was getting louder but Stick was committed. He didn‟t need any air for this one. This one was a piece
of cake. Piece of fuckin‟ cake.
He dropped behind a tree, twenty yards from the door to the main room, swung the M-16 up, and
checked the kitchen and the living room one more time. Bronicata was leaning over a large pot,
sipping something from a spoon. The other two were standing next to him.
The five were still in the living room, gabbing. No women, thank God.
He swung the M-16 around and launched a grenade into the center of the big room.
It happened fast. Chevos opened the door and said, “There‟s a helicopter coming in from the bay,
flying pretty low.”
“Probably some businessman coming home late for dinner,” Costello said.
I could see through the door into a bedroom. Nance was sitting on a large, round waterbed, holding an
icepack against his jaw. Beyond that there was a large, high-ceilinged room with half a dozen or so
goons, and beyond that the kitchen. Bronicata was cooking something. Just a nice domestic gettogether. The boys‟ night out.
Suddenly the living room erupted in a garish orange flash. The explosion followed an instant later and
blew the room to pieces.
After that, everything happened so East, I remember it almost like a series of still pictures.
Sweetheart Pravano was lifted four feet off the ground and thrown against the wall. His face was
gone.
Another hoodlum went out the back window head first as if he had been bounced off a trampoline.
Another fell to his knees in the middle of the room, clutching a bloody mess that had been his chest a
moment before, and fell forward screaming, “Mother!”
Bits and pieces of furniture were thrown around the room like dust.
In the kitchen Bronicata was almost knocked into his soup pan.
The explosion blew Chevos‟ face forward into the room.
I grabbed Doe, twisted her around, and went to the floor on top of her.
Costello was knocked off his chair.
An M-16 started chattering.
Bronicata did a toe dance in the kitchen while his pots and pans exploded around him, then fell across
the hot stove as if embracing it.
His two pals were slammed against the wall and riddled.
In the other room Nance whirled and dropped to his knees behind the bed.
Chevos was on his knees, a .32 in his fist, his glasses hanging from one ear, hissing like a snake.
Costello rolled over and shook his head.
The smell of gunpowder flooded the room.
Nance turned toward me, his smashed face curdled with hate, his Luger in his hand.
I dragged Doe to her feet and pushed her toward the far corner of the room, away from the doorway.
The Luger roared and I felt the round twirl through my arm and hit the wall beyond. I knocked
Chevos‟ glasses off, grabbed his arm, and twisted him around, turning his gun hand down and away
from his body.
The M-16 thunked again and the waterbed erupted. Geysers of water plumed up from it. Nance dove
face down on the floor, huddling by the bed.
Costello pulled a .38 and leaped for the corner, grabbing at Doe.
I got the .32 away from Chevos, shoved him out of the way, jumped across the room, got a handful of
Costello‟s jacket, and threw him against the other wall. It didn‟t stop him. His lips curled back and he
swung the .38 up. I shot him twice in the chest. He fell back against the wall and dropped to his knees.
The gun bounced out of his hand. His knuckles rested on the floor. He stared at my belt buckle; then
his mouth went slack and dropped open.
The window beside me burst open. The drapes crashed down, and then I heard the dentist‟s drill, an
inch from my ear, hum its tune.
Brrdddtttt.
So much for Chevos.
I stuffed a handkerchief inside my jacket. The bullet wound burned. I could smell the almond odour or
arsenic. The Stick jumped through the window with the grace of a dancer, the 180 submachine gun in
one hand, the M-16 in the other. He held a finger to his lips and pointed toward Nance‟s room.
We heard footsteps run across broken glass and debris and smash a window. Stick jammed the 180
under his arm, pulled a .357 out of his belt, tossed it to me, and dove through the doorway into the
bedroom, the chattering 180 back in hand as he went.
“He‟s heading for the water,” Stick yelled, and went over the windowsill and into a garden behind the
place. “Stay with the girl. He‟s mine.”
A shot whined between us and smacked the windowsill. Stick hunched down and took off in a crouch,
jumping this way and that, threading his way through the trees. He didn‟t make a sound.
I went back into the other room. Doe was facing the wall with her hands over her face. lied her
outside, to the side of the house away from the shooting.
“Stay right here, don‟t move,” I said. “You‟ll be safer here. I‟ve got to check the rest of the house.”
She nodded but her eyes didn‟t like the idea.
I went back inside.
A quick check turned up ten bodies in the house. Nobody had survived. The bomb, or whatever it
was, and the burst from the M-l6 right after it, had killed five gunmen in the living room and three in
the kitchen.
There was a shot outside.
A muffled burst of M-16 fire.
I checked the .357 and half ran, half stumbled out the back door. Another burst, down near the water.
I started after them.
Nance was out on the dock. He started to get aboard the yacht. I heard the pumf of the grenade
launcher, and the back end of the yacht erupted. Nance was blown back onto the dock. He got to his
feet, kept running away from Stick. The big luxury boat started to burn. In the light of the flames, I
saw Nance scramble aboard a sailboat at the end of the dock, her sails furled loosely around the boom.
The Stick was hunched near the bowline. He moved away from me, toward the shadows on the Far
side of the sailboat. Then suddenly he leaped over its side.
His submachine gun was chattering.
Nance got off three shots before he started his dance. He went up on his toes, spun around, slapping
his body as if bugs were biting him. His hands flew over his head, and he fell backward onto the deck
like a side of beef. One foot kicked half-heartedly and he went limp.
I picked up the M-l6 and ran out onto the dock. The Stick was walking awkwardly toward the stern,
where Nance was lying.
“Stick!” I yelled.
He turned and crouched in a single move; then his shoulders drew up suddenly, his knees buckled,
and he fell over onto the deck.
I jumped aboard the sailboat and ran back toward the stern, where he was lying. I was ten feet from
him when he raised up and lifted the 180. For a second I thought he was going to shoot me. 1 just
froze there. He swung it up, to my left, and squeezed off two or three bursts. The bullets chewed a
ragged line up the mast. Bits and pieces of wood flew out of it, followed by streams of white crystals.
They poured out of the bullet holes in the shattered mast, sparkling like snowflakes, were caught in
the wind and whisked away, out over the bay and into the darkness. Stick sighed and his head fell
back on the &ck.
I leaned over him. His eyes were turning gray.
He flashed that crazy smile.
“Wasn‟t it. . . one helluva. . . blast,” he said, in a funny, tired, faraway voice, “while it lasted? Huh,
Jake?”
“It was one helluva blast.”
His lips moved but he didn‟t say anything.