Twenty feet between them now; no more. He’s got no need even to aim the thing at this short a range.
With an awful dread she feels shuddering paroxysms of her own hatred; she feels hysteria cresting in her. It all erupts and a howl detonates from her as if from the throat of some wild rabid animal and it’s as if she has nothing to do with it, or with the terrible conflagration in her. She’s lost controclass="underline" she feels her lungs suck for air and she watches her enemy swim in the blood-red haze of her vision-and in one sudden bright abject moment of exhausted clarity she knows she has lost.
Come on then, you bastard. Kill me.
… Why doesn’t he shoot?
Then she knows. Of course.
Of course!
“Wait!”
The force of her own explosive voice startles her. She holds the baby up in front of her.
He stops in his tracks: he scowls. “Jesus, Madeleine. Even you can’t be that insane. You honestly think you can use your own child for a shield?”
Quickly she shifts Ellen’s weight into one arm, freeing the other. She knows what she’s doing now. God knows where the knowledge sprang from.
“Back up,” she shouts. I need just a little more space. Just another second’s worth of time.
She’s holding Ellen almost at arm’s length in one hand now and Ellen begins to wail.
She tightens her grip on the flailing baby’s tiny jump suit.
“If you drop that child so help me …”
Oh Jesus. Bert isn’t going to do it. He’s calling her bluff.
He’s starting toward her again.
There isn’t enough time. Oh Goddamn you black-hearted bastard.
No more hysteria. Come on-come on …
She jabs the free left hand into the open cab behind her. Her fist closes around the stock, slides up to the trigger guard, hauls the shotgun out into view.
She brings it down across the baby’s tummy and grips the forestock in that hand and, pinning the baby against the crook of her elbow with the shotgun itself, levels it at him. “So help me God, Bert, I’ll leave your brains all over this parking lot.”
Bert gapes at her: at the shotgun, then at her face.
She’s sweating as if in a steam bath. Doug’s words from last night bat around in her head: “Safety catch is on. It’s okay, no danger.”
She has no idea on earth where the safety catch is. And she doesn’t dare look down at the shotgun in an effort to find it. Any sign of hesitation or uncertainty and he’ll be all over her in an instant.
The baby is yelling powerfully now; too much racket to make herself heard. She gestures with her chin and now she steps away from the truck, beginning to walk toward Bert.
He stands his ground, squinting, trying to think his way through this.
She makes soft shushing noises and the baby gradually stops shouting.
There’s a lever right on top, just next to her thumb. She can feel it. It’s bent to one side. Could that be the safety?
Try it.
She’s watching Bert. His frown is a little puzzled. She feels the tab of the metal lever click slightly when it moves an inch to the other side.
“Get in the car,” she says. “Drive away.”
He crouches and sets the rifle on the ground and stands up again, holding his empty palms out to her. Now he smiles-she remembers the chill of that smile-and he resumes his calm approach as if it had never been interrupted.
“Should have shot me when I had the rifle,” he says. “At least you could have rationalized that as self-defense. Now I’m unarmed. You won’t do it.”
The smile has settled on his face like a death’s head rictus.
He’s going to walk right up and take the shotgun away from her.
He believes she’s bluffing.
He knows about her and guns.
He knows she’s not going to shoot him.
She watches him come forward.
He’s three paces away, nearly in jumping distance, when she says very quietly, “It’s not me I’m protecting, you see. It’s the baby.”
She depresses the muzzle of the shotgun by leaning her whole torso forward and points the damn thing in the vicinity of his knees and pulls the trigger.
72
She picks up the discarded rifle and tosses it into the station wagon. She’s still shaking. Her arm throbs from the blow of the shotgun’s recoil and her ears are ringing and the baby is at it again, doing her loudest, and she can’t think of anything sensible to say to the kid except this:
“You’re right. Screaming is the only possible proper response to all this.”
Doug looks up at her with dulled eyes. She says, “I can’t lift you. You’re going to have to help me.”
He struggles to get his legs under him. There’s blood high on the chest of his shirt. Maybe with luck it’s high enough to have missed the lung. He says, as if apologizing, “Doesn’t hurt too bad. Deep wounds usually don’t.”
“I’ll get you some help.”
Over there near the truck Bert is bellowing at her but she gives him no more than a glance, hiking the baby up firmly in one arm while she gives Doug the other and helps him to his feet and assists his stumbling progress toward the station wagon. She gets him into the back seat, tosses Bert’s suitcase on the floor to make room, and helps Doug lie down on the seat.
Then she looks in the ignition. No keys.
Just like Bert. So methodical he put the keys in his pocket, even way out here-even with all that on his mind.
She gets out of the car, baby in one hand and shotgun in the other, and walks toward the truck. She detours wide around Bert, ignoring his pleas and threats, and reaches up into the cab to take the keys out. Then she closes the driver’s door and goes around to close the passenger door and only then does she look down at the man she once lived with.
“Give me the car keys.”
He broods up at her. The constriction of his voice betrays the effort with which he is attempting to keep pain at bay. “How about getting me an ambulance?”
“You’ll live. Strip your shirt off. Use it for a tourniquet. Sooner or later somebody’ll stop and give you a hand.”
“CB radio-the truck.”
“I don’t know how to use it.”
“Jesus God almighty you fucking bitch, get me some help. You’ve smashed my fucking kneecap, you know that? God knows if I’ll ever walk straight again.”
She’s very calm. “Throw me the keys, Bert, or I’ll shoot the other knee.” She works the pump action of the shotgun, one-handed, tossing the empty paper cartridge out and seating the next one. Aren’t you glad you taught the little woman how to shoot skeet, you great macho gun handler?
She points it at his knee. The one that isn’t shredded. “The keys.”
He bends his head back in an arching spasm of agony. Unmoved, chilled, she taps his knee-the good one-with the muzzle of the shotgun.
He cries out. She watches him dig clumsily in a trouser pocket. With a vestige of defiance he throws the keys away and then his head sags against the pavement.
She picks up the keys. He lies panting with his eyes half shut and unfocused. She hesitates-but there’s nothing left to say to him. She walks away.
“Madeleine …” A husky croak. “For the love of God …”
She settles the baby in the station wagon and shuts the door and starts the air conditioning. Then she twists around. “Doug?”
“Still here.” Lying on his side, fetal, he tries to smile.
“My fault. I used you. I’ll try to make it up.…”
“You shoot the son of a bitch?”
“In the knee. He’ll survive I’m sure. I just don’t figure to make it easy for him.”
“That’s all right. Long as we whupped him.”
“Where’s the nearest hospital?”
“No idea. Don’t worry about me. No real harm ever comes to the iron duke.”
73
It’s another hot one in Van Nuys and she’s been sitting in this damn car altogether too long but on Ellen’s account let’s not take chances. It’s wise to check everything out.