They glanced fitfully at their leader, wondering why he hesitated to give the word.
Inside the house, there was squealing and comical chatter, a comical music of zwits and boings. The boy, Michael, was lying on his stomach in the living room, looking up from his crayon drawing at an old cartoon on the TV. Teresa checked on him from the archway and then returned to her father in the front room. He was sitting in his reading chair, fiddling with an unlit pipe. She sat across from him on the sofa, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees.
"He'll turn up," the old man told her without much conviction.
She shook her head. "I don't think so. I think he's gone for good."
"He'll come to say goodbye. If he can, he will. You'll see."
She frowned. "I'd just like to hear Henry's side of it, that's all." She didn't like to admit her feelings for Conor, even to herself, but she knew them now and she knew her father knew them and it made her feel exposed and embarrassed. "It's just-that policeman, that detective…"
"Oh, he was…" The old man waved the stem of the pipe in the air before him. "I wouldn't believe a word he said. In this city? The police are worst of all, worse than the criminals. I took one look at him-I knew he was after Henry for his own reasons. Believe me."
"I don't know. He seemed… like he might've been a good person."
"I think that's what he's good at: seeming like that. Probably was one once. Which makes him even worse. I'm telling you, I took one look in his eyes and…"
Applebee stopped short. He cocked his head, listening. There were only the boings of the cartoon music and a comical chattering.
"What? What's the matter?" said Teresa.
"Did you hear something? In the kitchen? In back?"
"I don't think so…"
With his eyebrows lowering, the old man pushed himself out of his chair. Teresa instinctively stood up, too. They hesitated a moment, looking toward the back of the house, listening for a noise.
Then, with violent suddenness, the gangsters burst in through the front door.
There were three shotgun blasts, thunderously loud as they blew off the door's security cage. Even as Teresa recoiled in shock-that quickly-they kicked the door in and charged through.
The old man had a second to lean toward the stairs, toward the gun he kept in his bedroom. Then one of the bangers whipped the butt of the shotgun into his face. The old man staggered back, his knees buckling as he hit the wall and tumbled down to the floor.
Teresa screamed for her son: "Michael!" She turned toward the archway. Two bangers grabbed her by the waist and legs and lifted her into the air as she twisted and struggled. Another thug stalked past her into the living room. He came out laughing with the writhing child helpless in his arms.
"Mommy!" screamed the boy.
Super-Pred gave an avuncular laugh. "You a fierce little man, ain't you?" he said. He glanced through the archway, charmed for a moment by the cartoon rabbit and the cartoon hunter on the TV screen.
"Leave him alone!" Teresa shouted.
Rage flashed in the gangster's eyes, and he spun and grabbed her as she struggled in the grip of his two thugs. He pincered her cheeks with one hand and leaned his nose almost against hers.
"You don't talk to me, bitch! You just a bitch!"
Teresa tried to twist her head free, tried to talk to him. "Please! You can have anything you want. Just leave him alone!"
The Pred laughed again. Grabbed her face again. Grabbed her breast hard so that she cried out in pain.
"Mommy!" screamed the little boy.
"Bitch, I can have anything I want anyway!" Super-Pred said. He glanced at his companions. "Spread that shit around."
He meant the gasoline in the cans they'd brought with them. The thug who'd whipped the old man leaned the shotgun against the armchair and grabbed a red can. Another thug grabbed another can, and they began splashing the room with gasoline, splashing gasoline over the old man where he lay gasping and coughing in his own blood.
"He look like he burn good," said a banger, laughing.
The little boy struggled and shouted. The thug holding him was surprised and angered by the child's strength. He cursed and lost his temper and hurled the boy face first into the wall. Teresa let out an anguished scream. The boy fell dazed to the floor. The thug kicked him.
"There!" he said.
And the other thugs spread gasoline on the boy, too. The boy coughed and curled up, gripping his stomach.
"Hold off a second," said Super-Pred.
He was in that zone of his now, that mental zone of unpredictable fury. He grabbed the front of Teresa's blouse with two hands and tore it open. That set the fire going inside him.
"Bring her in here," he said.
Gripping her arms and legs, they hauled and dragged and hustled Teresa through the door into the dining room. Grunting and crying out, she kicked and tried to tear free and tried to bite their hands, but she was helpless.
"Put her on the table," Super-Pred said, following them through the door.
They forced her, struggling, onto the table, while the Pred, with a great show of lordly calm, wandered around the room, studying it with mock appreciation.
He noticed the reredos on the mantel.
"Shut that bitch up," he said casually over his shoulder as he approached the wooden sculpture.
One of the bangers punched Teresa and the other groped and clutched between her legs. They tore at her clothes.
Super-Pred looked up at the three angels, confronted the central angel staring down at him from the mantelpiece. He liked it. It gave him a feeling, a feeling that he and the angel were actually communing in some way. He could see the depth of love and sorrow carved into the angel's expression. It made him laugh because he felt this was a joke that he alone in his uniqueness understood. Someone else might ooh and ah at such a face, but he was special and got the joke of it. With the sound of the bangers taunting Teresa behind him, the sound of their punches and her anguished gasps, the Pred reached up for the reredos almost with a sense of fellow feeling and affection. Inevitably, he lifted it from the mantelpiece and hurled it to the floor. The wing splintered with a cracking sound. The head snapped off and rolled free.
The force of the action bent the teenager forward slightly, just on the threshold of the kitchen doorway.
Shannon curled around that doorway and put the Beretta nine against the side of Super-Pred's head.
He had let himself in through the kitchen door. He had used the key old Applebee had given him, the small Medeco key with the green dot on the bow. He had come to the house without knowing what he would do, just wanting to make sure Teresa was safe, just following his instinct to watch over and protect her. He had lingered outside a long time, uncertain. Then he had seen the gangsters arrive and had slipped in the back way using the key.
Now, he stood with the gun pressed to the gangster's head. Super-Pred glanced at him, gauging his chances.
Shannon smiled. "You think I won't kill you?" he said. "Look in my eyes. I'll kill you. I want to kill you. Tell them to let the girl go."
Super-Pred looked into Shannon's eyes and even his usual pretense of courage deserted him; he knew he had never been so near the precipice of oblivion.
"Let her go," he said-but his voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper, and his boys were busy working the girl over. He had to shout it at them a second time: "Let her go!"
Then the bangers noticed the new situation. They stumbled back away from Teresa, clumsily reaching for the pistols in their belts.