All at once it clicked home. It was Hugh Priest, of course. For some reason Hugh had come to the Sheriff’s Office, had arrived before John could get rolling for Castle Hill, and had started swinging. It wasjohn LaPointe, not Andy Clutterbuck, who was in danger.
Alan grabbed the dash-flash, turned it on, and stuck it on the roof. When he reached the town side of the bridge he offered the old station wagon a silent apology and floored the accelerator.
13
Clut began to suspect Hugh wasn’t home when he saw that all the tires on the man’s car were not just flat but cut to pieces. He was about to approach the house anyway when he finally heard thin cries for help.
He stood where he was for a moment, undecided, then hurried back down the driveway. This time he saw Lenny lying on the side of the road and ran, holster flapping, to where the old man lay.
“Help me!” Lenny wheezed as Clut knelt by him. “Hugh Priest’s gone crazy, tarnal fool’s busted me right to Christ up!”
“Where you hurt, Lenny?” Clut asked. He touched the old man’s shoulder. Lenny let out a shriek. it was as good an answer as any.
Clut stood up, unsure of exactly what to do next. Too many things had gotten crammed up in his mind. All he knew for sure was that he desperately did not want to fuck this up.
“Don’t move,” he said at last. “I’m going to go call Medical Assistance.”
“I ain’t got no plans to get up and do the tango, y’goddam fool,” Lenny said. He was crying and snarling with pain. He looked like an old bloodhound with a broken leg.
“Right,” Clut said. He started to run back to his cruiser, then returned to Lenny again. “He took your car, right?”
“No!” Lenny gasped, holding his hands against his broken ribs.
“He busted me up and then flew off on a magic fuckin carpet.
Sure, he took my car! Why do you think I’m layin here? Get a fuckin tan?”
“Right,” Clut repeated, and sprinted back down the road. Dimes and quarters bounced out of his pockets and spun across the macadam in bright little arcs.
He leaned in the window of his car so fast he almost knocked himself out on the door-ledge. He snagged the mike. He had to get Sheila to send help for the old. man, but that wasn’t the most important thing. Both Alan and the State Police had to know that Hugh Priest was now driving Lenny Partridge’s old Chevrolet BelAir. Clut wasn’t sure what year it was, but nobody could miss that dust-colored oil-burner.
But he could not raise Sheila in dispatch. He tried three times and there was no answer. No answer at all.
Now he could hear Lenny starting to scream again, and Clut went into Hugh’s house to call Rescue Services in Norway on the telephone.
One hell of a fine time for Sheila to have to be on the john, he thought.
14
Henry Beaufort was also trying to reach the Sheriff’s Office. He stood at the bar with the telephone pressed against his ear. It rang again and again and again. “Come on,” he said, “answer the fucking I Y?”
phone. What are you guys doing over there? Playing gin rummy Billy Tupper had gone outside. Henry heard him yell something and looked up impatiently. The yell was followed by a sudden loud bang. Henry’s first thought was that one of Lenny’s old tires had blown… and then there were two more bangs.
Billy walked back into the Tiger. He was walking very slowly.
He was holding one hand against his throat, and blood was pouring through his fingers.
“’Enry!” Billy cried in a weird, strangled Cockney voice.
“’Enry! ’En-” He reached the Rock-Ola, stood there swaying for a moment, and then everything in his body seemed to let go at once and he collapsed in a loose tumble.
A shadow fell over his feet, which were almost out the door, and then the shadow’s owner appeared. He was wearing a fox-tail around his neck and holding a pistol in one hand. Smoke drifted from its barrel.
Tiny jewels of perspiration nestled in the sparse mat of hair between his nipples. The skin under his eyes was puffy and brown. He stepped over Billy Tupper and into the dimness of The Mellow Tiger.
“Hello, Henry,” said Hugh Priest.
15
John LaPointe didn’t know why this was happening, but he knew Lester was going to kill him if he kept it up-and Lester showed no sign of even slowing down, let alone stopping. He tried to slide down the wall and out of Lester’s reach, but Lester grabbed his shirt and yanked him back up. Lester was still breathing easily. His own shirt had not even come untucked from the elastic waistband of his sweatpants.
“Here you go, Johnny-boy,” Lester said, and smashed another fist into John’s upper lip. John felt it split apart on his teeth. “Grow your goddam pussy-tickler over that.”
Blindly, John stuck out one leg behind Lester and pushed as hard as he could. Lester uttered a surprised yell and went over, but he shot both hands out as he toppled, snagged them in john’s bloodspattered shirt, and pulled the Deputy over on top of him. They began to roll across the floor, butting and punching.
Both were far too busy to see Sheila Brigham dart out of the dispatcher’s cubicle and into Alan’s office. She snatched the shotgun off the wall, cocked it, and ran back into the bullpen area, which was now a shambles. Lester was sitting on top ofjohn, industriously banging his head against the floor.
Sheila knew how to use the gun she had been target shooting since she was eight years old. Now she socked the buttplate against her shoulder and screamed: “Get away from him, John!
Give me a clearfield!”
Lester turned at the sound of her voice, his eyes glaring. He bared his teeth at Sheila like an angry bull gorilla, then went back to banging John’s head on the floor.
16
As Alan approached the Municipal Building, he saw the first unqualifiedly good thing of the day: Norris Ridgewick’s VW approaching from the other direction. Norris was in plain clothes, but Alan cared not at all about that. He could use him this afternoon.
Oh boy, how he could use him.
Then that went to hell, too.
A large red car-a Cadillac, license plate KEETON I-suddenly shot out of the narrow alley which gave access to the Municipal Building’s parking lot. Alan watched, gape-mouthed, as Buster drove his Cadillac into the side of Norris’s Beetle. The Caddy wasn’t going fast, but it was roughly four times the size of Norris’s car.
There was a crunch of crimping metal and the VW toppled over onto the passenger side with a hollow bang and a tinkle of glass.
Alan slammed on the brakes and got out of his cruiser.
Buster was getting out of his Cadillac.
Norris was struggling out through the window of his Volkswagen with a dazed expression on his face.
Buster began to stalk toward Norris, his hands closing into fists.
A frozen grin was rising on his fat round face.
Alan took one look at that grin and began to run.
17
The first shot Hugh fired shattered a bottle of Wild Turkey on the backbar. The second shattered the glass over a framed document which hung on the wall just above Henry’s head and left a round black hole in the liquor license beneath. The third tore off Henry Beaufort’s right cheek in a pink cloud of blood and vaporized flesh.
Henry shrieked, grabbed the box with the sawed-off shotgun inside, and dropped behind the bar. He knew Hugh had shot him, but he didn’t know if it was bad or not. He was only aware that the right side of his face was suddenly as hot as a furnace, and that blood, warm, wet, and sticky, was pouring down the side of his neck.
“Let’s talk about cars, Henry,” Hugh was saying as he approached the bar. “Even better than that, let’s talk about my foxtail-what do you say?”