Chat - Archer Mayor [104]
Purely on instinct, Joe didn’t even look back at the man who had emerged from the cellar. He simply dived through the nearby kitchen door, rolled into a forward somersault, and then pushed himself off and to the side of a cabinet front as a bullet smacked into the place he’d just been occupying.
But he was now exposed in the light, sprawled on the floor, and knew he was out of luck.
The man in the checked shirt stepped into the room, the gun dangling by his side, his face malevolent. In the hallway, Griffis was screaming, “Kill the prick, Mike. Blow his fucking head off.”
Through the kitchen’s other door, leading to the dining room, one arm and half of Lyn’s face appeared, her eye sighting down the length of Joe’s pistol.
“Don’t do it, asshole. Drop the gun or you die.”
Before Mike could respond, Lyn fired, the sound enormous in such close quarters. The gun in Mike’s hand flew away from him with a spurt of red blood, and he spun and crouched simultaneously, doubling over his wounded hand. Joe leaped to his feet, ran back to the hallway, and snatched up his carbine. He brought it to bear just as Dan Griffis, lying on the floor and bleeding, reached for the pistol that he’d dropped moments before.
“Don’t move!” Joe yelled.
Simultaneously, the barrel of a shotgun appeared through the hole in his mother’s door, followed by her almost sweet advice. “Dan, I think you should stop this.”
Griffis glanced up at the barrel and over to Joe, and slumped back against the wall, effectively putting his gun beyond reach.
“Shit,” he moaned softly.
In the meantime, Lyn had entered the kitchen and was aiming at Mike in a combat stance, as if on the range, looking incongruous only because of her nightgown.
“Is that it?” Joe asked Dan. “Just the two of you?”
Griffis sighed, both hands now wrapped around his shattered knee. “Yeah. The other guy wimped out.”
Lyn glanced at Joe quickly, breaking her focus on Mike for only a fraction. “This something I should start getting used to?”
He considered that for a moment. It had some painful relevance, given how things had worked out with Gail.
“Maybe,” he answered as truthfully as he could.
She tilted her head and smiled—the daughter and sister of men lost at sea. “Okay,” she said simply.
In the distance, they heard sirens approaching.
Chapter 25
Willy Kunkle looked over the top of his magazine as Joe walked into the office the following morning.
“Heard your mom and your girlfriend saved your butt last night.”
Joe laughed. “Yeah—I heard yours does the same for you all the time.”
“Bullshit. She say that?”
Joe crossed the room and dropped his newspaper on his desk. “It’s her constant burden—lugging you through life with minimal damage. Where is she, by the way—and Les, for that matter?”
“Doing one of your errands,” Willy told him. “It’s all about Leppman nowadays. Rumor also has it E. T. gave you a phone call before his Son Wonder showed up with the artillery.”
Joe nodded as he poured himself some coffee. It never occurred to him to ask how Willy knew all he did so shortly after it happened. The man had his methods, after all, and his pride.
Moreover, it was an interesting point—one that had made a crucial difference in the night’s outcome.
“Yeah, he did. From the sound of his voice, I think it almost killed him, but it was clear he’d had enough. I talked to Dan after the state police got there, while EMS was wrapping him up.”
“What’d he say?”
“He’d come back to E. T.’s house to get an extra gun before heading out for good—didn’t expect to see the old man. They had a blowout. E. T. told him we knew Andy had taken the fall for Dan. I guess Dan answered that he’d put things right by knocking me off. And that did the trick—E. T. finally saw him for what he is.”
Willy tossed the magazine aside and stared into middle space. His tone surprised Joe with its gentleness. “Poor old bastard.”
“You got to like him, didn’t you?”
“You kidding? A ruthless, manipulative, unscrupulous