Another shot, again wildly above me. I heard Blinky scrambling on all fours and saw him duck behind an ore cart.
“ C’mon out, you two!” she yelled.
I kept down, and Blinky got up, put a shoulder to the cart, and using it as a shield, began pushing it toward his sister. It gave me a chance.
I lunged toward the wooden crate and grabbed three sticks of dynamite and a handful of foot-long wooden matches. I turned in time to see Jo Jo deftly step to one side and Blinky crash the ore cart into a rocky wall. The impact sent his head into the side of the cart, and he reeled backward, collapsing on the floor. Jo Jo turned the gun on him, then swung it toward me.
Two more steps and I dived for the other aluminum pole, taking it down with me, crashing the spotlight.
Total, blinding darkness broken by a flash of orange, a gunshot missing me but pinging off the Silver Queen.
“ That’s no way to treat a lady,” I said. In the darkness, I picked up a rock and tossed it one direction while I crawled in another. Another stray gunshot just after the rock hit the far wall.
I crept behind the Silver Queen, scraping my hands and knees, but keeping silent. I heard Jo Jo’s “shit” as she bumped into something. Then a flashlight popped on. The flashlight was in her left hand, the gun in her right. I could see her, but she couldn’t see me. I grabbed a rock and winged it at her, but it missed, causing her to spin and shoot behind her. How many gunshots had there been? Four or five? I hadn’t been counting. The. 38 only holds five bullets. But was she carrying spare ammo?
“ Josie, let’s talk this over.” Blinky now, somewhere in the darkness. “C’mon, I never would have flipped on you. Let’s you and me work it out.”
I heard her spin the cylinder on the. 38 and looked up in time to see her slipping bullets in. The flashlight beam struck Blinky squarely in the face.
A gunshot and a scream.
“ You shot me! Jesus Cristo, Jake, she shot me in the fucking leg! I’m bleeding. She broke the bone. Jake!”
I kept quiet. I did not want to get shot in the leg or anywhere else.
I stayed huddled behind the right rear wheel of the Silver Queen’s chariot. Another gunshot, and the sound of glass shattering. Above me, the lady’s hair had fractured into a thousand shards and cascaded over me. I stayed put, struck a match to the rock floor and lit the fuse on a stick of dynamite. I crouched there, letting the fuse fizzle and crackle, keeping the flame between my cupped hands so it would not glow in the darkness, trying to figure what to do next.
I tried to calculate how long the fuse took to burn. I counted off the seconds, measured the inches, then realized it was about ten seconds from blast off. Extending my arm, I tossed a hook shot in the general direction of the entrance to the cavern. As I did, a flood of thoughts engulfed me. I didn’t know the strength of one stick of dynamite. Probably more pow than a string of Chinese firecrackers, but not enough to bring down the roof. Right? Didn’t Blinky talk about a circle of sticks just to knock a hole in rock wall? As my arm was following through on a pretty healthy toss, I thought of the old Road Runner cartoons. Wasn’t Wile E. Coyote always tossing dynamite and having it tossed right back?
I intended it as a diversion. A little boom, and I would dash.. .
“ Shit! Shit! Shit!”
All these years I’ve known Jo Jo Baroso and never had she been so scatological. Of course, then, I’d never thrown a stick of dynamite at her before.
The floppity-flop of her rubber boots across rock. A stomping sound.
“ You’re crazy, Jake!” Her voice, just this side of hysterical. “You’ll kill us all. These timbers aren’t stable.”
At least she hadn’t thrown it back at me.
From somewhere in the darkness, I heard the whimpering of my client who liked the privilege that kept me from testifying against him, but refused to adhere to any laws himself.
“ Blinky, how about it?” I shouted out. “Is it safe?”
“ Blow her up, Jake. Send her straight to hell.”
I peered out from behind the chariot’s wheel and saw the flashlight beam play across the floor until it found Blinky, curled up alongside an ore cart. “Jake, she’s going to shoot me again. No, Josie, no!”
“ I’ll take care of you later,” Jo Jo said, then turned the beam toward the Silver Queen. It flicked off, and I knew she was walking this way. I didn’t hesitate. I struck a match, lit the fuse, stepped into the open, and tossed it underhanded along the rocky floor. It bounced two or three times, the fuse burning green in the darkness.
I heard Jo Jo mutter the same monosyllable. I heard the boots slapping the rock. I watched the lit fuse, tried to memorize the spot in the darkness as she approached it. The glowing fuse disappeared under a stomping boot and I charged the spot. I was going to hit her head on, legs churning, and wrap her up, a picture-perfect tackle. I was going to drive her to the floor and do something I’ve never done before: I was going to hit a woman.
She must have heard my leather soles smacking the floor. Or my labored breathing. Or her instincts were just too sharp.
I saw the flash from the muzzle before I felt the impact.
The bullet caught me in the right shoulder. It was a clean through-and-through that didn’t strike a bone, a major blood vessel, or a steel pin that acts up when it rains. I felt a burning, the trickle of warm blood, and then a sharp pain as if an ice pick had been jammed into me and was still there.
I was still on my feet, but wondering why.
Shouldn’t I be on the ground or something?
The flashlight flicked on, bursting through the darkness, illuminating a craggy formation of blue limestone and dolomite above me. I turned, tucked my head, went into a crouch and rolled onto my good shoulder, scrambling back behind the chariot.
Another gunshot, and again the Silver Lady took one for me. Or maybe it ricocheted off Plutus, one of the little diapered gods at her side. I felt around in the darkness for the last stick of dynamite. Where the hell was it? I found the big silver wheel of the chariot, ran my hand along the ground, and there it was. I drew a match from my pocket, struck it, and nothing happened. My pants, still soggy from my bodysurfing in the tunnel, had moistened the tip. I found another match. Soaking wet. Another one, same thing.
I breathed on the first match, trying to dry the phosphorous, wiped it in the dust, struck it again. Nothing, and now the tip started to crumble.
I heard Jo Jo’s footsteps getting closer.
One last time, and it caught. I let the flame grow a second, then lit the fuse, waited a second and threw the dynamite as far as I could. I wanted to sail it over Jo Jo’s head to get her turned around. When she headed to stomp out the fuse, I’d rush her again, but this time, I’d zigzag. waited to hear the dynamite hit the ground, but instead of the smack against hard rock, I heard a soft thump.
Then I heard Blinky’s yell. “Jake, ay, mierda! Jake, maldito sea , it’s on the timber over the ledge. I can see the fuse burning.”
Then I heard Jo Jo. Her vocabulary hadn’t improved. I watched the flashlight beam playing across the rocks above the ledge. Finally it stopped at the juncture of a vertical and horizontal timber. Wedged between them was a stick of dynamite with a glowing fuse.
The timber was at least twelve feet off the ground. In my younger days, I could dunk a basketball with a running start, but the basket’s only ten feet. Twelve feet was out of the question.
“ Jake, come here!” Jo Jo shouted at me. She was directly in front of the Silver Queen, maybe fifteen feet from the pedestal.
“ Why, you want a clean shot at me?”
“ No, you’ve got to put out the dynamite. Now!”
“ Throw your gun over here, and I’ll do it,” I said, though I didn’t have the slightest idea how.