Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

The black Lincoln Town Car was parked by the utility shed and people moved between the planes.

We hadn't come out of the woods in time. Charlie DeLuca had them.

Pike and I picked up our pace, running on either side of the road, our breath great white plumes in the snowy air. We ran hard until we drew close, then we throttled back, trading speed for quiet as we moved up to the hangar. The shadow shapes we had seen when we came out of the woods were gone.

Charlie's Town Car was parked at a skew outside the corrugated-metal hangar, already collecting little pockets of snow on the windward side. The two Pawnees were on the field side of the hangar, and, before them, a couple of rusted water mules used for aviation gasoline and pesticides. Somewhere upwind, Karen Lloyd yelled and there was a single sharp pop , pistol, but the wind and the snow carried away the sound.

Pike said, "They'll be in the hangar or in the fields behind the planes."

We went to the hangar, looped around the corner, and saw them through a dust-streaked window built into a door. Karen Lloyd was on her knees, crying, and Charlie DeLuca was holding Toby by the hair, pointing a Browning.380 automatic at his right temple. Toby was crying, too. He was probably crying because he was scared, but he might've been crying because a fat guy was hitting Peter Alan Nelsen in the face and knocking him down. He would hit Peter and knock him down, and Peter would get up and go after him again. The fat guy was thick through the middle and the hips and the shoulders and the back, sort of like an overstuffed sausage, but it was hard fat. There wouldn't be a lot of stamina, but there was plenty of mean. Peter kept trying to get to Charlie, but the fat guy kept beating him up. Karen was yelling something about doing whatever Charlie wanted if only he'd stop. It was hard to hear them through the glass.

I touched Pike's shoulder and pointed past them to the big sliding doors at the back of the hangar. The doors were open.

Pike nodded, and we slipped under the window and took one step toward the field when the two other guys who'd been with Charlie DeLuca came around the corner. One of them was tall and the other wasn't. The shorter one had a dead cigar in his mouth and what looked like a.32 revolver in his right hand. The taller one was grousing about the cold, and neither of them knew we were there until they saw us. Joe Pike hit the shorter guy with an outside spin kick that sounded like it broke his neck. The taller guy said, "Hey," and fired what was maybe a Rossi.38 into the ground, and I shot him high in the chest. Blood squirted out in a little geyser, and he looked down at it and then started pressing on the blood, trying to make it stay where it was. Then he fell over.

Inside, there were the sounds of fast movement and Karen screamed something and there was the peculiar high shriek that only young children can make. Someone started shooting and bullets slammed through the side of the hangar, well wide of us, and then the shooting stopped.

We looked in through either side of the window in time to see Charlie drag Toby through the hangar doors. Karen followed them. Peter was lying on his side and the fat guy kicked him twice, then took a blue revolver from under his jacket. He pulled Peter's head back and put the revolver into Peter's mouth. Pike shot him in the top of the left shoulder with a load of number four. The fat guy fell backward and Pike shot him again.

We ran back between the two Pawnee crop dusters just as Charlie came around the hangar with one arm locked around Toby Lloyd's neck, looking for us. The Browning.380 was pressed under Toby's ear. Charlie's face was bright red and there were veins standing out on his forehead. He was checking the roofline. Batman and Robin always come down from the roof. He screamed, "You're mine, you sonofabitch. I'm gonna cut out your fuckin' guts and fry'm in a pan!"

Karen came around the corner behind them, tears washing her face, her hands tight and clawed. She wanted to run to Toby, but she was scared if she did the nut with the gun would kill him. She yelled, "Toby!"

Charlie DeLuca dug his pistol so deep under Toby's jaw that Toby shrieked again and wet his pants. Charlie yelled, "I'm gonna kill him, you chickenshit motherfuckers, you don't come out here. I'm gonna blow his fuckin' eyes out."

I glanced at Pike. Pike's flat black lenses were locked on Charlie DeLuca, the shotgun resting easy along the Pawnee's metal wing strut. Pike's a better shot than me. Maybe the best I've ever seen. I said, "He's going to do it. He's going to kill the boy."

"Yes."

I gave him the.357 and took the shotgun. "Can you make the shot?"

Karen screamed, "Help him, please. Somebody help!"

Pike said, "I can make the shot, but not with his gun on the boy that way. He could jerk when he dies."

Karen screamed, "Toby!"

Peter stumbled out of the hangar and said, "Let go my kid, you fat fuck!" There were cuts over both eyes and his nose was broken and his lips were split. There was so much blood on his face that he looked like he was wearing makeup. "I'm Peter Alan Nelsen, and I will kick your fat fucking ass!"

Karen screamed, "Peter! No!"

Charlie DeLuca smiled and swung the Browning toward Peter and said, "Kick this." Then he fired once.

Peter fell down, and Karen and Toby screamed, and I stepped out from behind the Pawnee and yelled, "Charlie!"

Charlie DeLuca swung the.380 back toward me, pulled the trigger, and something tugged at the top of my shoulder. Then I felt something solid wash past me from behind and there was a loud noise and the back of Charlie DeLuca's head blew out like a big rig tire filled with red paint. Pike's Python. Charlie was dead before he started to fall.

Toby kicked away from what was left of Charlie DeLuca and ran to Peter, yelling, "Daddy! Daddy!"

Blood was spilling from the top of Peter's left thigh, but he made it to his knees and dragged himself over to Charlie DeLuca and started punching the body. If Peter could get up, I figured I should get up, too. I did okay at it, but my ears were ringing and my shirt felt wet. I looked down and opened my jacket and saw that my shirt was turning black from the top down. Then Pike was there, peeling back the shirt. "Doesn't look bad. Caught it across the top of the trapezius."

"Sure."

Pike went over to Peter, took off his belt, and wrapped it tight around Peter's leg. Then he came back to me and used his sweatshirt as a compress on my shoulder. I burned where the bullet had torn through the muscle and there was a tingling feeling, but it could've been worse. Peter blinked at his leg and at Charlie DeLuca and then he grinned at me. "We got the bastard. We got him."

"Yes," I said. "We did."

He began to laugh. "It's over."

Karen was laughing then, too. Nervous and scared and letting off the tension by laughing. "Yes," she said. "God, yes."

Karen came over and hugged me. Toby helped Peter to his feet and they came over and hugged me, too.

Some days, I guess you're more huggable than others.

We left the bodies at the airport and went into town to see Chelam's only doctor, a young guy with a beard and glasses name of Hocksley. Karen Lloyd drove.

The doc was good about it. He practiced out of his home just four houses down from May Erdich's place, the kind of guy who wanted to know his patients and bring babies into the world and watch them grow. Idealistic. You know the type. When he cut off my shirt and Peter's pants, he whistled and said, "Man, I haven't seen anything like this since I left the Bronx General ER."

"Hunting accident."

"Sure."

He swabbed us down and cleaned us out, then put in a couple of stitches and gave us each two injections, something clear to fight infection and something white to fight tetanus. He also gave us some orange pills for the pain. He said, "Don't suppose I should call the police about this."