Straight for Major Mac, as it turns out. With a veteran goalie’s timing and economy of effort, the major lifts his toe a couple of inches and traps the weapon under his shoe. He scoops up the Beretta, checks the safety, and chambers a round while holding the weapon down and away from his body, then with the elegance that comes of many hours of practice, he raises his arm and fires straight overhead,
BAM.
In all of tomorrow’s exhaustive media coverage of the game — the straight news stories, the human-interest piffle, the brain-draining chatter of the TV and radio jocks — there will be not a word about gunfire after the game. The Bravos will agree this is very strange. Surely thousands heard the roar of the gun; certainly those many hundreds on the plaza who ducked at the report, screamed, cowered, threw themselves on their children, or took off running, and whoever was kicking the shit out of Billy abruptly stopped. For some moments Billy simply lies there, enjoying the profound inner peace that comes of not being kicked. He tips his head to keep the blood from running into his eyes and watches Major Mac, who sets the safety on the Beretta and carefully places it on the ground. Then the major stands tall with his arms T-squared, not crooked at the elbows, not with his hands on his head, postures too suggestive of surrender. No, he stands with his arms straight out to the sides, simply to show the charging cops he is no longer armed.
“Major Mac dah man,” Billy mutters. He says this mainly to hear himself, to see if he’s basically all right.
It takes the police some while to sort things out. That there are so many different kinds of police seems to complicate things. Eventually the Bravo limo is located and brought forward, and the soldiers are herded into it while discussion continues on the plaza nearby. Albert and Dime are out there, and Josh, and Mr. Jones, all conferring with a cadre of the higher-ranking cops. Major Mac stands slightly apart, not in custody per se but with an officer meaningfully placed on either side. The handful of roadies thus far apprehended stand in a miserable clump, handcuffed, heads down, their backs to the wind.
An officer leans into the limo’s open rear door. “Anybody here need to go to a hospital?”
The soldiers shake their heads. Noooooo.
The officer hesitates. Almost every Bravo is bleeding from the face or head. The roadies came at them with wrenches, pipes, crowbars, God knows what else.
“Just checking,” the officer says, and withdraws.
They find two cold packs in the limo’s first-aid kit and pass them around. Mango has a gash over his left eye. Crack lost two teeth. A goose egg of a contusion is rising on Day’s forehead. Sykes and Lodis are bleeding from the nose and scalp, respectively. Billy’s cheek has been laid open, a two-inch tear along the ridge of the bone — that’s the shot that took him down, he guesses. His torso throbs with a muffled, tumbled sort of ache, nothing major, but he’s not fooled. He knows tomorrow it’s going to hurt like hell.
Dime climbs in and takes a seat. “Cops want everybody’s name and contact info,” he says, passing a clipboard and pen to Day.
“Sergeant, are we going to jail?” Mango asks.
“Nah, we’re victims, dawg.”
“How ’bout Major Mac?” Lodis wants to know.
“Major Mac’s a goddamn national treasure. Nobody’s putting Major Mac in jail.”
“Sergeant,” says A-bort, “we’re thinking conspiracy here. Norm put the roadies on us ’cause we wouldn’t take his deal.”
“I’ll mention it to the cops,” Dime says, not smiling. This is a joke. Billy’s cell buzzes and it’s a text from Faison, Which white hummer, and he bolts from the limo even as he’s punching in her number. One of the cops huffs, “Where do you think you’re going?” but Billy’s focus is such, all his being attuned to the one true thing, that a kind of godly aura repels the officer’s challenge.
Her cell barely rings and she’s clicking on. “Hey!”
“See where the cop lights are, all the cops standing around?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“That’s ours. I’m standing outside.”
“Stay there,” she says, “I’m walking that way.” Then, “I see you! Don’t move, I see you, I see you…”
He sees her cutting through the crowd, white boots flashing underneath a dark overcoat, and her hair, a muted silver under the horrible prison lights, spilling everywhere, over her shoulders, down her back, across her breasts. She looks so good that he feels himself empty out, no breath, no pain, no thought, no past, his whole life distilled to the sight of Faison striding toward him in all her sleet-spangled glory.
He must have started walking toward her, because they meet with a satisfying crunch. For several moments they can do no more than clutch each other. The crowd parts around them, so many people moving past that a kind of privacy is conjured from the sheer multitudes.
“What happened to your face?” she cries, pulling back, touching his cheek. “Omigod, you’re bleeding.” She glances past him at the cops and emergency lights.
“Those guys from halftime, the stage crew. They jumped us.” He laughs. “I guess they were still pissed off?”
“Oh God. Oh my God, you’re hurt.” She’s studying his cheek, fingers brushing the edge of his cut. “Trouble sure seems to follow you guys around.”
They kiss, hard. It is impossible for them not to be all over each other. “This sucks,” she soon murmurs, and pulls away just enough to unbutton her coat, a swift downward sweep of her hand and the coat is opening, wrapping around him. She pulls him close and moans as her chest meets his. She’s still in her cheerleader uniform. He moves his hands inside the coat and grasps her hips. She shudders, then rises on her toes, her pelvis striving for purchase on that hump in his pants, her mouth clamped so hard that his lips turn numb. “Go for it,” someone says, brushing past them. Another passerby advises them to “get a room.” After minutes or possibly hours Faison drops back on her heels and slumps against him.
“Oh God. Why do you have to go?”
“I’ll be back on furlough. Probably in the spring.”
She lifts her head. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” If I’m still vertical, he thinks.
“Then you better make time for me.”
“Count on it.”
“Seriously, I mean it. How about if you come stay with me?”
He can’t speak. He can barely breathe. She’s looking from his left eye to his right, back and forth, back and forth, always her two double-teaming his one.
“I know it’s crazy, but we’re in a war, right? All I know is that it’s right, it just feels right. I want every second I can get with you.” She shivers, shakes her head. “I’m not the type to get bowled over, not like this. I’ve never felt this way about anybody.”
Billy pulls her close; her head falls against his chest. “Me either,” he murmurs, the sound of his voice vibrating through their bodies. “Girl, I’d just about run away with you.”
She lifts her head, and with that one look he knows it’s not to be. Her confusion decides it, that flicker of worry in her eyes. What is he talking about? Fear of losing her binds him firmly to the hero he has to be.
She touches his cheek. “Baby, we don’t have to run anywhere. You just get yourself home and we’ll be fine right here.”