“He said he’d booked a flight to the astral plane, and he wanted his boarding pass,” I said. I snapped down my right turn signal and watched the van in the rearview mirror. A man wearing a white shirt and a beard stepped out of the side door of the van, carrying a Kalashnikov. Shamil opened the passenger door and started out of the van.
“What will you do?” asked Manny.
“Punch his ticket,” I said. I pulled the Buick into reverse, threw my arm over the seat, and rammed the van backwards into the Dumpster. The open van door took down Shamil Khan and the bearded dude with the rifle. I spun out of the driver’s seat, pulling the Colt out of the holster and the Detonics off my left hip. Thumbing the hammers as the pistols came up, I emptied them rapidly into the van. Manny’s pal had two eyebrows for the first time since the doctor slapped his ass.
I thumbed out the magazines and shoved the Detonics into my belt. On the way to the ground, I slammed a fresh magazine into the Colt. Looking under the Buick, I could see a pair of feet wearing shiny alligator loafers and the bearded man rolling on the ground. I put one in the gaiters. Shamil screamed, and I pumped two more rounds into the bearded man with the Kalashnikov while I waited for Shamil to hit the ground. He did, and I lit him up like a Christmas tree.
The Colt, shot dry again, got the last eight-shot magazine, and I holstered it. I reloaded the Detonics with one of the two magazines I had in my pocket. On my feet again, I ran back to the van, leaned in the window, and shot anything I could see moving until I only had one round in the spout. I snapped home the last Detonics mag and sidestepped wide around the front of the Buick, letting my front sight lead the way. At that point, I remembered that the last Detonics mag held only two rounds, but the die was cast, and I could still pull the Colt if need be.
The bearded man rowed himself to a sitting position with the rifle. I made out the impression of a ballistic vest in his white shirt and put two rounds in his neck—the head moves around too much for a sure shot. Shamil Khan lay in a spreading puddle of crimson. He wasn’t moving. I saved the round in the spout and backed around the Buick, watching the van over the front sight of the Detonics.
A police mini-station was four blocks north in a strip mall. I jumped back into the car and reflexively dumped the empty magazine from the Detonics. As I pulled the door shut, I heard Manny say, “Now I punch your ticket!”
He swung his right arm wide over the dash. I turned away and blocked but didn’t realize he had another ice pick until it was buried in my left pectoral muscle and sticking through just enough to prick my left arm. I put the muzzle of the Detonics on Manny’s lap and pulled the trigger.
Manny bucked forward with a shriek. I put the muzzle on the back of his head and squeezed. Nothing happened. I realized the pistol was empty, with the slide locked to the rear. I whacked him in the back of the head. The man in the pickup—and the rest of the traffic—had fled. I pulled out onto the street and floored it for the police mini-station.
Only one stoplight intervened. The devil made it yellow. Jesus didn’t let it blink pink until I got under it. Manny sat up with a gasp, like he had suddenly remembered to breathe. “Asshole!” I said. “This is a brand-new jacket, you two-ice-pick mother fucker.”
Manny gripped his crotch, cursed in a language I did not understand, and then gasped, “I am sorry it is such a small hole.”
I hit him again and the blow loosed the slide to slam into battery. I moved the muzzle to snap down the hammer, but Manny shuddered anyway.
At the strip mall, I turned in, nailed the brakes in front of the mini-station, and parked diagonally, taking up two spaces. I had to drop the Detonics in my lap and reach across with my right hand to open the door—my left arm had gone to la-la land and wasn’t taking any calls. On the passenger side, I found that Manny had locked the door. I shoved my Detonics in my belt, at the small of my back, and opened the door with the key.
“Let me die here,” Manny moaned.
I jerked him up to the door of the mini-station by the collar. The door turned out to be locked. A sign on the door read “Back In,” and a blue clock face with red hands indicated fifteen minutes.
I shoved, booted, and kneed Manny down to the next door, a marine recruiting office. We piled in the door. A gunnery sergeant wearing dress blues and a light frost of salt-and-pepper hair snapped to his feet. He asked, “What the fuck is this?”
Two marines in camouflage fatigues gave me a blank stare and then turned their eyes to the sergeant. “This is the guy that blew up the Waters Building,” I said.
“He’s fouling my deck!”
“He stabbed me,” I said.
“So you shot him,” said the gunny. “Works for me. Take him outside!”
“The police station is locked,” I said.
“He’s your fucking mouse—you play with him!” The gunny’s face flashed from stone indignant to oh-shit surprised. He yelled, “Incoming!” He and the other two marines hit the deck. I hauled Manny toward a door at the back of the office. The white Plymouth van exploded through the front window, splashing a fountain of glass and bulldozing a counter stationed at the front door into the room.
