They walked on a ways, until they were directly opposite the main entrance of the sprawling unlit plant building. Then Mike led the way across the street, Bill to his right and Sal to his left.
All at once, my head was halfway out the window, and I was shouting, “Don’t!” I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t gun them down that way.
I got the one word out, and Art was dragging me back inside, one hand clamped over my mouth. And the shots cracked from a ground-floor window in the plant.
They had just reached the opposite curb. Mike toppled backwards off the curb, Sal doubled over and collapsed face-first on the sidewalk, and Bill spun around like a toy pulled by a string. He took two steps along the sidewalk, faltering, and another shot rang out. He fell like a tree.
There was absolute silence on the street.
Beside me, I could hear a slight rustling as Art shifted position. Then his whisper sounded, harsh in my ear, “What the hell were you trying to do?”
I couldn’t have explained it to him. Not in a million years.
Thirty-Two
Silence for ten minutes. The plant building was dark-windowed and still, waiting. The three bodies lay unmoving on the pavement, half-lit by a streetlight farther to the left. There was no traffic and no pedestrians. Front Street was exclusively commercial property and now, almost one in the morning, the only people around were the combatants.
Silence for ten minutes. And then all hell broke loose.
A sudden roar of truck engines came from the right, and a Casale Brothers truck rumbled into sight, followed by another truck and another and another. The first jumped the curb in front of the main entrance to the plant, crossed the sidewalk, plowed through the hedge, and jolted to a stop a yard from the main entrance. The second and third followed the first, passed it, and halted on the lawn between hedge and building. The fourth tore through the hedge on the other side of the main entrance and stopped just behind the first, as two more trucks raced down from the other direction and into the parking lot to the left of the building.
Men poured from the backs of the trucks, carrying rifles and pistols. Red and white light-flashes spurted at the windows as those inside fired on the attackers, and then the Casales had shot the lock off the front door, and burst through and into the building.
There had been maybe sixty men in the trucks that had stopped at the front of the building. Five of these were now lying on the walk near the front door. The rest had surged inside, and I could hear gunfire and shouts from within the building. To the left, a second skirmish had started in the parking lot, out of sight.
The shooting went on and on, spreading out as the Casales moved deeper into the building. A man — Casale or Wycza, I couldn’t tell — suddenly burst out the gaping front doorway and ran for the street. He got halfway before fire flared in the doorway behind him, and he hurtled to his face, skidding on the pavement. Glass shattered in a second-story window, and a body dropped out, twisting in the air, crashing onto the hood of one of the trucks.
Then a group of men raced out of the empty building to the left of the one we were in. They dashed directly across the street and through the main entrance of the plant.
Art grunted, and said, “That’s Jack. That’s his way. Let them into the building, then hit them from two sides.” He got to his feet suddenly and said, “If we’re going to move at all, Mr. Smith, now’s the time.”
I kept watching. Mike and Sal and Bill still lay on the sidewalk, out where I could get a good view of them. One of the trucks had driven over Bill’s legs. That seemed like a hell of a thing to do.
“Now, Mr. Smith,” said Art coldly.
I looked up at him. He didn’t think as much of me any more, and he wasn’t bothering to hide it. It must be nice, I thought, to not give a damn. But of course he didn’t know any of the Casales. “All right,” I said. “Now.”
I stood beside him, looking out the window, trying to think. “We’ll want to go through the parking lot,” I said. “Reed’s offices are on that side, on the fifth floor.”
“All right,” he said.
“We’ll go out the back way,” I said, trying to think. I closed my eyes. “We’ll go down through the back yards to the corner, and cross there.”
“All right,” he said again. He started away, turned to look at me. “Come on, Mr. Smith,” he said.
I opened my eyes. They were still lying there. “All right,” I said.
Thirty-Three
There were maybe a dozen cars scattered around the parking lot, plus the two Casale Brothers trucks. On this side, light shone from windows on the fourth and fifth floors, and I caught occasional glimpses of people moving around inside. There was no one in the parking lot at all.
Art and I were crouched behind the hedge, next to the parking-lot entrance. I whispered, “We’ll make a run for that first car, the Dodge. We’ll work our way from car to car till we reach the building.”
“Lead on, Mr. Smith,” he said scornfully. “I’m right in front of you.”
I moved out from the hedge and started running, crouched over, weaving as I ran, a stocky idiot who’d lost the reins. Halfway to the Dodge, the ground suddenly shook beneath my feet, and I lost my balance and fell headlong, my pistol flying out of my hand. I landed hard, on the right shoulder, and rolled up against a rear wheel of the Dodge. I sat up fast, spied the revolver lying on the blacktop a few feet off, and lunged for it as the ground trembled again, and this time I heard the sound of the explosion.
Art cried out, and I looked up. The Reed & King building seemed to be framed by a yellow-white halo, and the roar of the explosion tumbled down around me. The halo suddenly expanded, flashing red-white, the ground shivered again, and the thunder of the third explosion drowned out the noises from inside the building. There were two more explosions, and then sudden silence, and at last I managed to scrabble across the blacktop and get the revolver back into my hand.
The silence lasted only a few seconds, and then ragged shooting began again. I struggled to my feet and was about to move forward when someone clutched at my arm, crying, “Tim! Tim! Please, for the love of God!”
I spun around, pulling away from the hand, and stared into the frightened eyes of Marvin Reed. “My father’s in there!” he screamed at me. “What’s happening? For the love of God, what’s happening?”
“What the hell do you care?” I shouted. “He doesn’t give a damn about you.”
Art was beside me, still unexcited, still giving me his: harsh and bitter grin. “Come on, Mr. Smith,” he said.
“We’ve got to help him!” Marvin was crying. “Tim, help me, we’ve got to get him out of there!”
“Go away, Marvin, go away.” He was pawing at me, and I pushed him away, shouting, “I’m not going to help your father, you damn fool! I’m on the other side!”
He stared at me, white-faced, and suddenly his hand was: reaching into his coat pocket and coming out again with a gun, and he was screaming something at me. I gaped at him, the gun came up, and the sound of the shot was the loudest thing in the world.
Marvin slammed backwards onto the blacktop, and Art said, “You’re going to have to do better than that, Mr. Smith.”
My mind just wouldn’t work. I stared down at Marvin, and I said, “What? What?”
“He didn’t shoot you, Mr. Smith,” said Art dryly. “I shot him.”
A sudden, louder burst of gunfire tore me back to reality. I looked around, and saw that a door in the side of the building was open, and four men were racing across the parking lot. Other men appeared in the doorway, firing after them, and one of the four staggered and dropped. The other three reached a car, scrambled into it, and the car leaped forward, turning sharply to come about and head for the street. The men in the doorway kept firing, and the car tore out of the parking lot, straight across the street, and crashed into the plate-glass window of the luncheonette.