Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [68]
Behind me, I hear Whitey.
—Fuck-face, out of fucking car. Fuck-face, out.
Roman starts to bend to pick up the key and Bolo reaches over him from behind to pass me the bag with Bud inside.
—Makes me feel like shit about what I did. He’s such a great cat.
Behind me:
—Fucking car is for getting out of, fuck-face.
Bolo’s hand is hooked in the bag’s strap and we juggle the bag a little over Roman’s back as he starts to rise with the key. Bud gets pinched and lashes out with the claws of his right paw, catching Bolo on the thumb.
—Fuck!
I take hold of the bag as he jerks back his arm to stick the thumb in his mouth and his elbow clips Roman hard on the back of the neck.
—Fucking cat!
—Fuck-face, out!
Roman is knocked down, almost doubled over. He pulls himself quickly upright and something is jarred from his coat pocket and drops to the ground with a sound somewhere between a clank and a thump. We both stand there, staring down at the brass knuckles as if they were the ace of spades fallen from the sleeve of a gambler just as he was pushing away from the table with his winnings.
Those bruises on her neck.
Behind me, a balloon pops.
We all watch as Whitey walks back toward us still holding the bottle, but no longer carrying the gun. With his right hand, he points at a dark splotch on the collar of his shiny white Nike jacket. We are frozen. He reaches us, and we see that the finger is not pointing but is jammed up to the second knuckle in the hole Russ shot in his neck with the .22 I left for him on the cracked foam rubber front seat of the Celica.
Nobody moves except Whitey, who walks slowly to Roman’s car and climbs in the backseat. He sits there, plugging the hole in his neck with his finger, takes a long slug of vodka, and weeps silently.
Roman reaches inside his jacket for his gun. Bolo does the same with his free hand, keeping his injured thumb in his mouth. I turn back toward the Celica as Russ rises from the driver’s seat with the little chrome pistol in his right hand and Whitey’s machine pistol in his left. I am ten yards from the car. I start running, Bud clutched to my chest.
Russ pulls the trigger on the machine gun. He’s unprepared for the force of the blow-back and the gun leaps upward, dragging his hand in a high arc and spraying the sky with bullets. Behind me, I hear two scrambling thumps as Roman and Bolo hit the dirt. I’ve gone two yards.
Something explodes behind me and a mini shock wave hums past my right hip. A hole appears in the Celica’s left fender. I zig hard to the right, trying to clear Russ’s firing line as he brings the machine gun back to shoulder level. He pulls the trigger again. He’s ready this time and bullets rip up the tarmac just behind me. He fires a short burst and re-aims. I’m accelerating. Six yards covered.
I’m approaching the car from the driver’s side and Russ is blocking the door. Russ fires again and I can’t keep from looking back. Roman and Bolo are frozen, facedown on the road. A patch of chewed-up tarmac appears a few feet from them and stretches toward them and stops just short of their heads as the gun’s clip goes empty. Russ drops the machine pistol and takes aim with the .22. Ten yards.
I try to stop, and instead I skid on the gravel scattered over the road. I plow into Russ just as he squeezes off all five rounds left in the .22. He’s thrown sideways by my impact and the bullets fly into some bushes by the side of the road. There’s no time to circle the car. I start shoving him in through the driver’s-side door, pushing him all the way over to the passenger’s seat. I’m piling in behind him, trying to get Bud’s bag into his lap as I settle into the driver’s seat, reach to turn the key, and grab a handful of loose wires.
—FUCK, RUSS!
—What?
—THE CAR, HOW DO I START THE FUCKING CAR?
Out on the road, Roman and Bolo are peeking out from behind their hands, which are covering their faces. Russ reaches over to the steering column, grabs the two wires he exposed before and starts scraping them together. Roman and Bolo get to their feet. The Celica is making