Death Glitch (23 page)

He heard a siren in the background. If he’d’ve waited a few more seconds the cavalry would’ve been in time to save him. Maybe. But maybe not.

“
Think fast,” the woman in the duster shouted. But she needn’t have, because all of a sudden it was quiet in the store.

Always a fast thinker, Mouledoux shouted at the top of his lungs, “Everybody leave the store! Do not panic! Do not run! Proceed at an orderly pace toward the nearest exit!” He prayed he was doing the right thing. For a second he’d thought about diving for cover, but he knew sure as he knew his name, he’d’ve been cut down. Those women knew how to use their guns. He’d seen that first hand.

“
Now!” he shouted, trying to sound authoritarian. “Everybody leave now.”

A man with two children stepped into the aisle between him and the two women. He was looking at Mouledoux, unaware of the gun bearing women behind him.

“
That’s right,” Mouledoux lowered his hands, hoping the women wouldn’t interpret it as a threat. He kept his hands pointed forward, wanting them to see he wasn’t going for his shoulder holster.

“
Psst,” Peeps hissed. “I gotcha covered.”

Mouledoux resisted the urge to glance over at his partner. The last thing he wanted to do was to spook Eisenhower and her gun toting friend.

More people came into the aisles, employees and customers alike. A giant of a black man appeared behind the women. Eisenhower had gotten herself some serious friends in a very short time.

People were leaving the aisles, coming into the center aisle, heading toward him and the exit beyond. A young couple came up behind the two women and the black man, passed them as if they weren’t holding guns. Then Mouledoux saw they had their eyes on him and the exit beyond. They hadn’t seen the guns.

And as if they’d heard his thoughts, the women hid their guns in their coats and started toward him and all of a sudden Mouledoux knew what they were up to. They were going to walk out with the crowd and disappear. He couldn’t let that happen.

With his right hand he made a downward motion and out of the corner of his eye he saw Peeps drop to the floor. He made a motion with his thumb, pointing to the women and black man heading toward him. Peeps slithered up to the center aisle, poked his head out a few inches, eyeballed the trio, then ducked back, giving Mouledoux the thumbs up sign.

The sirens were getting closer and the group heading toward him picked up their pace. As they got closer Mouledoux looked into their eyes. The black man looked confident, like he didn’t give a shit. Eisenhower looked scared, but the other woman, she had eyes like death. Black as the bottom of a desert mine on a starless night. Killer’s eyes. He didn’t want to fuck with her. He didn’t want to do that. For a second he regretted signaling Peeps, because the way this woman was locking eyes with him, Mouledoux knew if Peeps made a move, Mississippi Bob Mouledoux was going down.

Then they were abreast of him and the woman with black eyes slid the gun from her coat, pointed it at Peeps in the aisle. She’d had the Glock in her hand the whole while, arm hanging loose, weapon pointed to the ground, hidden by the coat. But it wasn’t hidden now. She’d seen him signal Peeps, knew someone was on the floor there.

“
I don’t want to kill you,” she said to Peeps, who had his thirty-eight pointed at her, “but I will,” she said, not the least bit afraid of his weapon. “Slide your piece down the aisle. Make it go far.”

For a second, Mouledoux thought Peeps might cap her, but then Eisenhower showed her forty-five and Peeps, apparently realizing he was a dead man if he fired, slid his gun down the aisle.

“
Your mama didn’t raise a stupid child,” the woman in the duster said as she turned. She began walking backwards, keeping her eyes on Mouledoux as the trio made for the exit. They were going to get away.

As soon as they’d passed the aisle Peeps was in, he got up and charged down it for his thirty-eight. He grabbed for the gun, fumbled it, grabbed it off the floor a second time and ran back to the center aisle.

Mouledoux, with his hands still at his sides, made a stopping motion with an open palm, toward Peeps. Their foolishness, his and Peeps’, was going to get Mississippi Bob Mouledoux killed and he didn’t want that. And all the while that woman in the long coat was back stepping as if she had eyes in the back of her head, while her real eyes, those bottomless blacks, were drilling into him.

Her gun was behind her coat again, but he knew it was in her hand and he knew she hit what she shot at. He was more frightened than all those times he’d been scared shitless during the first Gulf War.

“
Stay back!” he said through clenched teeth, but either Peeps didn’t hear or didn’t want to. He was going to do something very stupid.

* * *

Izzy’s heart was thumping in her chest when Lila Booth stepped into the aisle and faced down that policeman. When she was younger she’d had a deathly fear of heights, which she’d conquered by spending a horrible, fearful day climbing Mt. Shasta with her psychiatrist, so she knew fear, but this was much worse. However, terrified as she was, she somehow fought her fear like she did back then and not knowing where her own courage had come from or how she’d summoned it up, she’d joined Lila Booth, pointing her gun at the police officer.

People had listened to him and they’d started filing out of the store without panic and when Lila had started toward the policeman, she went along, staying by her side and when Lila hid her Glock in her long coat, Izzy did the same, hiding her gun inside the thrift store denim jacket.

“
Right behind you,” Black said and she felt the big man’s presence as they made their way toward the policeman and hopefully the exit beyond. Could they really get lost in the crowd? It seemed impossible, but what else could they do? She heard the sirens getting closer. In minutes, probably sooner, the store was going to be crawling with cops, probably SWAT teams.

She had been surprised when they came abreast of the policeman and Lila pointed her gun at the other one hiding on the ground in the garden supply aisle. How she’d known he was there was beyond Izzy. Had she not seen him, they’d’ve been captured for sure.

At the exit, the sirens were piercing. Squad cars pulled up as people started to pick up their pace, as if they sensed something was about to go wrong and they wanted to be out of harm’s way.

Izzy crossed her fingers. They were so close. Maybe they’d get away after all.

