“SEIS!”
“What? I… Well, I guess so. Maybe.”
“CINCO!”
“Listen,” Tony said. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Gary Tibbs around have you? Little kid?”
“CUATRO!”
“Oh, sure, yeah, Gary, yeah,” Albert said. “Running. He was running, over… over that way.” He pointed towards the square.
“TRES!”
“Okay, thanks a lot,” Tony said.
“DOS!”
“I saw… I saw something else,” Albert slurred as Tony strode past. “I saw something really…fucking weird.”
“UNO!”
The crowd hushed as, high over their heads, just two rockets soared into the night and popped. One red, one green. And that was it.
“Some fuckin’ spectacle,” Tony muttered.
DABNEY WAS AT THE banquet table, talking to a couple of kids from Gary’s school, when event coordinator Trica Munoz approached. “Hey, Tibbs,” she called. “Get over here!” Even her walk was furious as she strode through the suddenly subdued crowd, flanked on her right by Joe Floss, pyrotechnic engineer.
“What, uh… What’s the problem, Ms. Munoz?” Dabney asked.
“I’ll tell you what the goddamned problem is,” Tricia said, squinting through square-framed spectacles. “Some son of a bitch has stolen our fireworks!”
“Five hundred rockets!” Floss cried. “They were all rigged to go. I checked them myself just five minutes ago and they were all there. Then… Nothing! Two left! The vicious son of a bitch leaves me two!”
“Where’s your boss?” Tricia said. “Where’s Campbell? I want him down here!”
“Well,” Dabney said, “The Chief’s, um… I don’t think he’s—” “Do you have any idea how much those fireworks cost?” she said. “How much this whole event has cost? And we just lost our centerpiece! It’s ruined! The whole day is ruined!”
“Now just listen…”
Somebody screamed. Just one person, from far behind, to the back of the crowd; one woman—Dabney couldn’t see her—let out a horrified shriek. And while she was screaming, she was joined in chorus by two others. And before anyone was quite sure what was happening, everyone was screaming.
Then they ran, scattering out, scrambling to be away while Dabney stood where he was, and Tricia Munoz and Joe Floss and all the people at the banquet table and around cast confused glances at each other or opened their mouths to ask “What’s going on?” though nobody could hear them and they couldn’t hear themselves over the sound of sheer, desperate panic.
“Get down,” Dabney said, drawing his pistol, jerking his head left and right trying to see. “Everybody get down.”
“What the hell?” Joe Floss said, spinning about as men, women, and children shoved past. “What the hell?”
Then they saw.
“Oh, Jesus,” Floss said.
“Get down!” Dabney said.
And Tricia Munoz screamed.
Pedro Piss-Pants loped towards them on hands steeped in blood. It was true what they’d said. There was almost nothing of him from the neck down except a leaking ribcage and the torn remnants of a yellow t-shirt. His head lolled about on his shoulders, eyes blank, tongue hanging out of his mouth. His face was that of a dead child. No expression, no recognition. If it weren’t for the fact he was hurling himself towards them, Dabney would have sworn the kid was dead. That and the sound he made. Welling up from deep in the back of his throat—a horrible howl like a strangled goose.
Dabney raised his weapon, clicked off the safety, put his finger on the trigger—just as Tricia spun herself into him and knocked them both to the ground.
“Damn it!” he said, scrambling out from under her. He got onto his knees and lined up to take the shot again—but Pedro wasn’t there.
“Look out!” Floss cried.
Dabney looked left and found Pedro looming above him, perched on the edge of the banquet table. He swung the pistol around as Pedro thrust out one blood-stained claw. They touched, briefly, and then Dabney’s Glock was clattering to the floor along with three of his fingers.
He screamed and fell back as Tricia screamed and stood up. Pedro silenced her with a lightning-quick slice of his arm. Her open neck sprayed the table scarlet as her decapitated head bounced away into the gutter.
Dabney rolled onto his stomach, left hand pressed against the ragged stumps on his right. He saw his pistol lying a few feet away. Saw too Floss bending down to pick it up, turning back towards Pedro, nothing but horror in those bulging eyes. Pedro sprung from the table again, arcing across the air as Floss raised the Glock, and landed on his chest, spearing one arm through his guts.
Joe screamed, blood billowing from his stomach, and opened fire. Of the seven rounds he managed to get off, two went into the ground, three into the banquet table, two into the air, and one through Dabney’s eyeball, splattering his brains out the back of his skull.
And that, for Officer Dabney Tibbs, was that.
TONY WAS FACED WITH a wave of terrified people as he neared the square. He ran, plowed through them, dodging their panicky blows, forcing his way into Victoria—to find Pedro, still up to his elbows in Joe Floss.
He racked the shotgun, raised it to his shoulder, and fired—just a moment too late.
Pedro sprang again, as impossibly fast as before, back to the table. Floss took the full blast of the shotgun to his face. He did a graceful spin on his heel, then dropped.
Tony racked the shotgun and let another shell rip, shattering bottles, plates, and bowls with buckshot, sending colorful explosions of salsa and guacamole into the air, chasing Pedro as he thundered up the table.
Pedro dug a claw into the wood and spun back, leaping into the air, jagged arms like swords jutting out from his body, that awful animal sound tearing up out of his throat.
Tony fired again and caught him in mid-air, blasting him apart like a clay pigeon. He sounded like a wet sack of shit when he hit the ground.
Feeling the sweat on his back and the crunch of tortilla chips under his boots, Tony walked slowly towards the corpse, racking the shotgun as he came, his eyes never leaving Pedro, watching what was left of him gurgle and twitch on the ground. When he was close enough, he placed a foot on Pedro’s chest and stared down into his unblinking eyes.
“What are you?” he said.
“Cluuuurrr-ghk-bllllrrrulk…” Pedro said. “Pillkchr-plechrluuuuurck-chkgkhhh…”
Tony shook his head. “Fine,” he said. He dropped the shotgun and walked a few paces away to where a bat stood upright in the remains of broken piñata. He pulled the bat out of its shattered husk and walked back. “Be that way,” he said, before swinging the bat down and pounding Pedro Piss-Pants’s head into paste.
WHEN IT WAS OVER Tony sat down with his back to the banquet table, picked up a discarded bottle of Corona, and took a swig. Some curious souls were milling about on the fringes of the square now and he could hear sirens in the distance. There would be a lot of explaining to do. Looking around, he saw the destruction, the puddles of blood, the trampled bodies… For the first time he saw Dabney, lying dead beside Tricia Munoz with a bullet in his eye.
Immediately he closed his eyes and turned away, for a moment certain he was going to vomit. When he opened them again, he saw Gary.
“Gary?” he said, and rose.
The kid shuffled slowly towards him, weeping black tears from bloodshot eyes. Tony approached, unable to shift his gaze from that pale, pained face. There were black stains around his mouth, his nose, his ears. He clutched quivering hands to his belly as he stepped forward, taking tiny, shuffling steps.
Tony could feel other eyes on them, people crowding around now to get a look. “Gary?” he said. “Gary, what’s wrong?”