Bunne shook his head, he was bareheaded, barehanded, and wearing pennyloafers.
''Go back and get a vest,'' Lucas said.
''Fuck that, I'm coming,'' Bunne said. Lucas opened his mouth to object, but
Bunne pointed at the ground ahead of them: ''Look at that. Blood trail.''
They all stopped and Stadic said, ''He's right,'' and they all looked down the street toward a row of old brown brick apartment houses. ''This is them,'' Bunne said, pointing at the fresh tracks in the snow. ''See the different sizes of holes… that's the woman, this one guy is dragging his leg, that's the blood trail.''
''Can't see shit; it'll be light in an hour,'' the uniform cop said, looking around. He was nervous, nibbling at his brushy black mustache. ''Got snow on my glasses…''
They pushed into the snow, past the apartment houses and small businesses, a
Dairy Queen, a jumble of parking lots and fences, the occasional hedge,
Dumpsters behind buildings, all good cover: following the blood which appeared as ragged, occasional sprinkles in the snow, black in the dim light. As they moved up under a streetlight, Lucas said into his handset, ''We're tracking them
…'' and gave the position.
No way they could get out of the neighborhood, he thought, but there was an excellent possibility that they'd take a house somewhere, and they'd have a siege. ''Better get a hostage team down here,'' he said. ''They could hole up. ..''
At that minute there was a sharp slap and Bunne said, ''Oh, Christ,'' and fell down. Lucas screamed ''Shooter,'' and they scattered. But they could see nothing, and hear nothing but sirens, the traffic on the highway and the peculiar hushed purring of the snow.
The uniform was screaming, ''Where is he? Which way, which way?''
Lucas put the radio back up and shouted, ''Man down, get a goddamn ambulance up here.'' He scrabbled crabwise toBunne and asked, ''How bad?'' while Stadic was shouting, ''Over to your left…''
Bunne said, ''Man, hurts… Can't breathe…''
Lucas unzipped the baseball jacket coat and found a torrent of blood pouring from a chest wound, and more, sticky and red, in the back. The hole in the coat looked more like a cut than a bullet puncture. Lucas pressed his palm against the chest wound and looked back in the street, and saw it lying against a car. A fuckin' arrow? No sound, no muzzle flash…
''He's shooting a bow,'' Lucas shouted at the others. ''He's shooting a bow, you won't hear it, watch it, he's shooting a bow, stay out of the streetlights.''
One of the cops yelled, ''What the fuck is this? What the fuck is this?''
An ambulance turned the corner, the lights blood-red, and Lucas waved at it.
When it came in, he said to the EMT, ''Hit by an arrow, he's bleedin' bad,'' and left her to it, running after the other two men.
He found them zigzagging up the street, still following the blood. ''Ten feet at a time,'' the uniform said. The uniform was sweating with fear and was wet with melting snow. His eyes were too big behind his moisture-dappled spectacles, his breathing labored, but he was functioning. He ran left, and dropped, pointing his shotgun down the blood trail. Stadic went right, dropped. Lucas followed up the middle, dodged and dropped. Stadic went past, and then the uniform cop.
On a patch of loose snow, Lucas saw that they were only following one track.
''What happened to the other two tracks?'' he shouted.
''I don't know. They must've turned off back in the street,'' Stadic shouted back, as the uniform cop leapfrogged past him. Stadic scrambled to his feet, and as he did, he grunted and dropped, and Lucas saw an aluminum arrow sticking out of his chest and just a flicker of movement upthe trail. He fired three shots, saw another flicker, and fired two more, the last two low, and then the uniform cop fired a quick shot with his twelve-gauge.
''How bad?'' Lucas shouted at Stadic.
''Nothing. Hit the backing plate in the vest,'' Stadic said, getting to his feet. ''He's a good fuckin' shot.'' He broke the arrow off and they moved forward again, found a puddle of blood, and some blood spatter. ''You hit him,'' the uniform cop said.
''Maybe you,'' Lucas said.
''Naw, I couldn't see bullshit, was just shooting 'cause I was scared.'' He looked around and said, ''Maybe we ought to wait until daylight. He can't be far. He ain't going anywhere, he was already bleeding before you hit him.''
''I want him,'' Lucas said. He put the handset to his face and told the dispatcher that the three had broken up, two apparently together, the third hurt bad. He gave the location and said, ''We're following up.''
''There are people coming straight into that block,'' the dispatcher said.
''You're heading right into them. We've got guys with armor coming up, so take it easy…''
WHEN THEY SPLIT UP, SANDY HAD RUN ON AHEAD, LaChaise trailing her by fifty feet, with Martin hobbling behind. They ran a block, LaChaise catching Sandy, then a red Ford stopped at an intersection ahead of them. Sirens were coming from all directions: the Ford wasn't moving. Without breaking stride, LaChaise swerved behind it, jerked open the passenger-side door, and pointed his pistol at the driver: ''Freeze, motherfucker.''
The driver instinctively stepped on the brake, and LaChaise was inside, his gun in the redheaded kid's face. Sandy, when she saw LaChaise turn toward the car, dropped back a few steps. When he jerked open the car door, she turned and ranthe other way. When LaChaise turned back, she was gone in the snow.
''Fuck it, fuck it…'' LaChaise pointed his pistol at the redheaded driver:
''Take off. Slow. Go, go…''
He slid to his knees in the passenger-side foot well, his head below the level of the dash, the pistol pointed at the kid's chest. They went a block, then the driver said, ''No,'' and swerved, and they hit something, and LaChaise yelled,
''Motherfucker,'' and the driver put his hands up to ward off the bullet.
But LaChaise levered himself up, and the kid babbled, ''They almost hit us.. .'' and LaChaise saw the two cars- a cop car and a four-by-four-disappearing down the street.
''Go,'' he said to the kid. ''That way. Down toward the dome.''
SANDY FOUND AN ALLEY AND STUCK WITH IT, LOPING along behind the apartment buildings. LaChaise had told her, teasing, that if she turned herself into the wrong cop, she was dead. True enough: she had his picture, but not his name.
And he'd be looking for her. Her best option, she thought, was to find a phone and call Davenport.
Now, if she could find someplace open. But what would be open at seven o'clock on a day like this? The city was a wilderness, the snow pelting down in buckets.
She stepped out in the open, then back into the dark as a car roared by, then into the open again to look down the street. There was light on the side of the
Metrodome. If she could get in there, there'd be lots of phones. She started that way.
LUCAS, STADIC AND THE UNIFORMED COP MOVED slowly up the blood trail, peering into the dark, starting at every shadow; the uniform fired once into a snowblower as it sat beside a house; Lucas nearly nailed a gate, as it trembledin the blowing snow. They shouted back and forth to reassure each other, and to pressure the bleeding man. Keep him moving; don't let him think about it.
MARTIN FIGURED HE WAS DYING, BUT HE WASN'T FEELING much pain. Nor was he feeling much cold. He was reasonably comfortable, for a man who'd torn open a thigh wound and had taken a gunshot hit in the butt. The butt shot had come in from the side, and nearly knocked him down. But he kept moving, feeling the blood running down his legs. He'd have to stop soon, he thought dreamily. He was running out of blood; that's probably why he felt so good. The shock was ganging up on him, and pretty soon, things would start shutting down.