The old man had left his legs in the wrecked station. Sliced off by falling glass or something. Eukie fell to the ground in shock when he saw the stumps spurting blood. The man just rolled his head to the left and died. Eukie’s hauling him out had completed the partial severing of his legs. Had sliced the arteries and killed him.
Eukie jumped up and felt himself all over to make sure he didn’t have blood on him. If he found a wet spot, he tried to brush it off.
It was then that he noticed how much the dead boy looked like his own son Victor. Fear tingled cold along his nerves. He ran back to the car, got on the radio. But nobody would listen to his ten-fifty-five, his call for an ambulance. All the other officers seemed to have plenty of ten-fifty-fives of their own. The air rang with ten-threes, commands to clear the air and let someone talk. But people kept jabbering away anyhow.
Maybe they weren’t hearing each other properly, because Eukie’s reception was very spotty. Sometimes that happened, the flat wet ground tended to soak up radio signals, but now there was a lot of static, too, as if there was some kind of serious electrical disturbance. There were a lot of ten-ones, people signaling they were having trouble receiving the radio calls.
Eukie sagged into the car and listened to all the calls. Darkness gathered around him. Every so often the ground would shake, as if another bomb was going off somewhere.
Ten-forty-three, rescue call. Ten-thirty-three, fire. Ten-eighty-three, officer in trouble. Ten-fifty-eight, dead on arrival. Ten-seventy, chemical spill. Ten-nine, repeat. Ten-three, clear this channel. Ten-seventy-two, street blocked. Ten-thirty-three-four, hospital on fire. Ten-fifty-three-one, fire alarm. Ten-nine, repeat. Ten-forty-six, send a wrecker. Ten-nine, repeat transmission. Ten-three, clear this channel. Ten-nine, repeat. And calls for which there were no ten-codes: Power lines down. People trapped in building. Flooding on the riverfront.
He looked at the dead boy, and he saw Victor’s eyes.
Ten-eighty-one, civil disturbance.
Ten-sixty-nine, sniper.
Ten-eighty-three, officer in trouble.
Eukie grabbed the mike, thumbed the button. “Where?” he said.
“Looters.” A breathless voice. “Latimer Street.”
Damn. Eukie lived on Latimer street.
“You are authorized—”
“Ten-three! Stop transmitting, for Christ’s sake!”
“—to shoot looters on sight. Repeat.”
“Ten-one, dispatch. I am not receiving—”
“What?” Eukie demanded. “Where on Latimer Street?”
“Will you ten-three, damn it!”
“Shoot on sight. Repeat.”
“Ten-one, dispatch. I am not—”
“God damn it!” Eukie took off his hat and threw it down the road. People were shooting on his own damn street and there was nothing he could do about it. He wanted to grab the shotgun out of the car and run south to Latimer Street to defend his family, but it was twenty miles away, and he knew he’d never make it through the kind of chaos he could hear on the radio. He stamped back and forth past the door of his car, tethered at the limit of the mike cord. He tried not to look at the dead boy with his son’s face.
In disgust he threw down the mike and stalked down the broken road to find his hat.
“Where the hell—?” he asked the world. “What the hell am I supposed to do?” He jammed his hat back on his head and gazed defiantly into the darkness. And then twigs and brush crackled as something moved ahead on the road. Adrenaline sang in Eukie’s veins. “Who’s that?” he demanded.
There was no answer, but the sounds got closer.
Eukie backed for a few steps, then turned and sprinted for his car. He was breathing hard by the time he dived head-first into the passenger compartment, grabbed the Remington shotgun, and racked in a round. The ten-codes spat out of the radio. Officer in trouble. Fire. Looters.
Eukie turned on the driver’s door spotlight and panned it across the darkness. A white-faced cow gazed back at him.
A cow.
Eukie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Jesus,” he said. “Jesus God Almighty.” The cow ambled past, oblivious to whatever had destroyed the city to the south. That cow, Eukie thought, was having herself an adventure. She had probably never been out of her pasture before.
“Jesus,” he said again. He leaned the shotgun against the side of the vehicle. The radio continued to rattle out its ten-codes.
Ten-thirty-three-four, hospital on fire.
Ten-fifty-three-one, fire alarm.
Ten-nine, repeat.
Ten-forty-six, send a wrecker.
Looters.
You are authorized to shoot…
Victor’s dead eyes gazed up at him from the broken pavement.
“What about Latimer Street?” he said into the mike. “What about that ten-eighty-three?”
“Ten-three! Ten-three!”
“Damn it,” Eukie said, “what about Latimer Street?”
“Officer needs assistance…”
“Ten-three! Clear the air, whoever you are!”
“Listen, motherfucker,” Eukie said. He could feel tears springing to his eyes. “What about Latimer Street! What’s going down out there?” All he could see was Victor’s dead face.
“Asshole!” the dispatcher yelled. “Ten-three when I tell you to ten-three!”
“What about my son?” Eukie demanded.
It was then that the looters came out of the darkness. “Say, brother,” one of them said. Fear and anger blazed through Eukie’s veins. He spun and through his mask of tears saw the looter looming right out of the darkness, a huge man, big hands clasped around a cardboard box full of stuff he’d stolen, complete with a huge silver pot he’d probably killed somebody for. There was blood all on his face and clothes, probably from beating someone to death over that silver pot, and the looter had some kind of weird stripes on his forehead that strobed in the emergency lights of the car. The looter looked like the Frankenstein Monster.
And there was another looter right behind him, a tall man whose features were obscured by the darkness. And probably there were more looters behind, circling the car, trying to sneak up on Eukie while the first two distracted him.
All Eukie could think of was that Victor and Showanda and Emily were depending on him.
“Don’t you move, nigger!” Eukie yelled, and reached for the shotgun. The looter’s eyes widened in surprise. And when Eukie fired, it was those eyes he used for an aiming point.
Nick’s heart dropped into his shoes at the sound of the shotgun, and he stared at the scene in shock. The first round was birdshot, lightweight pellets, but it hit Viondi in the face. Viondi staggered back, dropping the cardboard box. The silver samovar clanged on the pavement. Viondi raised his hands to his eyes.
“Hey,” Nick said, too surprised even to move, but the cop was shouting, “God damn it, God damn it!” and he jacked another round in the shotgun.
The second round was double-ought buckshot, twelve steel pellets each the size of a 9mm pistol round, and it struck Viondi full in the chest. He threw his arms wide and fell back into Nick. Nick dropped his suitcase and tried to catch Viondi, but Viondi’s big body was all great ungainly weight, and Nick found himself falling with Viondi on top of him. He landed hard, feeling the impact slam up his spine, and while he was falling he heard the awful click-clack of another round being fed into the chamber.