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| Jorge Ryan, (Wiki.) |
Louis
Shalako
He did up the bottom of the jacket. Taking the cat
from Amy, he stuffed it into the top, sort of in front of his left shoulder and
then hurriedly zipped it to the neck. With his left arm slung under the cat’s
weight, he led off, holding the rail with his right hand. Amy was right at his
back, one hand on his shoulder and one on the handrail.
Each floor was about ten feet in elevation and then he
was poised on the brink. Ten or twelve feet to safety. There were people
boiling out of the front doors and down the front steps. Mark wasn’t exactly
sure how this particular fire-escape stair worked. It was probably sprung on
torsion-bars. He put his foot on the swinging section and it pivoted downwards.
“Okay, just wait until I’m down.” Mark bent at the
waist again, trying to keep the cat from falling out of the bottom of the
jacket, but he wanted both hands to hold on. “Here we go.”
The stairs tilted more steeply, and he cursed, not
sure if he should be going down backwards or what. But they had been designed
for people in a panic, which he was trying not to do.
That sort of implied just
running down frontwards…
Everyone was yelling, and there were sirens in the
distance. Hopefully they were heading for this building but it was a big city
and there was always a fire someplace, always sirens going somewhere. Sirens,
always in the background noise, in some sort of horrid urban process of life,
death, and renewal.
There were more people on the fire escape, crowding
down from above. Their voices were high-pitched and Mark had better get on with
it. They were going to cause problems for Amy, and the whole apparatus was
shaking under his feet.
He stepped forwards as boldly as he could, and the
thing leaned farther with a long, agonizing screech.
Wouldn’t that be just like a slum-lord like Olivetti?
The fire escape wasn’t worth shit, and Mark found himself grabbing the cat
through the coat again. He stomped, ultimately jumping up and down on the
second and third steps, hunched over like Quasimodo, and finally the damned
stairs let go with a lurch. The stairs fell the last eight or ten feet, Mark
going weightless for a moment before the end hit the sidewalk with a crash.
The cat kicked, squirmed and clawed, and Mark
hurriedly got down the last few steps and out of the way.
Amy didn’t hesitate, following him down and out onto
the sidewalk where people were milling around, looking up and around, trying to
see who was there and who wasn’t…women were screaming, children were crying and
the males were cursing whole-heartedly.
“Argh.” Mark undid the top of the jacket, and the
cat’s head popped out.
Seeing all the commotion, the animal hesitated, and he
tried to calm it. If the thing got away from him, they’d never catch it.
Amy grabbed his other arm.
“Come on.”
Mark turned, looking back up at the building. He’d
lived there a little over a week, ten days at most…
Lurid orange flames poured up and out of the top two
floors. The windows glowed red below that, including his own unit. The roar and
crack of the flames was horrific, a pillar of smoke lit and backlit by the
lights of the city all around. Three people came down the fire escape, coughing
and gasping, eyes watering. The smell of smoke, like burning garbage, was
intense even in the clear air at ground level. People were congregating across
the street and there was at least one cop, on the scene and stopping traffic in
both directions.
He found himself crying, as Amy tugged and pulled at
him.
His eyes searched the crowd.
“Mark. Mark. We have to go—”
“Fuck. Where’s Duke—”
He saw the black people from across the hall—there
seemed to be a half a dozen of them, which accounted for about as many as he
had seen. There was the guy from the laundry room, and the woman, and the
child. There was the little old lady…the deaf guy from the second floor. There
was the grey-faced fat guy with the backpack, Mark had never been sure if he
lived there or what. There were a lot of people he didn’t recognize, passers-by
most likely.
The sirens were getting louder and two police cars
came around the corner a couple of blocks up.
Navigating the mess of stopped traffic, they slewed to
a halt and men began jumping out.
They turned and tried to un-snarl the traffic. There
were more sirens as the fire trucks became visible, red lights flashing from
blocks away as they raced inbound.
Just at the curb was a familiar, scruffy blue sedan.
O’Hara.
