BAD TRIP SOUTH (28 page)

I felt her arms come away from me and I started to sit up to see what was wrong. There was a blank look on her face. I screamed, “Mama!” as she topped onto the floor on her side. I tried to turn her over to see where she’d been hit. No one even knew about it except me. Daddy was busy at the window being an outlaw, helping his new partners.

There was blood on Mama’s chest and although her eyes were still open and blinking, I knew she was probably going to die. I leaped up and ran for the door. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. I pulled the door back and I heard Daddy yell at me to
stop, wait
, but I was already outside on the little porch and flying down the steps, and then I was crossing the yard while all around me everyone was shooting at everyone else. I had my arms up in the sky and I was crying, “My mama, my mama’s hurt!”

I know now it was a really dumb thing I did. I could have been killed easy. I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t even afraid. I had to get help for her, that’s all I could think about, I had to get out of the house and get help or she’d die.

Mr. Hawkins lit up a new cigarette. He inhaled before saying, “You’re a brave little girl, Emily.”

I wanted to tell him bravery had nothing to do with it. He didn’t understand. My mother was all I had left. If I lost her, I’d have nobody.

#

JAY stopped firing when he saw his daughter racing across the ground between the house and the police cars. He felt his heart surge up to the roof of his mouth as he raised the barrel of the gun to the ceiling and watched, horrified and breathless, as Emily shot across the firing range. When she made it without being killed, when she was grabbed by one of the officers in charge who had been taking cover behind the back fender of one of the cars, and when she was dragged behind the car to cover and safety, he let out his breath. It had happened so fast that he still couldn’t believe he’d seen it.

“
That little bitch!” Heddy screamed. “Goddamn it!”

Jay turned from the window to find out where his wife was. Was she too going to follow Em out the door into the hail of bullets? A second shock traveled through his system as he took in her prone position on the floor and the blood that covered the front of her blouse. “Shit,” he mumbled, going down to his hands and knees to crawl over to her.

“
Jay? Jay, get back over here!”

He ignored Heddy’s command. Carrie had been hit. Maybe she was dead.

“
Jay!”

Heddy’s scream finally got through to him and he halted halfway across the floor and turned back. He had made his pact with the woman. With the devil. He had made his pact with the devil and there was no going back now.

He reclaimed his spot at the window in time to see Crow crawl across the floor toward Carrie. He looked away. Let Heddy handle him, the betraying son of a bitch.

#

CROW reached her body and grabbed hold of the front of her bloody shirt, ripping it open. The wound pumped blood from just below the bra line under her left breast.
Lung
, he thought. He saw her chest heaving and saw that her mouth was wide open. She was trying to suck in enough air to stay alive.

He twisted and shouted, “Carrie’s hit! She’s going to die if we don’t get her out of here.”

“
Fuck her,” Heddy said. She jerked around the window frame and fired off two shots before hiding again.

“
Let’s try going out the back while they have the kid,” Crow said. “We gotta get outta here, Heddy. Now!”

Heddy looked at him and the oddest look came over her face. It was as if she only now really saw him near Carrie’s body and the sight sickened her. She ducked and crab-walked to where he kneeled. “C’mon, we’re going.”

Crow glanced down at Carrie; his gaze riveted on her struggling face.

“
Okay,” he said finally, moving away from the bleeding woman.

“
I’m telling you one last time, Jay,” Heddy called to Jay where he crouched at the window. “We’re leaving. It’s our only chance. You coming?”

Jay dropped suddenly to the floor and crawled over to join them. “Yeah, I’m coming,” he said, avoiding looking at his wounded wife.

Heddy gestured to Crow and they made for the kitchen and the back door there.

The gunfire still came from the front of the house, no one there realizing the people trapped in the house were on their way out.

#

CROW thought he knew the future when he saw the kid run out the door into the gunfire. They’d all be dead before the sun ever got up to the middle of the sky that day. A premonition? No, it was simple enough to realize what was coming for him.

When Carrie went down, Crow knew then that the whole thing was falling apart. His suggestion that he and Heddy go out the back was a last desperate attempt to sidestep what he knew was going to happen. They were not going to be able to hold off a whole squad of cops in riot gear. They’d already emptied three of the guns. He didn’t tell Heddy, but his own gun was hitting on an empty clip.

And what good was Jay? He was like some stoned motherfucking chimpanzee walking around dazed or something. He did what Heddy said, but he didn’t seem to have anything left behind his eyes, like he was dead already and he knew it.

Crow also didn’t really believe the cops didn’t have the back covered. They had to be out there, waiting, biding their time. Sharpshooters, no doubt, stationed behind the trees or lying in cover in the swaying tall, dead grass of the field.

When up against the wall all he knew to do was what he had to do. His whole damn life it was like that, doing what he had to do, going where he had to go, taking down who he had to take down. And now he would die, he was sure of it, the way he had to die. No return to Leavenworth for him. No more cells, guards, and self-serving bastard cons. It was no kind of life, prison, death being preferable. Besides, this time they’d ask for the death sentence and they’d get it. He was in by god Texas where they whacked a dozen death row inmates a month with lethal injections. By god Texas loved death row. They loved whacking out the killers littering their state. What was the goddamn difference if he died today or a year from today? He’d hate to see by god Texas have the privilege when he could handle it himself, today, right now.