The van came to rest in the middle of the office. I peeked over the counter that now stood between me and the van. Shamil Khan lay draped over the steering wheel. An AKR opened up from inside the van. The already shot-up windshield evaporated as bullets swept the back wall, sending the coatrack spinning and manuals cascading from shelves on the back wall.
The gunny barked from behind his desk, “This is not fucking acceptable! He shot my barracks cover! Nobody shoots my barracks cover!”
I hauled out the Colt and went to work on the van, first paying Shamil Khan the respect I failed to give him on the street.
The gunny said, “Keep that bastard’s dick in the dirt.” And then, “On two. Red-dap, two.”
The marines charged the van, trundling a heavy metal desk in front of them. The gunny yelled, “Lift the fire!” and flashed me a glance. The Colt was empty, but I pointed it at the ceiling anyway. The marines dropped the desk, and the gunny made a flanking attack by diving into the van through the passenger window.
Inside the van, I heard a steady tattoo of heavy fist blows while the gunny counseled, “What the fuck is your main malfunction? You shot my hat! Didn’t your mother love you?”
Two Kalashnikov rifles sailed out the driver’s window and clattered onto the floor. The gunny backed out of the passenger window feet first, dragging a bearded and beaten man out after him. He said, “The other two are shot in the pumpkin and will not be trick-or-treating this year.”
The fire department arrived first but waited for the police department. Manny had gone. I holstered my Colt and followed the blood trail. Manny had collapsed in the alley. The police searched Khan and his men and found that they’d all been wearing ballistic vests.
Manny left in the ambulance. The paramedics told me that it didn’t appear that the ice pick had penetrated my chest wall but cautioned me to have it removed at the hospital. I got yet another ride in the back of a patrol car that smelled of vomit. We took the expressway north toward Kent County General.
The patrol car radio announced, “Officer needs assistance. Greyhound bus station, Wealthy Street and One-thirty-one. Man with a gun. Male, white, gray pants, gray jacket, and gray woman’s wig with a bun.”
“I know who that is,” I said.
“I’m taking you to the hospital,” said the officer. I couldn’t see his name tag.
“I’m not bleeding,” I said. “I can wait while you assist a fellow officer.”
He hit the lights and siren and careened onto the left side ramp to Wealthy Street. Skidding through a left turn, he roared the short distance to the bus station and slid to a halt in the parking lot.
“I think I can help you,” I said.
He said, “Stay in the car.” He left. The back door wouldn’t open from the inside. A security screen kept me out of the front seat. The good news
was that I could feel my left hand and move my left arm. The bad news was that my pectoral muscle raged with fire every time it twitched. Sweat ran down my face. I wiped my forehead with the back of my right hand.
A hatless Grand Rapids patrol sergeant jerked open my door and let in a welcome blast of cool air. “You Hardin?” he asked.
“That’s me.”
“You know this guy?”
“Mark Behler from the TV show,” I said. “He may be drugged. The gun he has is probably inoperable.”
The patrol sergeant turned his head to speak into the radio mike clipped to the epaulet of his shirt. “Stand-by, patrol seven.” He looked back at me. “Probably?”
“He borrowed the gun from the security desk at the TV station. The guard lieutenant told me it was a paperweight.”
“A security guard told you?” he asked.
“Leonard Stanton, retired from the county road patrol.”
“You think this guy will talk to you?” he asked.
“If he won’t,” I said, “I’ll come back and sit in the car.”
“You have an ice pick stuck in your chest.”
“Med-tech said it was in the muscle,” I said. “Burns like hell but ain’t apt to kill me.”
“He comes out in a minute, or you do.”
“Let’s go,” I said. “If I can get him to walk out, please don’t have six guys tackle him.”
“You get him to walk out,” said the sergeant. “Don’t tell me how to do my job.” He took the Colt and the Detonics.
I ducked under the tape, walked up to the front door of the bus station, and found it locked. Behler swung the Ivor Johnson in my direction and a dozen seated people ducked. I heard Mark speak. I couldn’t make out the words, but a young woman wearing what I’d call pedal pushers—I think the ladies call them capri pants now—and a red suede jacket with extravagant fringe walked up and unlocked the door. I pulled it open. She smelled of a recent home perm. I grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her past me and outside. I got an electric burning jolt from the ice pick. She ran.
“Thank God it’s you,” said Mark, his voice thick and slow. “Nobody here has a gun to shoot me.”
“I ain’t shooting you until these people are out of here,” I said.
“The police won’t shoot me,” said Mark, his face blank. He made a little drool at the corner of his mouth.
“Wipe your chin,” I said. “You’re on camera.”
Mark shrugged his chin against the shoulder of his jacket. “Why won’t they shoot?”
“Bad press,” I said. “That’s why they sent me.”
