"He busted me up and then flew off on a magic f**kin carpet.
Sure, he took my car! Why do you think I'm layin here? Get a f**kin tan?"
"Right," Clut repeated, and sprinted back down the road. Dimes and quarters bounced out of his pockets and spun across the macadam in bright little arcs.
He leaned in the window of his car so fast he almost knocked himself out on the door-ledge. He snagged the mike. He had to get Sheila to send help for the old. man, but that wasn't the most important thing. Both Alan and the State Police had to know that Hugh Priest was now driving Lenny Partridge's old Chevrolet BelAir. Clut wasn't sure what year it was, but nobody could miss that dust-colored oil-burner.
But he could not raise Sheila in dispatch. He tried three times and there was no answer. No answer at all.
Now he could hear Lenny starting to scream again, and Clut went into Hugh's house to call Rescue Services in Norway on the telephone.
One hell of a fine time for Sheila to have to be on the john, he thought.
14
Henry Beaufort was also trying to reach the Sheriff's Office. He stood at the bar with the telephone pressed against his ear. It rang again and again and again. "Come on," he said, "answer the f**king I Y?"
phone. What are you guys doing over there? Playing gin rummy Billy Tupper had gone outside. Henry heard him yell something and looked up impatiently. The yell was followed by a sudden loud bang. Henry's first thought was that one of Lenny's old tires had blown... and then there were two more bangs.
Billy walked back into the Tiger. He was walking very slowly.
He was holding one hand against his throat, and blood was pouring through his fingers.
"'Enry!" Billy cried in a weird, strangled Cockney voice.
"'Enry! 'En-" He reached the Rock-Ola, stood there swaying for a moment, and then everything in his body seemed to let go at once and he collapsed in a loose tumble.
A shadow fell over his feet, which were almost out the door, and then the shadow's owner appeared. He was wearing a fox-tail around his neck and holding a pistol in one hand. Smoke drifted from its barrel.
Tiny jewels of perspiration nestled in the sparse mat of hair between his ni**les. The skin under his eyes was puffy and brown. He stepped over Billy Tupper and into the dimness of The Mellow Tiger.
"Hello, Henry," said Hugh Priest.
15
John LaPointe didn't know why this was happening, but he knew Lester was going to kill him if he kept it up-and Lester showed no sign of even slowing down, let alone stopping. He tried to slide down the wall and out of Lester's reach, but Lester grabbed his shirt and yanked him back up. Lester was still breathing easily. His own shirt had not even come untucked from the elastic waistband of his sweatpants.
"Here you go, Johnny-boy," Lester said, and smashed another fist into John's upper lip. John felt it split apart on his teeth. "Grow your goddam pu**y-tickler over that."
Blindly, John stuck out one leg behind Lester and pushed as hard as he could. Lester uttered a surprised yell and went over, but he shot both hands out as he toppled, snagged them in john's bloodspattered shirt, and pulled the Deputy over on top of him. They began to roll across the floor, butting and punching.
Both were far too busy to see Sheila Brigham dart out of the dispatcher's cubicle and into Alan's office. She snatched the shotgun off the wall, cocked it, and ran back into the bullpen area, which was now a shambles. Lester was sitting on top ofjohn, industriously banging his head against the floor.
Sheila knew how to use the gun she had been target shooting since she was eight years old. Now she socked the buttplate against her shoulder and screamed: "Get away from him, John!
Give me a clearfield!"
Lester turned at the sound of her voice, his eyes glaring. He bared his teeth at Sheila like an angry bull gorilla, then went back to banging John's head on the floor.
16
As Alan approached the Municipal Building, he saw the first unqualifiedly good thing of the day: Norris Ridgewick's VW approaching from the other direction. Norris was in plain clothes, but Alan cared not at all about that. He could use him this afternoon.
Oh boy, how he could use him.
Then that went to hell, too.
A large red car-a Cadillac, license plate KEETON I-suddenly shot out of the narrow alley which gave access to the Municipal Building's parking lot. Alan watched, gape-mouthed, as Buster drove his Cadillac into the side of Norris's Beetle. The Caddy wasn't going fast, but it was roughly four times the size of Norris's car.
There was a crunch of crimping metal and the VW toppled over onto the passenger side with a hollow bang and a tinkle of glass.
Alan slammed on the brakes and got out of his cruiser.
