.
The timing meant he would have to leave his safe posting and get on over to the warehouse opposite if he were to make the exit schedule on time. From where he crouched he could see the stacked crates waiting on the warehouse roof.
Man, more than a small fortune´s worth of cocaine. Enough from his share to buy a Pacific island if he wanted it. He had seen Lenny Sachs go down and that meant an even bigger cut for the rest of them. There had been shooting down at the railroad crossing but the result was invisible to him from where he was.
The putter of an approaching helicopter sounded in the distance.
He turned and saw it coming in behind him out of the clear blue sky to the east. A big beast with twin rotors. The bays were open and a winch hung ready at the side. Time to move if he wasn´t to be left behind.
Bubba would need his help loading over there, the damned police would just have to wait for another day.
He folded the bipod support back under the barrel of his sniper rifle and scampered across the rooftop heading for the hatch. He was not sure but thought he heard a whine as something passed his ear, it was hard to tell over the sound of the incoming helicopter. Some bug perhaps.
But the next spinning 5.56 mm round catapulting off the hatch doorway in a wrench of splinters told him he was under fire. Clarence Ray lay down flat on the rooftop fast. One handed he opened the door as another shot pinged over his head. With difficulty, he angled himself and the rifle into the opening and tumbled down the short ladder to land in a pile on the landing below.
Cursing, Clarence Ray collected himself and rocketed down the musty stairwell to the old council chambers below. Someone had zeroed in on him. No doubt it was another one of those pricks that made it out from the station house.
With a roar that echoed loudly in the enclosed space of Main Street, the massive copter closed in on the warehouse roof casting a dark shadow over the street below. Clarence Ray could see the remnants of black oil drum smoke caught in a whirlpool as the down blast hit the street and spun it in circling coils.
He watched the other rooftops searching for the police sniper, his eyes racing over the skyline. The boy sure had himself in tight somewhere.
Then Clarence Ray saw him. He leaned out from the shade hiding him at the top of the Tea Shoppe fire escape and loosed off a burst of shots at the chopper. Before falling back as the machine slid closer down to the roof. Clarence Ray guessed that Bubba was up there guiding the pilot in for the first pickup.
He opened the oak paneled front doors of the Town Council building and ran for the cover of the Tea Shoppe storefront on the other side of the street. Panting, he made it and clung to the cover of the sun-heated brickwork. Without catching his breath, he leaned around and pointing the muzzle of his rifle skywards, he slipped it on automatic and fired up at the fire escape.
Sparks flew in a dazzle of brilliant white pinpoints as his shells hit the ironwork and ricocheted off into the alley below. He saw the black silhouette above jump back smartly and chose the moment to make his dash for the warehouse entrance.
Running down Main Street towards him was the police chief.
Clarence Ray recognized his pug ugly face and goddamn it if the mother wasn´t was firing at him as he ran, a pistol in both hands. Under other circumstances Clarence Ray would have laughed out loud, the guy looked like something out of an old western movie, blasting away like that. Chips of exploding brickwork spattered his cheek as a shot hit the wall beside him and he knew then that this was no movie, with a sudden burst of speed he lurched forward and ran through the burnt out doors and into the warehouse.
He raced past Bubba´s office and down the corridor, almost crashing into the large frame of Bubba as he made it to the roof stairs.
“Where the hell you been?” snarled Bubba.
“Dammit, Bubba! Tryin´ to get over here. Them cops are on the loose. They creamed Lenny outside the front door.”
“Yeah, I seen it. Listen, get on the roof. See to it the stuff´s loaded, I´ll keep the sons-a-bitches busy down here. And Clarence Ray,” he warned. “Don´t try anything clever. Understand?”
Clarence Ray nodded wisely. He knew there would be no place safe on earth if he crossed Bubba Rose.
“Don´ worry, Bubba. I´ll see it´s done right. I´ll holler when we´re ready.”
Pushing past Bubba growled, “Page me.” He tossed a pager as he went on down the corridor towards his office. Obediently, Clarence Ray ducked on up the stairway to make his way to the roof.
Summersby slid down the fire escape into the alley just as Stoeffel came to the corner.
“I missed the bum,” he shouted.
“Me too,” Stoeffel called back. “They inside?”
Summersby nodded as he came up to Stoeffel and the two stood to each side of the ruined warehouse doorway.
“See what happened to Legrand?” asked Stoeffel.
“He stopped one I think but that young fella Brian saved his ass.”
“Any luck with the copter?”
Summersby raised his rifle. “Gave it some but the thing´s too well armored, doubt if I did much damage.”
“That you out there, Stoeffel?” Bubba Rose shouted to them from inside the soot-blackened corridor.
“Bet your life, Bubba. Boot’s on the other foot now, huh?”
Bubba chuckled. “You think so. You wanna come in here and take a little drink with me an´ your lady friend?”
Stoeffel peeked around the doorjamb and saw Bubba standing behind his big red office chair that he had pushed out into the hallway. He caught Jenny by the elbow and thrust her down into the chair. Jenny sat in there, tightly bound with silver packing tape around her body and a separate strip covering her mouth. Their eyes met and Stoeffel´s face fell as he saw the despair in her eyes.
“Yeah, old buddy,” grinned Bubba. “I still got her here. You try to come through me an´ she´s the first to go.”
“Well, we´ll just think on it a minute, Bubba,” said Stoeffel.
“You take your time there. There´s plenty to go around,” he leered down at Jenny. “Ain´t that right, sweet thing?” His hand, as big as her face, caressed her cheek surprisingly gently before moving away and carefully drawing a nickel-plated .357 SIG-Sauer from a shoulder holster.
Stoeffel whispered across at Summersby.
“How´re you with that thing?” he pointed at the semi-automatic in Summersby´s waistband. Summersby caught his drift and gave a thumbs up. “Bubba does stand kinda tall, don´t he?” he whispered back.