At the back door, just before Heddy went ahead of him through it, he drew her back and into the circle of his arms. She smelled of fear-sweat. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, rubbing his face against her skin, taking her sweat onto him. He remembered briefly that it was at the back door of another house a lifetime in the past and a world away when he met her and they’d joined their fates. If he’d known it would have led him here, would he have taken her home that night?

Yeah, he expected he would have.

“
We have to go,” she said, pushing him away.

The gunfire had stopped and a solemn waiting silence had settled over the house. Suddenly they both flinched as they heard the voice on the bullhorn say, “Come out. No one will shoot. Surrender now and send out the hostages first.”

Crow rummaged in his leather bag, digging deep beneath the manila envelope of money. He brought out the last of his speed, ripped over the foil and stuffed the crystals in his mouth. He tongued it from behind his molars, pushing all of it underneath his tongue where it bulged out his lower lip. It was the only time in his life he wished he had a way to shoot it straight into his veins.

“
You ready?” Heddy asked.

The sunlight glittered off her sandy hair and from the surface of her mad eyes. God, Crow thought, she’s the toughest woman on earth. She’s a goddamn goddess.

“
Yeah,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

He pushed her behind and went out the door first, leaping over the steps to the hard dry ground. He let out a grunt from the pain that ran up his leg from the gunshot wound there. He turned to put out his hand and just had the tips of Heddy’s fingers in his palm when he realized she was pointing her gun at his heart. “Aw, Heddy...” he said. “Aw, hell, Heddy...”

“
You never should have gone to see about that woman in there, Crow. You never should have kept the money secret from me.”

She pulled the trigger and the blast hit him in the center of his chest, knocking him back onto his heels where he staggered to remain upright. He thought the sky had opened because now lightning crackled and thunder filled his body from all sides. They were shooting at him from the trees, dancing him against his will away from Heddy. He twitched and jerked with each shot that entered his body, turning round and round like a wind-up toy. He screamed in agony and called out over and over, “HeddyHeddyHeddyHEDDY...!”

But she was gone, already out of his field of vision, suffering the same pain as he somewhere on her own away from him.

Dying hurt worse than he could have imagined. It was a shitty thing to happen to a guy.

#

THE gunshots peppered Heddy’s entire front from neck to groin, sending her sprawling back onto the steps, her head lying in the open doorway.

Jay had frozen where he’d landed on the ground, shocked at Heddy’s shooting of Crow, and then mesmerized further when the shots opened from the trees that sent Crow flopping around like a downed bird. He turned back just in time to see Heddy take her first shots to the chest and then he was all motion, moving up the steps again, trying to stop what was happening by shielding her, but by the time he reached the top step she had fallen back and he was the one taking the gunfire now, stray shots meant for Heddy that bore into his back like hot drills, knocking his breath from him, knocking his life from him, knocking the world off its axis. He stumbled. He noticed the gunfire had halted again and an eerie silence filled his ears with white noise. He stared down at Heddy’s dead face before he dropped to his knees, understanding pain, understanding death, and rolled off the wooden steps to the ground, all the world turning to black.

#

FRANK stood from behind his desk and put out his cigarette butt in the overflowing ashtray. Ashes were knocked onto the desktop. He pushed aside the ashtray and raked the ashes into his hand. He said to Emily as he dropped the ashes into the trash can at the side of the desk, “I’m sorry about your father.”

Emily glanced down at her hands. She still had the rock she’d taken from the ground behind the police car. It was this nice man who had stepped into the open and, grabbing her, took her to the ground and safety. She rolled the stone over and rubbed it carefully as if it might eventually glow with magic. There was a ruby vein in the stone running through the brown that reminded her of blood.

“
I’m sorry too,” she said. “He was only bad for a little while.”

The psychologist cleared his throat and moved to her chair. He held out his hand to help her rise. “I’ll have someone take you back to the hospital to see about your mother.”

“
Thank you.”

“
Emily?”

“
Uh huh?” She slipped the rock into the pocket of her shorts.

“
I think you saved your mother’s life.”

Emily started to shake her head, but she stopped. She didn’t know if it was true but it was okay that he said it. None of it mattered now. “She’s going to be all right.”

“
And so are you.”

She looked up into the kindly face and smiled a little sad smile. “Yes, I will. I’ll be fine now.”

“
And Emily?”

“
Yessir?”

“
Thanks for staying so long to tell me how it happened. We couldn’t make it out, a cop’s family held hostage that long. It would have remained a mystery without your help to get at the truth of it.”

“
You don’t have to tell the newspapers, do you? About Daddy and all?”

“
No, I won’t tell them. It’s for my files and no one gets to see those.”

“
Good.” She walked to the door and opened it, looking back over her shoulder, pausing.

“
What is it?” He asked. “Have you forgotten something?”

“
No, I was just checking.” She smiled and pointed to her head. “Just checking.”

Frank smiled back, thinking
That’s some kid, what a great kid that is, and she really reads minds too. Christ.

Emily listened to those last thoughts, committed them to memory, then shut the door behind her and went with the police lady who was to drive her to the hospital.