The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [170]
“We need a minute, we’ll take a minute,” Nada said.
She was forcing the pieces together in her head, but they just wouldn’t fit. The idea that this was a dream still appealed to her, although she dreaded waking up to find it was already done, the spider torn from her head.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Nada said, but before she could finish the thought, which was only half formed in her mind anyway, there was a low whistling sound and a growl of pain and panic and a large black blur collapsed her field of vision, and for a moment she thought she was having another seizure, but it was Wayne, giant Wayne, who had leapt or maybe fallen from the stairs or maybe the bridge just above them and landed hard on the steps between her and Peter. Peter turned with a determined scowl, not as surprised as Nada thought he ought to be, and lunged with his knife. Wayne kicked the hand away, sending the knife flying, and leaned forward to counter with an attack of his own, but Kloska was on them quickly, separating them, pushing Peter away, forcing Wayne against the steps with his knee, Wayne roaring at the pain. Kloska was in good shape for his age and she could see he was a strong man under his shirt, but she also knew how tired and beaten up Wayne must have been that he allowed himself to be subdued so easily. Kloska put a flex-cuff in his teeth and, with his knee at the base of Wayne’s spine, yanked Wayne’s left arm behind his back, no doubt setting it on fire where Nada had shot him, and Nada watched his face contort in pain and thought he might be about to pass out.
She wanted to say something to him, but she thought about Bea and said nothing.
The violinist sobbed and Nada pulled her closer, and the violin dropped momentarily at the Chinese girl’s side. Wayne blinked away at the pain, looking Nada in the eyes for the briefest of seconds, a passing, honest, meaningful look, and then he swung his right arm hard behind him, catching Kloska in the jaw, sending him backward. Freed from the cop, Wayne reached up with his right hand, his left arm still mostly immobilized from Nada’s bullet and Kloska’s manhandling, grasping for anything, and his fingers found the violin. The Guarneri.
He ripped it easily from the musician’s grip and smashed it against the iron railing. It splintered—exploded—in his hand, and, horrified as she was, Nada couldn’t help notice that even in its last violent moments, as solid black metal smashed through old spruce and maple, it made a beautiful sound.
The violinist shrieked in horror. Wayne spun from the step, falling over the crouching cop, landing on Peter. Wayne stabbed the air with the violin’s scroll and end piece, whipping the four strings once around Peter’s neck, finding the other ends of them with his half-paralyzed left hand and pulling them all tight against Peter’s throat. He got a better purchase on the strings with his teeth and lifted Peter, the strings cutting hard into Peter’s neck as he gurgled and flailed, and then Wayne pulled Peter’s body over the top of him and the pair of them tumbled to the bottom of the stairs. The cop clenched his teeth and poked his own gun in frustration at the two hulking bodies struggling, rolling, fighting until gravity stopped them on the first floor.
With Peter on top of him, Wayne pulled his right hand and twisted his jaw, tightening the noose of wire around Peter’s neck. Peter’s face was purple, and thin horizontal lines of blood appeared across his neck around the violin’s strings. But Wayne didn’t have the strength—or maybe the will, Nada realized—to finish it, not with only one good arm, and Peter rolled off him, gasping for air, and then he shook his head and retrieved his knife and looked about to pivot his body and plunge the blade directly into Wayne’s chest.
“Stop it!” Nada and Kloska yelled.
Peter looked up at the barrels pointed toward him and then collapsed, wounded, thin cuts and burns etched all around his neck. His lungs bellowed for oxygen, which was diminishing in the smoky air, and Wayne and Peter