Timothy Hallinan - Everything but the Squeal

Bruner fired again reflexively even as the Mountain fell, and the second shot tore away most of the face of the man the Mountain had been about to kill. The two of them, the Mountain and the goon, toppled to the floor as the children scurried backward and Mrs. Brussels shrilled, as high and incoherent as a smoke alarm.

The light swayed and wobbled as it swung in a long, dizzy overhead arc, creating crazily elongated El Greco shadows that advanced and retreated, bringing alternate moments of brightness and relative dark. The children had bolted at the sound of the shot, and the goons were grabbing frantically at them. The instant the bulb swung past us and the light started to wane, I pushed the limp weight of the big man off me and scurried on my hands and knees away from the group, across the floor and toward the trucks. I'd managed to scramble under the first one before Mrs. Brussels saw me and called out, and Bruner snapped off a shot. The bullet pinged away from the concrete about two feet behind me and bounced upward before it slapped into the side of the truck.

Staying on my hands and knees, I crawled rapidly under the second truck and then under the third. Behind me I heard a confusion of voices: Bruner calling directions, children whining and keening, goons arguing. On the far side of the third truck was the large airplane door I'd seen from the street, and next to it was a gray metal light box containing six thick black switches. This was where they'd driven the trucks in and out when the place was a real warehouse, and this was where they'd turned on the lights before they brought the rigs in.

Heavy feet slapped the concrete, heading reluctantly my way. “Go, goddammit,” Bruner shouted. “Marty got his gun.”

Above me and to the left was a big transom window, a single pane of rippled glass. Below it were wooden crates- the kind they ship produce in-stacked almost six feet high. It was plausible. I measured the distance mentally, committed the picture to memory, closed my eyes for a head start, and snapped off the lights.

Shouts sounded out. I counted five and opened my eyes. The darkness was absolute, except for a rectangle of light high at the far end of the warehouse: the window of the foreman's room. On both sides of the warehouse, the footsteps came to a halt. The goon on the left shuffled indecisively. A voice I didn't recognize-possibly Marty? — called out a panicky question, and I slipped off my boot and threw it at where I thought the window would be. It hit the wall with a smacking sound and thumped down on top of one of the boxes. I'd missed. I had exactly one more chance.

“Over there,” someone said, reacting to the noise. Almost certainly Bruner. Someone else, someone closer to me, lit a match, a tiny point of light about thirty yards away. It was no help, either to him or to me. I pulled off my other boot and threw again, harder and higher this time. There was a resounding shiver of glass.

“The window,” Bruner shouted. “Marty, find those fucking lights. Pete. Get outside and see if you can catch him. Son of a bitch . Jackie, you go with Pete.”

Find the lights. Of course. There would be a light box at the other end too.

The nearest truck bulked up above me, only slightly darker than the room itself. I heard the door at the far end close behind Pete and Jackie as I felt my way around the side of the truck, moving quietly in my socks and keeping my hands pressed against the hard, chilly side of the truck. After what seemed like an eternity I came to the front end of the refrigerated section, which was shaped like a squashed tube, and found the cab that towed it. I stepped up onto the running board and fumbled around for the window. It was open.

I spread my hands flat on the top of the cab for friction and managed to get my right foot high enough to put it on top of the rolled-down window. Then I heaved myself up and scrabbled across the roof of the cab to the refrigerated section. Mrs. Brussels was saying things that no lady should think, much less say aloud, as I flopped on my stomach on top of the truck.

The bulbs snapped on. They created a lot more light than I wanted.

I hugged the truck, wishing myself thinner than I was. I would have liked to be as thin as a coat of paint. “Marty, keep the kids together,” Bruner said. “Hurt anybody who moves.” His voice echoed in the empty warehouse. “The asshole could still be inside.”

“He went through the window,” Mrs. Brussels said in a voice that was elevated by adrenaline. “You heard him.”

“I heard a window break,” said Bruner, ever the cop. “You take the right. Marty, watch the kids.”

“Me?” she said ungrammatically. “Me take the right?”

“Who do you think you are, Snow White? If you see him, shoot him in the stomach.” So she was armed too.

There had been five of the muscle boys originally, plus Bruner, Marco, and Belson. The Mountain had killed Belson and another one, and put Marco out of commission, and Bruner had shot one of the muscle boys by mistake. I'd taken care of another, although I wasn't sure he was dead. That left Bruner, Jackie, Pete, and Marty. Jackie and Pete were outside looking for me.

“Look under the fucking trucks,” Bruner shouted. I could hear the two of them working their way slowly through the warehouse in my direction. Bruner was being careful. More careful than he'd advised the expendable strong-arms to be.

He and Mrs. Brussels met up directly below me, between the truck and the airplane door. “That's the window,” Mrs. Brussels said, looking up. The shoe had taken out almost all of the glass. “He’s gone.”

“Not if Jackie and Pete get him,” Bruner said. “Marty?” he yelled. “Got the kids?”

“All except the one upstairs,” Marty shouted back.

Upstairs had to be the foreman's office.

I debated dropping down on Bruner and Mrs. Brussels and smashing their heads together before either of them could shoot me. It didn't seem promising. Besides, Marty had the kids.

The two of them moved back toward the other end of the warehouse. Bruner put a reassuring arm around her waist. They were talking in low voices.

”. . have to move them after all,” I heard Bruner saying.

“You're so fucking smart,” Mrs. Brussels said bitterly, knocking away the reassuring arm. ” ‘We'll get him,’ you said. ‘No problem,’ you said. Now, look: he's gone and we haven't even been to the bank.” She reached up and tucked in a flyaway wisp of hair.

“There are still Pete and Jackie,” Bruner said. “And there's cash upstairs.”

Since they were both walking and talking, I guessed they wouldn't be listening too. Without any idea why I was doing what I was doing, I climbed down from the truck and stood on the running board. The springs of the truck groaned. I was still reluctant to put my feet on the floor, where someone might see them beneath the trucks.

As the babble of voices receded, I found myself looking into the cab of the truck. It was about what you'd expect: two cracked and worn leather seats, an oversize steering wheel, and a stick shift half the size of the pole used for an Olympic pole vault with a big transparent plastic knob on top. Something bright caught my eye. Lodged between the seats was a yellow plastic bucket with the word butts stenciled on it.

Whoever usually drove the truck wasn't a smoker, but he caught a lot of colds. The bucket was full of used tissues. I reached in, picked it up, and upended it, scattering wadded Kleenex across the driver's seat. What I had was too crude to be called an idea. All I knew was that they were going to move the children, and I couldn't let it happen.

In my urgency, I knocked the bottom of the bucket against the steering wheel with a hollow-sounding whuump . I held my breath, but the noise had been covered by the opening and closing of the door at the other end of the warehouse. “He got away,” either Pete or Jackie said.