* * *

Frightened as he was, Mouledoux was furious, too. These women were armed, dangerous and would certainly kill again. He couldn’t let them get away. But that’s what he was doing. They were at the exit and in an instant they were going to fade into the crowd outside and they’d be in the wind.

“
Take the shot!” he said to Peeps.

“
You got it.” Peeps dropped to the floor again, peeked around the Miracle Glow, aimed at the back of the blonde’s head, was about to fire when something heavy landed on his back, causing his shot to go wild.

“
What the fuck—” Mouledoux said as a wolf like animal shot past him. He pulled his weapon as the animal skidded around the end of the aisle and got lost among the patio furniture.

“
Got one of ’em,” Peeps shouted as the black man crashed into Isadora Eisenhower.

* * *

Izzy was at the door, then through it, relief flooding through her, they were going to make it, she thought as a shot rang out and Black lurched forward, slamming into her, knocking her to the ground and knocking her wind away as she skinned her hands on the pavement.

“
What?” she gasped the word, barely getting it out.

“
Black’s been hit,” Lila said. “You have to get up. We have to get him out of here.” She offered her hand.

“
Okay.” Izzy grabbed it.

“
Where’s the car?” Lila pulled Izzy to her feet.

“
There.” Izzy was still gasping as she pointed.

“
Shit,” Lila said as a blue and white police car pulled up and the officer riding shotgun jumped out.

“
What happened here?”

“
This man’s been shot.” Lila dropped to her knees, looped an arm under Black’s right shoulder. “We’ve got to get him out of the line of fire.” She turned to the store, pointed to the man with a gun. “There’s a couple crazies in there shooting up the place.”

The officer went for his gun and the man in the store dove for cover.

“
Help me here,” Lila said to the other officer, who was out of the blue and white now.

“
Okay.” He helped her drag Black away from the entrance.

“
Get the car!” Lila said to Izzy.

“
For him?” the officer said.

“
I’m a doctor,” Izzy said, able to breathe now. “We can have in him the emergency room at Rogue Valley before you can have them roll an ambulance.”

“
We shouldn’t move him,” the officer said.

“
He’ll bleed out if we don’t,” Izzy said.

“
We should wait,” the officer said as two more blue and whites careened into the parking lot.

“
Now, officer!” Izzy fished into Black’s pocket, pulled out the keys. “The car’s there. Get it.”

Lila grabbed the keys, took off at a run.

“
Too late,” Black said, looking up at her.

“
It’s not too late.” A crazy thought struck Izzy. She looked at her skinned hands, remembering what happened to her the last time she’d skinned them. She turned Black onto his side, ran a bloody palm into his wound.

“
Hurts,” Black said.

“
What are you doing?” the cop said.

“
Checking the wound.”

“
Let’s go,” Lila shouted.

Izzy turned. Lila had pulled up behind the blue and white. To the cop she said, “Okay, help me get him into the car.”

“
I don’t think so,” he said.

“
What’s going on here?” It was an older cop from one of the other blue and whites.

“
She’s a doctor and wants to take him to Rogue Valley Emergency, but I don’t think we should move him.”

“
You trying to think for yourself?” the older cop said, “trying to second guess the doctor?” He looked pained. “Get him in the car!”

“
Alright, alright,” he said and the two cops got Black into the backseat as Izzy ran round to the passenger’s side. She pulled open the door, was about to get in, when Hunter thundered past her, taking the middle of the front seat.

“
Get in,” Lila shouted and Izzy did.

Lila hit the gas and they shot out of there.

“
Police,” Mouledoux shouted, but he didn’t step into the center aisle. That could be suicide. There were two dead feds, who knew how many others in the store and he and Peeps were the only ones armed. For right now, it didn’t look good. They could straighten it out, but by then it would be too late.

“
Throw out your weapons,” a deep voice shouted back. The Eisenhower woman was getting away and these jerk water cops were letting her.

“
They think it’s us behind this.” Sweat was running down Peeps’ forehead and from where he was in the aisle opposite, he looked terrified.

“
Yeah,” Mouledoux said.

“
What are we gonna do?”

“
I think we should throw out our weapons.” He went to his knees, pulled his piece, put it on the floor, slid it out into the aisle, giving it a healthy push down the center toward the exit.

“
I don’t like giving mine up.” Peeps pulled his thirty-eight to his chest, almost as if it were an infant.

“
Peeps, there’s dead people here. Those cops aren’t gonna be impressed by our badges. They want us to slide our guns away, then they’re gonna want us to lay out spread-eagled on the floor.”

“
We’re cops, for Christ’s sake.”

“
If we were them, we’d already be dead, so let’s not tempt them. Okay?”

“
Yeah, yeah.” And like Mouledoux had done, Peeps slid his thirty-eight down the center aisle, well out of reach.

“
We’re cops,” Mouledoux shouted again.

“
Step out, hand’s high.”

Mouledoux did. Peeps followed.

“
On the floor.” There were six, no seven cops Mouledoux counted facing them down from the exit. How bloody stupid, he thought as he dropped to the floor.

“
Move, move, move!” one of the cops shouted and Mouledoux saw them charging forward. In seconds they were on him, jerking his hands behind his back, cuffing them with cable ties.

“
My shield is on my belt,” he said as he was being hoisted to his feet.

“
Son of a bitch,” one of the cops said. “He’s a cop.”

“
That’s what he’s been trying to tell you!” Peeps tried to shake free of the two men holding him.

“
Let him go,” a plainclothes cop said.

“
You wanna cut these off,” Mouledoux said.

“
Explain.”

“
You just let the fucking shooters go,” Peeps shouted, agitated. “The two women and the black man.”

“
The big guy we helped into the car?” a cop said.

“
Probably,” Mouledoux said.