"Now what?" Meyers asked when he was dressed.
Tucker finished tying his shoes and stood up. "We wait."
"For the watchmen?"
Tucker nodded: Yes.
"How long?" Meyers whispered.
"Until they come."
Meyers raised one eybrow. "You think they'll make their regular rounds tonight?"
Tucker nodded.
"After what's happened?"
"Especially after what's happened," Tucker whispered.
"If they don't?"
"We'll worry about that later."
Meyers remained in the shadows in front of Shen Yang's, out of sight of anyone who might walk up the east corridor from the mall's warehouse. Planting his feet wide apart to give himself good balance, he gripped his Skorpion in both hands, held it across his broad chest, and settled down for a long wait.
Stepping across the lounge to stand in the darkened entranceway to Young Maiden on the other flank of the east corridor, Tucker and Bates also took up the vigil.
At 5:30, Chet and Artie came out of the warehouse and started up the corridor toward the lounge. They were arguing about the way the police had handled things, and from the spirited way they were going at each other it was obvious that they did not expect any more trouble.
Meyers raised one hand.
Tucker nodded affirmatively.
When the two watchmen reached the lounge and stepped out of the hall, Meyers moved in on their right and Bates covered them on the left, pinning them between the two Skorpions.
"If you go for your guns," Tucker said, "you're both dead. You played it cool and smart the first time. Don't be foolish now."
The quiet one, Artie, groaned. "Hey Hey, I feel like I'm having the same nightmare over and over."
Chet was too enraged to speak. He spluttered at them and nearly choked on his anger, half raised one fist in a useless threat that impressed no one.
Tucker walked around behind them to pick the revolvers out of their holsters. "Be cool now."
"Little bastard," Chet said, finally regaining his voice.
Tucker was reaching for Artie's gun when he heard a strange guttural sound behimd him. Odd as it was, he knew immediately the source of it. That damned police dog was loose.
The German shepherd, which had been trained to follow well behind the night watchmen, had come out of the open warehouse door and was running for all its great strength, rapidly closing the distance between them. Its ears were pinned flat against its skull, and its long tail curved between its hind legs. The carpet gave the brute excellent purchase and considerably softened the sound of its thumping paws.
Tucker turned completely around to face it and automatically swung up the Skorpion. But he hesitated, remembering what a friend in the business had once told him about guard dogs
Two years before Tucker had hooked up with three other men to knock over a major department store for its cash receipts on the last shopping day before Christmas. In the middle of that robbery one of the other men, an all-around professional named Osborne, had been attacked by a trained mutt. Using only his bare hands, he had quickly and efficiently killed it without sustaining a single tooth or claw mark. It was necessary, after that job, for them to hole up at an abandoned farmhouse for several days, and during that time Osborne explained to Tucker how to handle any dog. Osborne had learned his stuff in the army, where he had also learned to kill men, and he had not minded passing it along to Tucker.
The dog was less than two hundred feet away.
Most certainly this dog was not a killer. After all, it was trained to follow the guards and to be available in emergencies. Like this one. Nevertheless, Tucker had to deal with it as if it were a killer. It would worry him until it was either dead or badly hurt, and it might sow enough confusion to let Chet and Artie get control of the situation. Men had educated it in violence, had corrupted it, and now it was going to have to pay for its unwanted and unsought knowledge.
"Look out!" Edgar shouted.
Even as the jugger involuntarily cried out, Meyers said, "For Christ's sake, shoot!" Neither he nor Bates was in a position to use his Skorpion without killing the watchmen and Tucker, too. "Shoot!"
According to Len Osborne, any gun you could name was useless against a well-trained guard dog. For one thing, a dog was too small a target, especially when it was coming at you head-on. Even a big shepherd was too damned narrow to get a sight on. Furthermore, it was too compact, vicious, and fast. Even a superior marksman would not have time to aim properly and squeeze off a shot before the dog was at his arm or throat. Shooting from the hip, figuratively speaking, without benefit of aiming, provided little accuracy. You might as well throw sticks, Osborne had said.
Tucker dropped the Skorpion and heard Bates cry out. I hope this wetsuit doesn't slow me up, Tucker thought. If it did, he was dead, or at least badly mauled. And even if the dog held him without hurting him, he was certain to spend a long time in jail.
There was only one moment, Osborne had said, when a dog was vulnerable: when it was in the air, after it had jumped, in the final seconds before it struck. Until that moment, it was totally mobile and could attack or evade or change its mind in an instant. But once it was committed, when it was in the air, launched at its victim, it was relatively defenseless. Its teeth were not yet within striking range, and its claws were harmless while it was in flight. Its front paws were tucked weakly back and would not spring forward and unsheath their claws until the bare instant before contact. If you moved quickly and surely enough If you leaped forward to intercept instead of backing away from it, you could grab one of those front paws, twist it as you would a man's arm, let yourself fall to the ground, and throw the beast over your head just as hard as you could manage. Its own momentum would ensure that it would fall fairly far off and that it would hit the ground with considerable impact. At the very least, it would be badly stunned, too confused to attack again immediately. More likely than not, one of its legs would break. A cripple was no threat. And if you tossed it right, the neck would snap or the spine would splinter like a stick of dry wood.
These things flicked through Tucker's mind, each part of the lesson like a silhouette against the strong light of fear. Then there was no time to recall any more of Osborne's advice because the shepherd jumped at him.
Against all instinct, Tucker stepped into it, grabbed desperately for one of the animal's forelegs, closed his hand around the bone and muscle and fur, twisted, fell, and threw. He saw a fierce, wall-eyed face, bared fangs He was certain his timing could not be right, though his body evidenced a natural timing in the maneuver.
There were shouts behind him.
Also behind him, something crashed heavily to the floor.
Rolling against the corridor wall, pushing away from it with both hands, Tucker scrambled to his feet. He was breathing hard, and his shoulders hurt like hell; but so far he did not think that he was bleeding. Not much, anyway. He looked toward the others and saw that they had made room for the shepherd, which was struggling to stand on its shattered foreleg. It snapped at the air and glared with bloodshot eyes at Tucker. Then it made a strange, pathetic mewling sound and rolled over on its side and died. Though. to a lesser extent than he had when he discovered Meyers' victims in the mall office, Tucker felt sick to his stomach.
For a long moment, stunned by the sudden violence, no one spoke. They stared at the dead shepherd, watching the blood spread out around it. Though they had all witnessed its demise, the entire episode seemed unreal.
"Whew!" Meyers said finally.
Tucker wiped his face, came away with a hand sheathed in sweat. "Whew!" he agreed.
Edgar Bates said, "Where on earth did you learn to do a thing like that?"