''God bless,'' Lucas said. ''And Franklin?''
''He's okay.''
TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE FIREFIGHT, LUCAS was talking to a patrol captain, trying to figure out why theyhadn't found the car: ''Christ, they were no more than thirty seconds ahead of you guys.''
The captain was getting a little hot: ''Look, a fuckin' mouse couldn't have gotten out of here on its hands and knees. We're looking at every car parked in the loop, they must be in a parking garage, somewhere. We'll get them…''
Lucas was staring over his shoulder, his eyes defocused. He said, ''Stay put,'' and put his handset to his mouth and said, ''I need a run on Daymon Harp. That's first name D-A-Y-M-O-N, last name H-A-R-P. I need to know what he drives.''
The captain looked at him curiously; five seconds later, Dispatch came back, a different voice. ''Lucas, Sandy Darling just called. She's left the phone off the hook, she says they're there…''
''On Eleventh Avenue?'' Lucas asked.
''Yeah… how'd you know?''
Then the other dispatcher: ''Lucas, he's got a 1994 Lincoln.. .''
''A brown one,'' Lucas said.
''Yes.''
''All right,'' Lucas said, and he felt the rush, the lift that came at the end of a hunt. ''I want to do this right. They're at Harp's apartment on Eleventh, it's a two-story, they're up above a laundromat. There's a front stairs and a garage on the side. I want somebody down there now, and we'll need an ERU team. ..''
Behind him, the patrol captain broke for his car. He shouted back, ''I'll get some guys moving.''
AGAIN, STADIC HEARD THE SUDDEN RUSH ON THE RADIO. And the phrase, ''Down on
Eleventh.''
He knew immediately what it was. He grabbed his phone, punched in Harp's number.
Busy. Christ. He couldn't allow a siege: there'd be survivors.
The apartment would be surrounded, there'd be helicopters overhead
… when it came to outright suicide, LaChaise and the other crazy fucker might change their minds. And once they were out, and behind bars, they'd deal him.
The fear clawed at him, propelled him out of the car door. He ran up the side street past the garage, around the corner, kicked in the glass on the bottom floor door and ran up the stairs. At the top, facing the pile of cardboard boxes, he screamed: ''LaChaise, they know you're here. They're coming now. Right now. You've got less than a minute. They've got Harp's car, they've got Harp's car. You hear me? Harp's car, they got it.''
And he ran back down, seeing in his mind's eye a cop car pulling up from across the street, leveling a shotgun at him, the questions…
The street was empty. Hell, the radio traffic hadn't started more than a minute ago. He ran back around the corner, jumped in his car, started it and rolled away.
And as he went, he noticed the utter silence of the night, the quiet in the snow. Every siren in town had been killed. But every cop car in town was rolling toward him.
He punched the car down the street, one block, two, and stopped: when the first cars came in, he wanted to be with them.
The first car came in as he thought, gliding in silence toward the laundromat on the corner.
TWENTY-SIX
LACHAISE RAN TOWARD THE BACK DOOR, SAW SANDY IN the kitchen, grabbed her, and she screamed, ''Let me get my coat, my coat…''
LaChaise ran back to the front room, grabbed his own coat and Sandy's. Martin had his bow in his hand, six arrows in the bow-quiver, a fistful more in the other hand, his coat gaping open. He hobbled after them as LaChaise hit the stairs and Sandy followed, pulling on the coat.
When Martin reached the bottom of the stairs, the garage door was halfway up. He heard LaChaise scream, ''Aw, shit…'' and LaChaise's rifle came up and began the stroboscopic flash and stutter, and then LaChaise, with Sandy a foot behind, was out in the snow.
Martin was ten feet behind. He looked left: a cop car, windows shattered, sideways in the street. LaChaise was already running to the right.
''This way, this way…'' LaChaise was screaming at him. Martin caught up and they turned the corner and Martin said, ''Give me the rifle.''
''What?'' LaChaise's face was white, antic, the skin stretched around his eyes.
Sandy was running away from them, down the street. Let her go.
''I won't make it. I can't move, my leg's fucked, I pulled something loose again,'' Martin said. He fumbled at his waistband. ''Take my pistol,'' he said, handing it to La-Chaise. ''You got yours. That'll be enough. Grab a car, get moving…''
''Christ,'' LaChaise said. He tossed Martin the rifle, fumbled two spare magazines out of his pocket, passed them over, then caught Martin around the neck in a bear hug, held him for a half-second, said, ''I'm going for
Davenport's woman. I'll probably be seeing you in a while,'' then turned and ran after Sandy.
Martin went back to the corner and peeked. Fifty yards down the street, a cop was behind a car door, looking at him. He fired a burst, then pulled back and hobbled away, across the street, a thin trickle of pink in the snow where he passed.
He could hear the sirens now, coming in from everywhere.
LUCAS AND AN OUT-OF-UNIFORM PATROL COP NAMED Bunne rode toward Eleventh in
Lucas's Explorer. Bunne wore a baseball jacket, the first thing he'd seen when he'd run out of a locker room before heading down to the hospital on foot. They were six blocks from Harp's: one minute. A half-minute after they left the hospital, they got the choked call on the radios, almost unintelligible over the panicked, harsh, intothe-mike breathing, ''We got fire, we're shot, we're taking fire, Dick's shot, for Christ's sake, get help.''
''Goddamn,'' Bunne said. Lucas had been following the patrol captain. Now he put the Explorer on the wrong side of the slippery street and they roared along, side by side, sirens everywhere. At the same time, he was shouting, ''Where'd they go, you dumb shit?''
The cop came back, as though he'd heard, ''They're on Eleventh, they're on
Eleventh heading toward the Metrodome, they're on foot.''
''Ten seconds,'' Lucas said.
Bunne drew his pistol and braced himself, white-faced, but at the same time showing Lucas a shaky grin: ''This stuff scares the shit out of me,'' he said.
Lucas, focused on the driving, said, ''The snow isn't that bad, it's the fuckin' night that's killing us.''
''Nah, it's the fuckin' snow,'' Bunne said.
A red car, a small Ford, pulled out of a side street and Lucas nearly hit it.
The Ford jumped a curve and piled up on a street sign, and they went by, the ultra-pale face of a redheaded kid peering at them through the glass.
''Lawsuit,'' Bunne said, and they went around the corner, on the outside, and then they were on Eleventh on top of Harp's place, the patrol captain fifteen yards behind them. A squad was parked sideways in the intersection. A cop ran toward them, as Lucas and the patrol captain, in the other car, slid to a stop.
The cop was pointing back past them: ''They're on foot,'' he hollered. ''We gotta get a perimeter up. They're not more'n a minute ahead. You must've come right past them…''
Lucas got out of the car and another plainclothes guy, Stadic, joined them, carrying a shotgun. Lucas got his own shotgun out of the car and tossed it to
Bunne and said, ''Let's go.''
The three of them started off, and then another cop ran up behind, carrying another shotgun, and the four of them went off into the snow. The last cop, in uniform, said, ''Charlie said they crossed the street…''
Lucas led the way, said, ''Don't bunch,'' and the others self-consciously spread out. Lucas said, ''Everybody got a vest?'' Stadic and the uniform cop said yes;