Oops.
Amanda shouted, “God damn it, boys, this is a police station and I’m an officer of the law. You’ve jumped in a lake of shit and you just keep getting deeper and deeper. You get what I’m saying?”
Another pause.
Finally: “This ain’t over, Sawyer. Miss Amanda, you get in the way and whatever happens, happens.”
I heard an engine rev high, then the squeal of tires, and the engine roar faded down the road.
“Shit.” Amanda holstered her pistol and went to the gun cabinet, unlocked it, took out a pump twelve gauge and a box of double-ought. She started thumbing shells into the shotgun. “This time when I say stay and hold the fort I mean it, okay?”
“You can’t be going out there.”
She kept loading the shotgun.
“The State Police are coming. Just hang in here, and we’ll be okay.”
“If it were me,” Amanda said. “I’d pile a few loads of lumber against the front door and the back too. Couple gallons of gas. That would smoke us out pretty quick. You want to wait for that?”
I didn’t think the Jordans were that clever, but then I remembered the chief’s house was probably a pile of ashes by now. Maybe Amanda had a point. Passively sitting and waiting on the defensive had a few drawbacks. And yet I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it was a good idea running out there looking for trouble.
“And anyway, I’m still the law,” she said. “I can’t let a bunch of rowdies rip up the town. At the very least I have to go keep an eye on them.”
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I didn’t ask your opinion.” She went to the gun locker, came back with another twelve gauge and set it on the desk in front of me. “Hold the fort.”
She opened the front door, paused before stepping out, looking up and down Main Street. She gave me one last look, walked out and closed the door behind her. I went and locked it. A second later I heard her squad car crank and drive away.
“You’re all alone now, cowboy,” came a soft voice from the cell.
“I still have you, hellcat.”
“You know those men will come back,” she said. “And if they can get inside, then they will kill you.”
“Maybe.”
“Fool. Let me out, and we will escape.”
I tried to imagine it. Not seriously, just for something to do. I imagined her in a bikini or maybe topless on some Mexican beach. I sipped on some kind of rum thing with an umbrella poking out the top. There’s a reason they call them fantasies. Because it’s not life. I had to stay in my life and take care of my son. And anyway, how long would something like that last before the money ran out or she stabbed me in the back? But in my fantasies, she looked pretty good naked, the surf splashing up around us.
“What are you thinking, cowboy?”
“Nothing. I’m not thinking a thing.” I sat at the desk and put shells in the shotgun.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Amanda had left before the coffee was ready. I filled a Styrofoam cup and caffeinated myself in her honor. The coffee didn’t do much for me, but I drank it anyway. I swallowed and winced.
Like battery acid.
At some point I was going to hit the wall. A man can’t go forever on adrenaline and caffeine. I wondered what it would look like. If I’d be walking or in mid-sentence and then suddenly my eyes would roll up and I’d collapse into a snoring heap, slip into some kind of turbo coma. Or if my head would just explode and splatter brains all over the room.
I heard the engines outside so soon after Amanda had gone, it made me wonder if they’d been watching and waiting for her to leave.
The revolver hung heavy and reloaded on my hip. I grabbed the shotgun, flipped off the desk lamp. I stood in the darkness, palms sweating on the twelve gauge, strained to listen. A pale green light flickered from the obsolete computer in the corner. Another sad glow from the radio dial. Just enough light in the room to keep from bumping into the furniture.
“They are coming for you, cowboy.” The hellcat’s whisper was so low, I thought maybe it was a voice in my head.
The engines cut out, and I heard car doors thunk shut. I took a step forward, tried to catch a hint of movement through the wrecked blinds that still hung over the shattered front window. I could not make my breathing quiet down, breaths coming shallow through my mouth, my heart thumping up to speed.
I swallowed hard and waited.
Would they bust in all of a sudden with gun blazing, or would they burn me out like Amanda said? If they had the balls to torch the chief’s house then why not the station? Sure. Or maybe they’d come at me from two directions at once. I glanced over my shoulder at the door to the back room, thought about the other door out to the alley. Had I locked it? I couldn’t remember.
Hell.
I went to the back room, trying to stay quiet. The room smelled like gun oil and bitter coffee. My mouth tasted like acid. I reached for the knob to check the lock.
And froze.
The knob was already turning, so damn slowly so as not to make any noise, I guess, but there was still this slight rattle, and I’d never have heard it if I hadn’t been standing a foot away. And maybe if I’d been thinking clearly instead of feeling my gut flip-flop and my heart beat in my throat, I would have thought to put my shoulder against the door and hit the lock.
But I stood there watching the doorknob turn like some dumbass in a cheap horror movie.
And then someone was pushing it open. Somebody was coming in.
I held my breath and stepped behind the door, pulling the shotgun in close to my chest. The door opened inward until it was an inch from my face. Let him come in. Let him go by. Take him from behind. Sure. It seemed pretty simple when I rehearsed it in my head. So how come my legs felt like noodles? Stay focused, idiot.
He was trying to be quiet and not doing a bad job, but the old floor creaked with his footsteps, one after the other pretty slow as he eased his way in. I saw his fist first, wrapped around a short-barreled revolver, then his arm and then the rest as he went through toward the main part of the station house. From behind it could have been Jason, or maybe it was one of the others. Too dark to be sure, and anyway the brothers were all built more or less the same, this one maybe a bit on the larger side.
I waited two more seconds in case another brother came in behind him. I didn’t want to get caught in the middle. When I was sure I was only dealing with one, I stepped out and leveled the shotgun at him. Just shoot, I told myself. Pull the trigger.
No, do it proper.
“Drop the gun.” I said it pretty quiet, but I tried to sound mean.
His shoulders hunched and he froze. “Damn it.”
“Put the gun down. I mean it.”
He dropped it.
I thought how cool and threatening it might sound to pump a new shell into the chamber, but that would only eject a good one. “Now I want you to turn around nice and slow, and—”
He spun fast, grabbed the shotgun barrel and pushed it out of the way. If I’d fired the blast would have gone past him, but I didn’t even think of pulling the trigger. I was too surprised. The shotgun flew away. I stepped back, mouth falling open, probably to say something clever like hey, stop that, no fair. But I never got any words out.
He stepped in, fist coming up hard to pop me one in the mouth, mashing my lips against my teeth. A little bell went off inside my skull. I tasted blood, took another hit on the jaw, tumbling back along the lockers before I figured it was time to give a little back.
I put my head down and pushed forward, gut punching him. My fists didn’t seem to bother him, and he brought a knee up into my groin.