Mark’s jaw dropped. It couldn’t have been fifty feet
away, and there was someone in there.
The dark silhouette of a head and
shoulders was clearly moving around in there, probably on the radio.
His feet began to move and Amy wept, dragging him
along. The cat’s head stuck out, as the thing began to wiggle and move again,
if it had ever truly stopped.
Wailing sirens began to wind down at the first two
fire units slowed to a crawl and then stopped.
The car door opened and O’Hara got out. He stood
beside the vehicle, looking up at the building, the microphone on its curling
extension cord up to his mouth. Turning to and fro, O’Hara’s eyes swept the
crowd, both sides of the street and Mark’s guts froze as the deadly blue eyes
swept over him and Amy.
Just then, the front door of the building opened and
Duke came out, hood up and sweeping Maude along in front of him.
She hadn’t been out of the building in years—
She was hysterical, her crinkly blonde flower-child
hair flailing around as she backed up, beating on Duke’s chest as she
desperately tried to get back in. Maude was making a big thing out of it, a
real scene and then O’Hara turned.
Mouth open, Mark pulled Amy into the mouth of the second
alley.
Duke gave Maude a shove as O’Hara spied him. Duke was
yelling at Maude, at people, and someone, someone
from the building who must have known something about Maude, ran forward from a clump of people on this side, but a
few yards on the other side of the building.
They grabbed Maude, hugging her
close and fighting with her as she put her head down and then just slumped,
falling halfway to the ground. More people grabbed arms and legs and tried to
deal with her hysteria.
That white parka stuck out like a sore thumb.
“No.” No.
O’Hara slammed the door. He was running past the front
of the car, drawing his gun.
The noise was such that it was like a silent film.
O’Hara was shouting and Amy was crying and trying to
drag Mark away.
Fuck.
“Fuck.”
Duke had a horn case in the other hand…it was that
fucking horrible scuffed, matte-black colour and Mark hadn’t seen it at first.
How the hell Duke had managed to manhandle Maude and hang onto the thing was a
mystery, he really shouldn’t have been able…
“No!” No.
O’Hara had the gun up. Duke was about to melt into the
crowd as firemen raced past, pulling hoses and nozzles up the front steps,
although it was already a foregone conclusion. O’Hara couldn’t shoot without
hitting them.
Duke dropped the case, flinging it aside from his left
hand as he spun, dropping into the gun-fighter’s crouch as known to every kid
in the whole wide world from comic books, film and television…
Duke’s gun spat flame but O’Hara was already firing.
***
They were in the train station, completely numb.
Grand Central was never quiet, but at this time of
night, shortly before dawn, they could at least talk and hear themselves think.
Mark was sick at the stomach, nauseous at what had
transpired. Amy, shocked herself and sympathetic, struggled to control the cat,
who had been constrained long enough.
“We’ve got to do something about this creature.”
Mark nodded, wondering if they should just let the
thing go. But to do that was irresponsible, and would probably doom the animal
to a short, brutal and nasty life on the streets or in the train yards or in
the tunnels under the city.
“Extra! Extra! Read all about it!”
Mark raised an arm.
“Yeah. I’ll take one.” For a dime, Mark’s arms sagged
under the weight of all the news that was fit to print.
Number Ninety-Nine Easy Street was plastered all over
the front page, probably because a photographer had gotten to the fire at just
the right moment and they had some good pictures…
***
Amy had the cat inside her sweater, grateful it wasn’t
very big. The thing had simmered down under her gentle administration,
scratching it under the chin and cooing and murmuring in reassuring tones. The
real problem was the harsh, loud announcements over the loudspeakers.
These were increasing in frequency as the day began
and they would have to make a move soon.
“What does it say?”
Mark’s eyes raced across the page, and then he rapidly
turned the pages, trying to find where the continued story picked up in an
inner section.
“Okay. No one injured in the fire—that’s good.” Tears
sprang to his eyes, at the thought of his friend, risking his ass, trying to
get the people out when he could have gotten clean away himself.