Buster was getting out of his Cadillac.
Norris was struggling out through the window of his Volkswagen with a dazed expression on his face.
Buster began to stalk toward Norris, his hands closing into fists.
A frozen grin was rising on his fat round face.
Alan took one look at that grin and began to run.
17
The first shot Hugh fired shattered a bottle of Wild Turkey on the backbar. The second shattered the glass over a framed document which hung on the wall just above Henry's head and left a round black hole in the liquor license beneath. The third tore off Henry Beaufort's right cheek in a pink cloud of blood and vaporized flesh.
Henry shrieked, grabbed the box with the sawed-off shotgun inside, and dropped behind the bar. He knew Hugh had shot him, but he didn't know if it was bad or not. He was only aware that the right side of his face was suddenly as hot as a furnace, and that blood, warm, wet, and sticky, was pouring down the side of his neck.
"Let's talk about cars, Henry," Hugh was saying as he approached the bar. "Even better than that, let's talk about my foxtail-what do you say?"
Henry opened the box. It was lined with red velvet. He stuck his jittery, unstable hands in and pulled out the sawed-off Winchester. He started to break it, then realized there was no time.
He would just have to hope it was loaded.
He gathered his legs under him, getting ready to spring up and give Hugh what he sincerely hoped would be a big surprise.
18
Sheila realized John wasn't going to get out from under the crazy man, who she now believed was Lester Platt or Pratt... the gym teacher at the high school, anyway. She didn't think John could get out from under. Lester had stopped banging John's head against the floor and had closed his big hands around John's throat instead.
Sheila reversed the gun, locked her hands on the barrel, and cocked it back over her shoulder like Ted Williams. Then she brought it around in a hard, smooth swing.
Lester turned his head at the last moment, just in time to catch the gun's steel-edged walnut stock between his eyes. There was a nasty crunch as the gunstock smashed a hole into Lester's skull and turned his forebrain to jelly. It sounded as if someone had stepped very hard on a full box of popcorn. Lester Pratt was dead before he hit the floor.
Sheila Brigham looked at him and began to scream.
19
"Did you think I wouldn't know who it was?" Buster Keeton was grunting as he dragged Norris-who was dazed but unhurt-the rest of the way out of the VW's driver's-side window. "Did you think I wouldn't know, with your name right at the bottom of every goddam sheet of paper you taped up? Did you? Did you?"
He cocked one fist back to strike Norris, and Alan Pangborn slipped a handcuff around it just as neatly as you please.
"Huh!" Buster exclaimed, and wheeled ponderously around.
Inside the Municipal Building, someone started to scream.
Alan glanced in that direction, then used the cuff on the other end of the chain to pull Buster over to the open door of his own Cadillac. Buster flailed at him as he did so. Alan took several punches harmlessly on his shoulder, and snapped the free cuff around the doorhandle of the car.
He turned around and Norris was there. He had time to register the fact that Norris looked just terrible, and to dismiss it as a consequence of being rammed amidships by the Head Selectman.
"Come on," he said to Norris. "We've got trouble."
But Norris ignored him, at least for the moment. He brushed past
Alan and punched Buster Keeton squarely in the eye. Buster let out a startled squawk and fell back against the door of his car.
It was still open and his weight drove it shut, catching the tail of his sweat-soaked white shirt in the latch.
"That's for the rat-trap, you fat shit!" Norris cried.
"I'll get you!" Buster screamed back. "Don't think I won't!
I'll get All of You People!"
"Get this," Norris growled. He was moving in again with his fists cocked at the sides of his puffed-up pigeon chest when Alan grabbed him and hauled him back.
"Quit it!" he shouted into Norris's face. "We've got trouble inside! Bad trouble!"
The scream lifted in the air again. People were gathering on the sidewalks of Lower Main Street now. Norris looked toward them, then back at Alan. His eyes had cleared, Alan saw with relief, and he looked like himself again. More or less.
"What is it, Alan? Something to do with him?" He jerked his chin toward the Cadillac. Buster was standing there, looking sullenly at them and plucking at the handcuff on his wrist with his free hand.
He seemed not to have heard the screams at all.
"No," Alan said. "Have you got your gun?"
Norris shook his head.
Alan unsnapped the safety-strap on his holster, drew his service.38, and handed it to Norris.