He saw them in silhouette on the rooftop of a four-story corner tenement: the shifting shadows of a group of people — three or more, he couldn’t tell how many. They kept coming over to the edge and canting themselves outward to look downtown. They reminded him of commuters in subway stations leaning out from the platform to see if the lights of the train were coming into the tunnel. That made him realize what these were looking for: the same thing — a train.
He’d heard about this game. A vicious and dangerous one.
He moved close to the wall into the deeper shadows and slipped toward the corner. He stopped before he reached it; stayed out of the pool of corner lamplight, kept to the shadows, fixed his attention on the rooftop beyond the T-intersection. He thought he heard the distant rumbling of the train but perhaps it was only the hum of the city.
He watched them on the rooftop and began to single them out as individuals. Teen-age boys, at least three of them, and there was one girl who appeared at intervals. They seemed to be making trips to and from the roof parapet and he realized they were crossing the roof to pick things up, bringing the things over to the edge and stacking them there.
Ammunition.
Faintly he heard their nasal laughter.
From this low angle they seemed terribly far above him but it was only a real distance of some seventy feet — the width of the street and half the height of the building if you measured it as a right triangle; Paul’s line of vision formed the hypotenuse.
He had never shot anyone at quite such a long range; he remembered hearing it was difficult to shoot accurately at a steep upward angle. It would have to be done with care.
At least four of them; he had to take that into account too. He felt in his jacket pocket for the spare cartridges and counted them with his fingers — ten. Add to those the five in the cylinder of the revolver. Not much to waste; three shots per target, no more.
He eased closer to the corner and looked around. The spiderwork of a fire escape clung to the side of the opposite building. He thought about that but decided it would be too risky; they could see him if he went to cross the street.
Then he had another idea. He faded back into the shadows and waited.
The train approached. He saw the three boys lift objects in their hands and brace their feet against the low parapet that ran around the edge of the roof. The racket increased and when Paul turned his head he saw the lights of the train rushing along the top of the stone wall. The ground began to shake under him. The train came parallel with him and he saw heads at windows; he swiveled his glance to the rooftop and they were starting to lift and throw their missiles: bricks and chunks of cement, some of them so heavy the boys could hardly lift them and heave. The big ones fell short but there was a thundering rattle of bricks thudding the roof and sides of the train and Paul heard the tinkle of shattered glass. Had it hit someone inside the train?
Another window rattled. A brick bounced off the side of the train and pulverized itself in the middle of the street. The girl on the roof was throwing things too now; Paul counted them carefully and was satisfied there were only the four.
A crash of glass; he was sure he heard an outcry from the last car; then the train had gone, its rumble hanging in its wake.
He looked back to the rooftop and they had disappeared. He moved quickly to the near corner and put his head out just far enough to see the fire escape across the street.
They were coming down. Running down the metal stair from landing to landing. Their laughter was a cruel abrasion.
He let the first of them get to the bottom landing. The boy extended the jump-ladder with his weight, coming down to the sidewalk as the ladder squeaked rusty resentment. In the uncertain light Paul steadied his aim across his left wrist and as the boy turned to shout up at the others he squeezed the trigger with steady even pressure until the gun went off with a little kick and a squirt of noise and the boy’s head snapped to one side under the bullet’s impact.
The others saw him fall but didn’t know the cause of it and they hurried coming down. Paul waited; there was time, they still didn’t know he was there.
They came down and clustered around the prone one and now Paul pumped the trigger and saw it register upon them as one of them dropped with the quick spineless looseness of instant death and Paul’s second shot went through the same one and then ripped up a yard of stucco. The third one was wheeling back under the fire escape with amazing quick presence of mind and the girl was diving for a doorway. Paul heard her scream: “Get that mother!” and then the one from under the fire escape was coming after him, running in deadly swift silence with a knife whipping up.
One shot left or two? Sudden terror gripped him and he knew he had to wait, had to make it point-blank because there was no chance for a miss. The boy came straight at him, terrifyingly without sound; Paul had a clear sight of him, the blazing tight expectant eyes, the lips peeled back from the teeth, the wide nostrils flexed like biceps... and then Paul fired and the spinning plug of lead punched a dark disk in the boy’s face just below one eye. The boy’s scream was a dead cry, but he fell against Paul and Paul scrambled back in thundering panic as the falling knife scraped across his wrist; the gun fell to the sidewalk and skittered away and Paul fell against the wall bent over almost double hugging his stinging wrist: sweat sprang from his face and sucked-in breath hissed through his teeth. The boy rolled and toppled onto his shoulder and Paul pounced on the gun with primitive clear cunning and shot the groaning boy once more in the face.
It was empty now, he knew it, and he swung the cylinder out and punched the empties and dug in his pocket while his eyes scanned the street opposite — the two boys down. Where was the girl?
He heard running footsteps somewhere; a door slammed and he winced.
Gone. He stood shaking, snapping the reloaded gun together. Think now.
She couldn’t have seen him clearly; he’d never been out in the light. She hadn’t seen his face at all; he was sure of it.
The cartridge cases. He’d dumped them out in his fever to reload — but they would have fingerprints on them; he hadn’t worn gloves to load the gun. He bent and picked them up and had a hard time finding the fifth one but it was there, in a crack below the lip of the sidewalk, and after he had all five in his pocket he had a look at the boy who had come at him with the knife. The boy was seeping blood into the pavement. This one had come close, seen Paul’s face; he had to be dead. Paul shot him in the head.
Even if the other two under the fire escape weren’t dead they hadn’t got a look at him; it was time to get out of here — what if that girl called the police?
He turned away from the dead boy and walked south, emptied by violence.
He had covered half the length of the block when he looked back and saw the cop standing there.
The cop stood under the light in a frozen attitude but it was plain by the lift of his head that he saw Paul. Paul froze: the gun, forgotten, still dangled in his hand. He knew the cop knew what he was. He waited for the cop to speak, waited for the cop to draw his gun. He had no thought of shooting the cop, although he had the gun in his hand; you didn’t shoot cops, that wasn’t the point of it all.
The cop reached up in the light and took his cap off and held it in his right hand. Then slowly the cop turned his back and stood there without moving.