The significance of Duke borrowing his coat was also
deeply troubling.
“Go on, go on.” Amy’s own stomach was rumbling.
They hadn’t slept in what seemed like days, and the
fact was that they had to do something—
Mark’s heart began to race when he spotted O’Hara’s
name.
Slowing down, he read it aloud for her benefit.
“…New York Police Detective Ed O’Hara was dead at the scene
of a shooting that occurred in front of the building at the time of the fire…”
It was like he just couldn’t get any air.
“…Detective O’Hara, according to witnesses, was
shouting incoherently, with his weapon drawn, running around at the scene. The
detective was observed to discharge his weapon at a second victim. Elmer
Barrett, of Ninety-Nine Easy Street, returned fire and killed the detective
with several shots. He is presently in hospital with injuries that are
described as critical…”
Fuck!
Duke was alive.
Mark lowered the paper, staring off into the infinite
distance, shiny stone walls notwithstanding.
O’Hara dead and Duke alive.
With Amy peering over his shoulder in the garishly bad
light, he read on.
“According to unnamed sources, Detective O’Hara had
been struggling with depression and alcoholism as a result of divorce and
separation from his wife and children. The detective had taken a number of sick
days over the past few months and was seeking help for medical problems. As for
the motive in the shooting, police are not speculating, and information is
being withheld pending the outcome of a full investigation.”
Whoa.
Holy, crap.
Even so, there must be more to it than that—O’Hara
might have been nuts, but that was rarely enough to make a man kill. He just
had too much to lose, and in the story they said he had been seeking help.
Hmn.
Mark quickly read to the bottom of the story,
disappointed that there wasn’t much more.
“Shit.” He folded up the paper after dumping a lot of
supplements and inserts that he wasn’t going to read in a nearby trashcan.
“Shit. Amy. What in the hell are we going to do now?”
***
It was Thursday night, and Mark had made it in to
work.
He had a half-decent used trumpet and a sax that
wasn’t quite such a nice instrument as the one lost in the apartment, but it
was in much better shape. Mark had picked them up in a pawn shop.
He’d bought some clothes, doing his best. Benny would
have read the papers and would accept things at face value, when it came right
down to that.
Mona and Benny were at their table with a few guests.
While he was pretty sure Mona wasn’t a predator, her eyes came back to him
often enough…
There was a reasonable crowd in the club for a
Thursday night. The low murmur of people’s voices rose and fell, following some
unknown but mass social logic of its own as the waiters plied their trade in a
slow ebb and flow.
Amy had agreed to stay away, badly as she wanted to be
there to witness this moment. Mark had stayed with her and Sandy for a couple
of nights while they tried to figure out what to do.
The answer had eventually
made itself obvious—to do nothing.
Nothing at all.
Duke would live. With his injuries, he was safe enough
from the draft board. With a bit of luck, he might never have to serve at all.
Still in intensive care, Mark would be visiting Duke (or Elmer) the minute the
doctors allowed it. In the meantime, they just had to wait—and to worry, and to
try and get on with their lives.
An expectant hush came over the big room.
There was a smattering off applause from the more
aware.
It was seven o’clock and Doc was beaming and waving at
the crowd.
Doc leaned into the nearest microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Mister Dale Cromwell…” Some of
the more female members of the audience definitely sat up a little straighter
upon hearing it.
He heaved a deep sigh, purging his lungs of CO2,
nodding at Dale as the fellow came onstage.
Mark was standing six feet behind him, just off his
right elbow.
Dale was impeccable in the clothing, his hair perfect
and looking very pink and scrubbed in the slight jowls he was developing.
Having Amy there would have added to the pressure.
More than anything, Mark just wanted to get used to it.
Doc tapped his stick and they were ready.
The house lights came down as Dale put the horn up to
his lips and began to blow.
This was it.
This was real.
This was now,
baby.
END
Wow, that was scary, eh, kids? Thanks for reading. I don't know about you guys, but I had a wonderful time.
Here are some Louis
Shalako books and stories on iTunes.
***
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