Crying, to the left. Fuller swings the gun around.
The two little boys are hugging each other, hysterical.
Fuller smiles at them. "You kids stay out of trouble, you hear?"
They both nod so eagerly Fuller laughs. The pain in his head is a memory, the adrenaline pounding through his veins makes him feel like he's woken up after a very long slumber.
He steps out into the lobby. Two people stare at him, a man and a woman. As expected, people don't tend to believe violence when it happens around them. They had probably been asking each other, "Were those gunshots?" "No, they couldn't be."
Wrong.
He squeezes off three rounds. One catches the man in the chest, one hits the woman in the neck, and the last flies between them and finds the tinted glass window, punching through with a spiderweb of cracks.
Fuller drops the Colt, checks the Sig. It's a P229, chambered for 9mm. Thirteen-round clip, plus one in the throat. He thumbs off the safety and walks into the women's bathroom.
Empty, except for a stall. An elderly woman opens the door.
"You're in the wrong bathroom."
"Nope." Fuller grins. "You are."
The Sig has a lighter recoil than the Colt, and the results aren't as messy.
Fuller turns back to the door and eases it open a crack. Corlis bursts into the lobby, his .45 clutched in a two-handed grip.
Unfortunately for him, he's looking in the direction of the men's room, rather than behind him.
Fuller gives him four in the back. Corlis sprawls onto his face, arms and legs splayed out like a dog on ice. He's still clutching the gun in his right hand, but Fuller is on him in four steps and he stomps hard on Corlis's wrist. The hand opens, and Fuller shoves the Colt into the front of his pants.
He kneels next to Corlis and speaks above the man's whimpering.
"Thanks for stopping, buddy. I appreciate it."
At this close range, the Sig does quite a job on the trooper's crew cut.
Minding the blood, Fuller takes the wallet and badge, and exits through the opposite doors, the side where the cars are going north. The semi is still there, parked off to the side. Fuller walks over, then uses the side bar to hoist himself onto the running board. He peers into the cab.
The driver is at the wheel, eyes closed and snoring pleasantly. The guy is white, mid-forties, and his brown hair is cut into a mullet.
Haven't seen one of those in a while, Fuller thinks.
He holds up Robertson's badge and taps on the window. The guy wakes up, startled.
"What's going on, Officer?"
"Please step out of the vehicle, sir."
"What's going on?"
"I need you to step out of the vehicle, please."
The man complies. He's awake now, and copping an attitude. "What's the problem?"
"No problem. I didn't want to get your blood in my new truck."
Two in the chest, and Fuller takes the man's keys and wallet, hops into the driver's seat, and starts the engine.
He figures he has a twenty-minute lead. That will be enough to get him to Interstate 80, and from there, he can take back roads and side streets.
Fuller flips on the CB, and switches it to the police frequency. Standard chatter, no mention yet of his little dalliance.
He yanks the Colt out of his pants and sets it on the passenger seat. The Sig he keeps on the dashboard. Fuller pulls out onto the highway.
He's two miles away from I-80 when the news breaks. Fuller picks up the mike.
"This is car 6620. Suspect is an African American male, five feet ten inches tall, in his mid-thirties, driving a brown sedan. He was last seen heading south on Route 57. Over."
"Car 6620, what's your position?"
Fuller smiles, doesn't answer. That will keep them confused for a few more minutes. He merges onto I-80, squad cars screaming past him. A large green sign reads: CHICAGO 40 MILES.
"Ready or not, Jack. Here I come."
Chapter 44
"You've always been like this, since you were a little girl."
Mom sat on the sofa with Mr. Griffin, who had fallen asleep sitting up, his head tilted back and his mouth open wide enough to drive a car into. She removed the half-finished drink from his hand -- I guessed it to be a bloody Mary from the red color and the celery stick -- and raised it to her own lips.
"Been like what?" I asked.
"Been moody, when you should be happy. Remember when you won your first medal in tae kwon do?"
"No."
"You won it for sparring. You must have been eleven or twelve. I think you were eleven, because you were wearing pigtails and on your twelfth birthday you declared yourself a grown-up and that you'd never wear pigtails again."
"Do all old people ramble on like you?"
Mom smiled at me. "We do. When you turn sixty, you get a license to ramble from the federal government."
"Mine may come in the mail, in the time it takes you to finish this story."
Mom sipped the drink and shuddered. "No wonder he's asleep -- he managed to fit a whole bottle of vodka into a ten-ounce glass. Now, what was I saying?"
"You were rambling about my tae kwon do competition."
"You'll miss my rambling someday. So anyway, there you were, with all the winners, and the grand master put the gold medal around your neck, just like he did with the others in the row. Every one of them was smiling. Every one of them, except for you."
"I remember now."
"You always tried too hard to win, but when you did, you never seemed happy."
"That's because I was thinking of the next match, and wondering if I'd win that."
Mr. Friskers hopped onto the sofa and bumped his head into my mother's thigh, demanding to be petted. She complied, eliciting a deep, throaty purr from the cat.
"You can't let the uncertainty of tomorrow interfere with the joy of today, Jacqueline. May I offer a little bit of wisdom?"
"I thought that's what you were doing."
"You should be taking notes. This is the meaning of life I'm talking about."
"I'm all ears, Mom."
My mother took a deep breath, sat up straighter. "Life," she said, "isn't a race that can be won. The end of the race is the same for all of us -- we die."
She smiled at me.
"It's not about winning the race, Jacqueline. It's about how well you run."
That sounded vaguely familiar.
"In other words, it's not if you win or lose, but how you play the game?" I said.
"I prefer my analogy."
"How about something simpler? Like, 'Try to have fun'?"
"That works too."
I pulled myself out of the rocking chair, destination: kitchen. Alan had his head in the fridge.
"My mom says I need to have fun."
Alan looked at me. "I'll agree with that."
"So maybe we can go do something fun."
"A movie?"
"I just saw two of them."
"A few drinks?"
"That's a possibility. What else?"
"Dancing?"
"Dancing? I haven't been out dancing since kids were spinning on their heads on sheets of cardboard."
Alan held my arms, drew me close.
"I was thinking something more adult. Something that involved moving slowly to old Motown classics."
"I'll get my shoes."
I kissed Alan on the cheek and went back to the living room. Mom was trying, unsuccessfully, to get Mr. Griffin's mouth to stay shut. Every time she eased it closed, it yawned back open.
"Alan and I are going out dancing." I plopped on the sofa and slid on my flats.
"Good. Take your time. I may wake Sal up and do a little dancing of our own."
I leaned over, reaching for my cell phone on the table.
"Leave it, Jacqueline."
"My phone?"
"It's a phone? I'm sorry -- I thought it was a leash."
I left the phone where it sat.
"Fine. See you in about two hours."