“What, bro? What kinda shit is this, anyway?”
“That old woman was just protecting her good family name,” I said, knowing I wasn’t making any sense to him. In the far corner, the woman was no longer singing, but Duff still was. Completely oblivious to the horror Marky and I had just seen. I envied the hell out of him for that.
I dragged a deep breath into my chest, my mind racing from the moment I got the phone call from Leslie Wheeler to waking up in a Los Angeles hospital with a hole in my head, wondering if it was even remotely possible that I could explain any of it to this homeless man who trusted me enough to permit me into his safe place. Somehow it seemed I owed him some kind of explanation, if only to calm his obviously rattled nerves — but that wasn’t something either of us were much concerned about when the gunshots started.
The woman shrieked and I hit the floor, knocking the projector to the ground where it broke apart noisily. Duff shouted something I couldn’t understand and then there were rapid footsteps, followed by another pair of popping shots. Marky cried out, scrambling toward the noise.
“Marky, don’t!” I called after him.
He sped out of the back office area, just barely clearing the doorway before another report sounded and he dropped backward like a brick. His flashlight clattered to the floor and the light went out. The shooter was close enough that I could smell the cordite. My ears rang slightly from the shots, but all I could hear now were slow, deliberate steps drawing near to the doorway. As quietly as I could, I picked up the empty can from which I’d taken that awful reel of nitrate film. Rust flaked off on my fingers.
The office and warehouse were almost pitch-black; only the faintest glow emanated from the Christmas lights across the building, but it was enough to illumine the shape that appeared in the doorway and bent over Marky. I held my breath and tried to keep from shaking, scared as I was. Any second this guy was going to come in the room, and I wanted to be as focused and ready as I could.
Next thing I knew, Marky coughed. It startled me and it sounded bad. The shooter made a surprised sound and then grunted. I jumped to my feet, took two long strides toward the door, and threw the can as hard as I could at the guy. It struck him in the neck and he shouted, turning and grasping at his neck as his gun went off. The muzzle flashed brightly in the air, and I was thankful it hadn’t been pointed at Marky. Or me.
The gunman roared, “Goddamnit!” I flung myself at Marky, seized a handful of his shirt and dragged him roughly back into the office, where I slid him across the floor and up against the inside wall. My hands were tacky with his blood. I couldn’t tell where he’d been hit, but he was wheezing and moving lazily about, dazed.
“Fuckin’ bums,” the shooter yelled. “Fuckin’ shit-birds!”
Shit-bird. I’d heard one of the goons at Florence Sommer’s house say that, moments before they killed her and shot me. I guessed this guy had to be on cleanup duty — hit the warehouse, get rid of everything, kill anyone you see. Old Cora Parson must not have known the place was being used by squatters. I’d never have gotten in had they not been there, but now it seemed like my interfering with their quiet corner of L.A. had gotten most of them killed. And that really pissed me off.
I gently patted Marky on the shoulder, hoping to Christ he was going to make it through this shitstorm, and then did probably the stupidest thing of my life thus far: I rushed out of the office and lunged right for the guy with the gun. He made a noise in his throat, spinning to get the drop on me, but I threw a left-handed punch at his throat that left him sputtering for air instead. My knuckles throbbed and the way my brain was going, the pain only served to make me angrier. So I punched him again, same place, and felt his windpipe collapse like rice paper. For my trouble my right leg turned to Jell-O and I went careening toward the hard cement floor.
It was the worst violence I’d ever committed, which wasn’t saying much, me being a generally pretty peaceful guy. With his air supply cut off, the man forgot all about his gun, which he just dropped so he could claw at his throat. I couldn’t make out his face very well in the nearly nonexistent light, but the flat, dry gulping noise he made in his mouth was enough to turn my stomach. It was almost enough to make me feel bad for what I’d done too, but not quite. Not after what he’d done to Marky and what I imagined he must have done to the other two. So when he dropped to his knees beside me, I didn’t shed any tears about lifting my left foot and kicking the son of a bitch over. I didn’t stick around to watch him suffocate to death either; I stumbled around to find his gun and Marky’s flashlight, got both, and hurried back to the office.
After screwing the flashlight back together, I switched it on and turned it at Marky. He squinted and grumbled, “Man, get that damn thing out my eyes.”
“Where are you hit?”
“My goddamn arm,” he complained. I shone the light on his right arm, which was soaked with blood, the nucleus of which was a dark hole in the bicep. “Hurts like hell, man. Shit, I never got shot before. It hurts.”
“Trust me,” I said. “I know.”
“The hell was that dude?”
“Somebody who doesn’t want that film to ever get out.”
“What about Duff? And Shawna?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But I don’t think it’s good.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and said, “Damn.”
“Hang tight,” I told him. “I’m going to find a phone and call 911. But listen, I’m getting out of here. I just — Jesus, I just killed that guy.”
“Good,” was all he said about that.
Duff was dead, shot in the chest, but Shawna was gone. It was a gruesome sight made worse by the cheerful glow of the colorful Christmas lights. Pangs of guilt ripped through me when I found him, though I tried to convince myself it wasn’t really my fault. I didn’t exactly believe that.
The gunman hadn’t forced his way in through the front door, wouldn’t have needed to; he had a key. Outside I found a late-model Saab parked at the curb. There was no doubt in my mind whatsoever that it was the same car I saw racing down Hollywood Boulevard after somebody took a couple of potshots at me in front of the Wilson Arms. I ran back inside and snatched the keys from the dead man’s pants pocket. I snagged his wallet while I was at it. For good measure, I shone the flashlight on his face.
It was the piece of shit who cut Florence Sommer’s throat.
From the office, Marky called out to me, so I went back in one last time.
“They gone?” he said.
I nodded somberly. “Duff is. I’m sorry. I–I don’t know what happened to Shawna. She’s not here.”
“Why’d you bring this shit to us, man? You wasn’t supposed to be no trouble. You said you wouldn’t.”
My chest felt too tight for what was in it and my neck burned at the back. I said I was sorry again and felt horrible for repeating something that didn’t help at all.
“We was safe,” Marky said. “We was safe here.”
I wanted to puke. I wanted to puke all over the floor until there was nothing left inside and I could just lie down and die. Everything was finally coming to a head but it was too much, more than I could handle. I couldn’t even stick out the movie business when I tried, how the hell was I supposed to deal with all of this?
“I’m going to get help for you,” I said. “I never wanted any of this to happen. I hope you know that.”
The last thing he ever said to me was “Go.”
I went.
The Saab was his, the killer’s. Cora Parson’s man. Started up easy, the radio softly playing the classical station. Goddamn Bach. Real relaxing stuff to get in your head before you go murder a bunch of strangers. I slammed the button to turn it off.