Mark scanned the window and squinted his eyes. “I don’t see the camera.”
“Long lens, Mark,” I said. “What do you say we get rid of these folks and take care of business.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice wan and his face a blank slate.
“All right folks,” I said and pushed the door open. “Get up, get your shit, and get out. Walk!”
Two men flanked an elderly black woman, holding her up as they made their way to the door. She smiled as she passed. I backed out of the way so I didn’t get jostled. I could feel every inch of the ice pick, and every inch felt white hot.
In short order, we were alone. Some of the people left their luggage. I said, “Mark, I hate to tell you this, but I’ve had a very busy day, and I’m out of bullets.”
“I have some,” he said. He squinted at me and blinked. “What’s that on your jacket?”
“Ice pick,” I said. “Had a little accident.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah. Hurts like hell. We have to do this quick. I’ve got a ride waiting to take me to the hospital. You give me your gun, and I’ll give you mine. You have to have a gun or I can’t shoot you.”
“My gun won’t shoot,” said Mark. “I don’t know how to make it shoot.”
I stuck my hand out. “Leonard told me how to make it shoot. It’s a secret.”
Mark stepped slowly toward me. He had a good start on a beard, and his eyes looked like two piss holes in the snow. “That’s a silly wig,” I said.
“It’s special,” said Mark. “I wanted to look like the woman you shot. I thought it would work better.”
“Everything is going to work out fine,” I said. “You got two hundred pounds of fan mail in the last two days.”
“I can’t go back to my show,” said Mark.
“They love you, Mark,” I said. “Thought you’d like to know, before I shot you.”
Mark handed me the revolver.
I put the Ivor Johnson in my coat pocket and walked Mark toward the door with my good arm around him.
“You didn’t shoot me,” he said, but it didn’t sound like a complaint.
“I don’t have a gun.”
Mark stopped and turned to look at me. “You said you had one.”
“An anecdotal fact that doesn’t change the basic truth that shooting you has a certain appeal. Especially, just now,” I said and looked out the window. In the parking lot, the police officers were raising their weapons. “And I’m not the only one who thinks so.” I took his arm with my hand.
“I want them to shoot me,” he said. “I want to show how bad things happen when people have guns.” He began to back up and pull away. “It’ll make the world a better place.”
I tightened my grip but didn’t pull. “You want to make the world a better place?”
“I told you that before,” he said and started twisting his arm.
“I know how you can do that,” I said. He stopped jerking his arm and narrowed his eyes. “Your housekeeper, Juanita?”
“Yeah?”
“Set up a college fund for her. The world will be a better place.”
He shrugged. “That’s such a small thing. What about guns?”
“It wouldn’t be a small thing for Juanita, and it might be a very big thing for her family.” I clapped him on the shoulder with my left hand—the ice pick rewarded me with a hot electric jolt. “Besides, every one of those cops out there is convinced that there’s at least one too many guns in this town right now. So am I.”
“It’s not supposed to be about one gun,” said Mark.
“You kind of narrowed the discussion down to one gun when you waved it around the bus station and scared the hell out of everybody.”
“The point is—” said Mark.
“An object lesson,” I said. “Maybe there is one here. Maybe I’m not sophisticated enough to see it. I just deal with facts. Fact one is that your wife loves you. Fact two is that you haven’t killed anyone, yet. Fact number three—it’s time to talk to Officer Friendly.”
“What should I say?”
“Tell him to talk to your lawyer.”
“You said I had to talk to Officer Friendly. Is the camera still on?”
“Sure,” I said. “Keep it brief. Tell him how bad guns are.” I started him toward the door. He didn’t resist. “But don’t tell him any secrets.”
“Yeah, some secrets don’t need to be revealed,” said Mark. “I’ve been thinking about that.” He showed me the basset hound face he’d made at Sbarro’s before the Shatner shooting. “I can’t seem to get the idea off my mind. You were right about that.”
“Except one,” I said. “Just between you and me. And you know I keep secrets.”
“About what?”
“About what the Shatner woman said to you.”
“You were there,” he said.
“Just before she blasted your tape recorder. I didn’t quite hear it. Chet won’t tell me, and he erased it from the tape before he turned the cassette over to the police.”
Mark reached for the door handle. “Maybe that’s best,” he said. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes. “I can’t make it up to her now.”
“Make up what?” I asked and blocked the door with my foot.
“The story I did about her son. The prosecutor said there was too much publicity. He wouldn’t make a deal for her son
to plead guilty to a lesser charge and stay out of jail.”
“She said all of that?”
“No, I knew that,” said Mark. “Chet knew it too. We all knew. The judge. The insurance investigator. Everybody.”
“What did she say?”
“She said,” Mark wiped his eyes with his hand, “you’re next.”
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