He stood on his chair, cut another hole higher up. The Brunists were in a frenzy. Their thin white tunics clung to their bodies, wimpling white, otherwise showing a pale flesh color, except where underclothing protected. Hair streamed over faces, hands reached upward as though clawing, naked bodies milled with tunicked ones. Lights went out, came on again, tremendous clap of thunder, everybody started, gasped en masse, cried out, laughed excitedly. Some cried. Rain blew in through his window, spraying his face. One hand gripped the speedgraphic, the other kneaded the sock in his pocket. The emcee no longer called out numbers, seemed to be pleading for calm. Some people on the outer, wettest, fringe, frightened by the storm and lashed by the frantic press of the mass, lost their heads and ran hysterically up the hill to join the Brunists. Near the entrance to the bingo tent a woman went down, a froth on her mouth, and others, losing balance, trampled and fell over her. Women prayed and shrieked, and there were cries, some mocking, some terrifyingly real, that the end was coming. Miller’s chair went out from under him, and he dropped leadenly on two men who, slugging at him, ended up at each other’s throats. At the corner on the side there seemed to be no body pressed, so he slashed a full-length slit and pushed out. As he pushed out, others pushed in, kicking, bucking. He saw new holes opening up. Couldn’t see the hill.
Miller bulled forward, not caring who or what he hit — what are social niceties in a stampede? Rain beat on his face and his feet slipped and skidded in the mud. People bitched. He got knocked up against the wall of a booth. But, more and more, the crowds were turning to face the Brunists. And it was a sight to see. Naked or near-naked, they leapt and groveled and embraced and rolled around in the mud. A large group danced wildly around Marcella, screaming at her, kissing her dead mouth, clearly expecting her to rise up off her litter. Women embraced the statue of Stephen and kissed its mouth. Men tore branches off the little tree until it was stripped nearly bare, and whipped themselves and each other. It was a scene to delight a Lou Jones and now Miller saw him, moving impassively up the hill, photographing them as he went, kneeling for angles, apparently steering a course toward the dead girl. Jones, in drooping fedora and glistening raincoat, shaped like a big dark bag, made an odd contrast to the frenetic worshipers who performed for his lens. There was something almost contemplative, devotional, almost statuesque about him as he crouched to peer into the instrument in his lap.
Miller, breaking free of the crowd at last, paused just a moment, long enough to spot the white helmets and black uniforms of the state troopers, just arrived and in an anxious huddle with Whimple, Cavanaugh, and Romano, then ran for the hill, ran for Jones. Other newsmen, following Jones’ lead, had ventured forward into that belt of space that had till now separated the redeemed from the dead. Miller slammed past them in his heavyfooted slog up the hill, anger mounting, but a peculiar joy, too: he was here! it was on! And an hysterical fat woman, her tunic up under her armpits, rolled under his feet, bowled him over, and he felt his face slap into the mud. Tried to stand, but found himself in a swirl of wet bodies. A man sat beating his own face with his fists, and a woman staggering backwards fell on him, their legs twining as they rolled. Miller couldn’t see Jones. Someone laid into him with a switch and he felt a tug at his clothes. He escaped, half running, half crawling, back downhill, then, seeing he was cut off from retreat by an advancing singing bloc of new and naked converts, swung around toward where Jones now knelt, his back to the eastern sky, focusing on the soles of Marcella’s feet, his sullen face veiled by the drip of rain off his hat-brim, plastic sack over his camera, soggy cigar in his mouth. Charging Jones, Miller caught a glimpse of Marcella’s cadaver, the tunic pasted down against her livid flesh, pools standing here and there, her mouth and eyes filling with water that the rain splashed in. Jones glanced up just as Miller leaped, a grin there, and he turned his shoulder— It was like hitting a goddam ox. It pitched him right on over and, in midair, he realized for the first time he was still carrying his own speedgraphic — Miller felt something go, a sharp hot pain in his left arm or shoulder, and he saw the camera just as his own ass came crashing down on it. Hurt, but angry, hating someone whether it was Jones or not, he stood to face the man, who now squatted, deadpan as always, cigar still in place, hat knocked a bit askew, gazing up at him.
Suddenly he heard a shrill mad shriek that carried over all the roar up there: “That’s him! He murdered her!” It was Eleanor Norton, gray hair wild with the rain, tunic limp on her aging body, eyes fixed on him through wet lenses, arms outspread and fingers bent like claws—“Killer! Killer! Killer!”
It was a signal for them. All the aimless fury of the moment before suddenly discovered its object. He turned to run. They cut him off, swarmed down upon him. He dodged, spun, rolled, straight-armed, warded off blindly flung blows, but there were millions of them, and ducking one only put him in line for another. He watched feet trampling his camera as branches whaled his body, saw Jones, slyly amused, in modest retreat partway down the hill, photographing it all. He pushed downhill for Jones, but, letting down his guard, got a foot in his gut that doubled him over. He struggled to his feet, but they piled onto him. He swung at them, kicked, butted, but nothing slowed them. They covered him and their heaped flesh choked him. A fat man, that Clegg guy, an erection distorting the front of his wet tunic, leaped, came down like a mountain on Miller’s head. They fought for his trenchcoat and, releasing it, he somehow wriggled free. Wall of their bodies below him, so he switched strategy, bowled straight up the hill, seemed to have lost his shoes, but it helped him gain speed, dove headfirst into a cluster of bodies, felt something flatten his nose in, hit somebody hard as wood. Chorus of screams of horror — something cold struck his face — and as by the hundreds they jumped him, he saw what it was he had knocked over and he lost heart. They dragged him away from her, kicking and punching and whipping him with branches. Distantly, he felt their blows, felt them leap and dance on him, knew he was vomiting, knew he was bleeding, but as though someone were explaining this to him. They are killing you, he said, and though it caused wonderment in him, it could not lift an arm to stop them. He felt them shred the clothes off him, saw the ax, knew, though he couldn’t feel it, that his legs had been splayed and hands had been laid on him. Amazingly, just at that moment, he saw, or thought he saw, a woman giving birth: her enormous thighs were spread, drawn up in agony, and, staring up them, he saw blood burst out. “No!” he pleaded, but it sounded more like a gurgle. “Please!” and a whip lashed his mouth. Where the fuck were the troopers?
And it was done, the act was over. Through the web of pain, skies away, he recognized the tall broad-shouldered priestess with the gold medallion. She issued commands and he floated free. Rain washed over him. He seemed to be moving. The priestess was gone. And then there was a fall. Trees. Muddy cleft and a splash of water when he arrived. At which point, Tiger Miller departed from this world, passing on to his reward.
6
Vince Bonali and the only two buddies he had left in the world, old Cheese Johnson and old Georgie Lucci, sprawled, roaring drunk, upon the red wool expanse of vacant carpet in the lawyer’s house, as the West Condon cops, with Whimple and Cavanaugh and God knows who else, came in and arrested them there where they lay. This time there were no bird dogs to be bought, but, since the facilities were flooded with ecstatic raving Brunists, they let them go anyway. “Listen,” Vince told them. “Listen, I don’t give a shit what you do. Lock me up if you wanna. I don’t give a shit.” But they booted his ass out of there, and there was no place to go but home. Where things were not very good.