Soilozzo steadied himself, bringing the gun up to a firing position.
Rick Landers and Andy Wallace ran towards the ice-cream van, unaware of the two speeding cars hurtling down the road. Andy suddenly stopped as his money spilled out on to the ground. He had a hole in his trouser pocket. Rick chuckled and watched as Andy stooped in the driveway of the house to retrieve his coins. He, himself, reached the waiting white van and asked for a chocolate sundae with lots of nuts. He hoped Mrs Garcia wasn’t watching.
As he turned to see where Andy had got to, Rick saw the two speeding cars.
Sollozzo took aim and fired twice, the pistol bucking in his fist. The first shot blasted off the wing mirror of the police car, the second punched a hole in its windscreen.
The station-wagon swerved violently as Jacobs momentarily took his eye off the road and glared at his companion.
‘Stop it,’ he shouted, reaching for the gun.
‘Fuck you,’ roared Sollozzo, firing again, a twisted grin across his face.
Jacobs looked ahead of him and screamed aloud as the white bulk of the ice-cream van loomed before him.
The station-wagon hit it doing about sixty, the impact catapulting Sollozzo through the windscreen. The steering column came back at Jacobs as if fired from a cannon, the wheel cracking, the column itself shattering his sternum and tearing through him as the two vehicles were pulped by the crash. Almost instantaneously, the petrol tank of the white van exploded with an ear-splitting shriek and both vehicles disappeared beneath a blinding ball of red and white flame.
Rick Landers, standing less than ten feet from the van, was lifted into the air as if by an invisible hand, his body catapulted a full twenty feet on to the pavement by the force of the explosion. His mangled body crashed to the ground, his clothes ablaze.
The patrolman driving the police car twisted the wheel to avoid the blazing inferno, the black and white mounting the sidewalk.
Too late the driver saw Rick’s body lying ahead of him.
He slammed on his brakes but the car was travelling much too fast.
The front offside wheel ran across the boy’s neck, crushing his spine and nearly severing bis head. Blood burst from the shattered corpse, spreading out in a wide pool around it.
Watching from the driveway, Andy Wallace felt something warm and soft in the seat of his pants as he gazed at the carnage before him. A second later he fainted.
Tony Sollozzo lay on the grass nearby, his face and neck shredded by the glass of the windscreen. Flames from the wreckage licked hungrily at his outstretched hand. Above it all a black pail of smoke hung like a shroud.
The two policemen stumbled from their car, the first of them running towards the burning vehicles but unable to get close because of the blistering heat from the leaping flames. The driver knelt and saw the body of Rick Landers lying beneath the car.
‘Oh Jesus God.” he murmured and straightened up, reaching inside the car for
his radio.
He called for an ambulance and some back-up, trying to explain briefly what had happened.
As he walked away he saw that he left sticky footprints behind him where he’d been standing in the pool of Rick’s blood. He dropped to his knees on the grass verge and threw up.
David Blake dropped his pen and yawned. He blinked myopically and scanned the pages which lay before him.
He’d been working flat out since ten that morning, pausing briefly at one o’clock to devour half a cheeseburger and some fries. Most of that now lay neglected on the table behind him.
His stomach growled noisily and he patted it gently. It was time he ate something more substantial.
Blake got to his feet and walked to the bathroom, turning the television on as he passed. A glance at his watch told him it was 5.58 p.m. The news would be on in a minute or two. He smiled to himself. It was time to find out what had been going on in the ‘real’ world. He’d been so immersed in his work for the past eight hours that New York could have disappeared and he wouldn’t have noticed. Once safely locked away, pen in hand, Blake was oblivious to all else.
He entered the bathroom, crossing to the wash basin where he splashed his face with cold water. As he wandered back into his room, a towel pressed to his face, the news was just beginning. Blake decided to hear the headlines then get something to eat. He dried his face off, the water mingling with the perspiration on his forehead.
‘… has promised a crackdown on some of the city’s illegal gambling establishments …’
The voice of the newsreader droned on as Blake opened his wardrobe and took out a clean shirt.
‘… and, as reported in our earlier bulletin, the son of Toni Landers, the actress who plays …’
Blake spun round to face the set.
‘… whose son, Rick, was tragically killed today when he was involved in a car accident.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Blake as a photo of first Rick and then Toni Landers was flashed on to the screen. The writer sat down on the edge of the bed, eyes riveted to the set as the newsreader continued.
‘Miss Landers, who was filming elsewhere in the city was unavailable for comment and it is believed that she is now at her home under sedation. Her son, Rick, is believed to have been killed at approximately 4.15 this afternoon after a stolen car crashed into an ice cream van outside his home.
Both passengers in the car and also the van driver were killed but, as yet, the other three victims have not been named. Police …’
Blake shook his head slowly, his eyes and ears focused on the TV but his mind back-tracking to the party at Toni Landers’ house.
To Mathias.
To the prophecy.
‘Her son is going to die.’ The psychic’s words echoed inside his mind.
‘Her son is going to die.’
Blake sat for a moment longer, then pulled on his shirt and hastily buttoned it up, tucking it into his jeans. He pulled on a pair of boots and, leaving the television set on, he left the room and scuttled across to the elevator at the end of the corridor. He rode it to the ground floor and ran through reception, out of the main doors and past the doorman who was enjoying a sly drag on a Marlboro.
The writer turned to his left and headed for the newsstand on the corner of the street. He fumbled in his pocket for change with one hand as he retrieved a late edition with the other. Halfway down the page was a photo of Rick Landers and, above it:
SON OF ACTRESS DIES IN ACCIDENT Blake handed the vendor some coins, not
waiting for his change, then he turned and made his way back to the hotel.
Once inside his room, Blake read the full story. The details didn’t matter.
The child was dead. That was enough. The writer folded the paper and dropped it on to the bed. He suddenly didn’t feel so hungry. For what seemed like an eternity he sat there, gazing at the TV screen and then at the photo of Rick Landers.
‘Her son is going to die.’ He spoke the words aloud.
Biake got to his feet and switched off the TV. He snatched up the leather jacket which was draped over the back of a nearby chair, pulling it on as he made for the door of his room.
Outside, the storm clouds which had been gathering for the past hour or so were split by the first soundless flash of lightning.
Blake paid the taxi driver, peered out through the rain splashed window then pushed open the door of the cab.
The deluge hit him like a palpable wave, the heavens continuing to dump their load without hint of a respite. The storm was raging, whiplash cracks of lightning punctuating the almost continual growl of thunder. It sounded as if somewhere, deep below the surface of the earth, a gigantic creature was clawing its way up. Rain hammered against the roads and buildings, bouncing off like tiny explosions. Even as Blake left the cab he felt the hair being plastered to the side of his face, the hot droplets penetrating the material of his shirt. He knew that the storm would not clear the air, it would merely make the humidity more acute. Beads of perspiration formed on the writer’s forehead, only to be washed away instantly by the driving rain.