They came down and clustered around the prone one and now Paul pumped the trigger and saw it register upon them as one of them dropped with the quick spineless looseness of instant death and Paul’s second shot went through the same one and then ripped up a yard of stucco. The third one was wheeling back under the fire escape with amazing quick presence of mind and the girl was diving for a doorway. Paul heard her scream: “Get that mother!” and then the one from under the fire escape was coming after him, running in deadly swift silence with a knife whipping up.
One shot left or two? Sudden terror gripped him and he knew he had to wait, had to make it point-blank because there was no chance for a miss. The boy came straight at him, terrifyingly without sound; Paul had a clear sight of him, the blazing tight expectant eyes, the lips peeled back from the teeth, the wide nostrils flexed like biceps.… and then Paul fired and the spinning plug of lead punched a dark disk in the boy’s face just below one eye. The boy’s scream was a dead cry, but he fell against Paul and Paul scrambled back in thundering panic as the falling knife scraped across his wrist; the gun fell to the sidewalk and skittered away and Paul fell against the wall bent over almost double hugging his stinging wrist: sweat sprang from his face and sucked-in breath hissed through his teeth. The boy rolled and toppled onto his shoulder and Paul pounced on the gun with primitive clear cunning and shot the groaning boy once more in the face.
It was empty now, he knew it, and he swung the cylinder out and punched the empties and dug in his pocket while his eyes scanned the street opposite—the two boys down. Where was the girl?
He heard running footsteps somewhere; a door slammed and he winced.
Gone. He stood shaking, snapping the reloaded gun together. Think now.
She couldn’t have seen him clearly; he’d never been out in the light. She hadn’t seen his face at all; he was sure of it.
The cartridge cases. He’d dumped them out in his fever to reload—but they would have fingerprints on them; he hadn’t worn gloves to load the gun. He bent and picked them up and had a hard time finding the fifth one but it was there, in a crack below the lip of the sidewalk, and after he had all five in his pocket he had a look at the boy who had come at him with the knife. The boy was seeping blood into the pavement. This one had come close, seen Paul’s face; he had to be dead. Paul shot him in the head.
Even if the other two under the fire escape weren’t dead they hadn’t got a look at him; it was time to get out of here—what if that girl called the police?
He turned away from the dead boy and walked south, emptied by violence.
He had covered half the length of the block when he looked back and saw the cop standing there.
The cop stood under the light in a frozen attitude but it was plain by the lift of his head that he saw Paul. Paul froze: the gun, forgotten, still dangled in his hand. He knew the cop knew what he was. He waited for the cop to speak, waited for the cop to draw his gun. He had no thought of shooting the cop, although he had the gun in his hand; you didn’t shoot cops, that wasn’t the point of it all.
The cop reached up in the light and took his cap off and held it in his right hand. Then slowly the cop turned his back and stood there without moving.
It took a long time for Paul to absorb what the cop meant by that. Finally his heart began to thud heavily and he turned and walked south to the corner. He looked back and the cop still hadn’t moved. He ducked across under the elevated until he had put the barrier wall between himself and the cop, and then he went over to Third Avenue and walked downtown until he found a cruising cab that took him home.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1972 by Brian Garfield
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
This edition published in 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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Death Wish Page 16