Doom Fox (32 page)

Downstairs, Baptiste's nose, banged against a leg of the table, spouts blood as he dials the police. .

Veteran Seventy-Seventh Division Sergeant Ray Leski, within half mile proximity, is dispatched by his station to investigate the 'man with a gun' complaint at Reba's house.

He slams down on the cruiser's gas pedal, blue eyes electric in his jowly face.

'I'll remember that address until the grave' he says to his rookie partner on the seat beside him. 'Caught a bullet in my chest that ricocheted to within an eight of an inch of my heart.'

His lean young partner says, 'A bandit in a hole?'

Leski shakes his gray head. 'No, a crazy spade caught his old lady screwing a hot shot preacher. Put his lights out ... say, it's been more than ten years ... wonder if that fucking Adult Authority has put that crazy nigger back on the street? Orsini, call in for some back-up just in case they have.'

Orsini completes the call as the cruiser races silently down Reba's block. The cruiser eases into the curb in front of the house next door. The pair ease to the sidewalk with service pistols in hand. Pot-bellied Leski shakes.

Excited Baptiste dashes off the front porch down the walk toward them with blood smeared face, shirt-front and hands. The nervous cops scramble back to cover behind the swung open doors of the cruiser. They level their weapons on Baptiste.

Leski shouts, 'Halt!'

Baptiste stops and babbles, 'I'm the one called you, Officers! Joe Allen beat me up. He's got a shotgun, gonna kill my daughter!'

Leski taps an index finger against his lips for silence as he signals Baptiste to the cruiser with waggles of his pistol. Orsini's boyish face pops sweat.

Reba stiffens in Joe's arms. She raises herself to a sitting position. 'Joe, I thought I heard Papa screaming out front.'

Leski darts from the cruiser to cover behind the hedges at the front of the house. Joe goes to the front window. He sees Baptiste and the rookie officer crouched behind the cruiser's door. He decides to rebut any treacherous tale Baptiste told.

He sticks his head out of the window in the glow of street lamp and shouts, 'Hey Officer, what's going on? You can't believe that old fool. I'm gonna come ...'

Leski fires a round from the shrubbery that grazes Joe's head. Joe sees the muzzle flash, jerks his head back, reflex furious at the splash of his blood on the window sill. Shocked, he grabs up the shotgun, fires, sees Leski flush from the shrubbery. Orsini fires into the bedroom window. At a side window Joe sees Leski scramble to the back of the house.

Baptiste screams. 'Officers, please don't do no more shooting! My daughter's up there!'

Junior drives the La Salle abreast of the house. He sees the action and stops the car in the middle of the street.

He leaps to the street. A chorus of sirens screech in the distance. Junior's eyes are afire as he rushes toward Orsini, who is squeezing off another shot into Reba's bedroom.

A dresser mirror splinters. Reba gasps and falls back limply in bed.

Junior's fist clubs the gun from the rookie's hand. He seizes his throat and shakes him violently as he shouts into his face. 'That's my mama's bedroom! You nuts, motherfucker?'

Orsini rams a knee for Junior's groin that grazes his belly. Orsini grabs Junior's privates. Junior howls and hurls him away against the street. He screams as Junior stomps a gush of blood from his face with a gigantic cleated shoe.

'Get in the wind, Junie!' Joe shouts from a window.

Leski stoops and rushes from the rear of the house. He pauses in the darkness at the side of the house, extends his arm, aims at Junior's chest, fires. Joe groans at the sound of the shot. The slug rips through Junior's heart. His huge body crashes to the street, motionless, dead.

Joe, with shotgun, dashes from the room and down the stairs. His eyes double check the shadows for Leski as he moves through the house to the back door into the backyard.

Joe hears an elderly neighbor scream, 'Lawd Amighty! The poleece done kilt Junior Allen!'

Joe peeps around the side of the house. He levels the shotgun on Leski's silhouette. His head. Leski ducks into the shrubbery beneath Reba's bedroom at the instant that the shotgun explodes. Joe moves down the side of the house toward him. Leski lies on his belly in the shrubbery, listening to Joe's footsteps, as he aims his pistol with two jiggling hands at the corner of the house.

Joe halts six feet from exposure at the sight of police cruisers descending with bansheeing sirens. He dashes to the first floor into the kitchen. He bolts the back door. He sees a squad of S.W.A.T. officers slip through the back gate in boots and combat garb. He hurls the refrigerator against the door and races for the stairway. He lunges up it into the bedroom to Reba's side. Her face is composed, waxen. He cries out, feels her silent wrist for a pulse, presses his ear against her mute heart.

He screams from the pit of his gut, 'Reeb! Reeb! Baby! Darling! You hear me? Don't leave me! Please come back!' He weeps as he cradles her in his arms. He goes to peep through the shattered window. Awful sobs wrack him as he watches ambulance attendants load Junior and haul him away. He hears a police loudspeaker command, 'Joe Allen, this is the police! This house is surrounded! Come out with your hands on your head! Don't jeopardize your ailing wife!'

Joe places Reba gently on her back. He savagely stacks the dresser, chairs, against the door. He goes to the bathroom and rips the ancient bathtub from its moorings and partially barricades the window. He peers around the tub at the deserted street, except for police shadows moving behind the cover of their cruisers. He hears their stealthy feet downstairs. He looks at Reba asleep forever on the bed. The bed, he remembers, where a midwife delivered him from Zenobia.

Maybe I'm dreaming, he thinks. He bangs his head against the tub to flee his nightmare. Maddened, he scrapes his wrist to the bone with the shotgun sight, licks the blood to realize he really isn't dreaming. The shotgun smokes and bucks as he barrages the shadows, blasts out cruisers' windshields in mad frustration and misery.

The phone rings. He cringes from the jangling, further proof that he isn't dreaming. He picks up, waits with painful hope that somehow merciful reality will break through his nightmare.

A familiar woman's saccharine voice issues, 'Hello, hello. Reba are you there?'

His voice drags like a dirge. 'Yes and no.'

The voice says, 'Joe! ... I didn't know you was ... is Reba there?'

Joe mumbles, 'Sorry Hattie, Reba's sleeping' before he rips the phone from the wall.

He hunches behind the bathtub, blasting the shotgun at phantoms, ignoring the stentorian voice of the loudspeaker until sunless daybreak.

He shapes an eerie smile as he thinks about Old Percy caged in state prison. 'He was my wise, true friend after all, bless his heart. Too bad he missed my ticker' he tells himself.

He leaps to his feet at a sound in the hallway. He goes to the barricaded door, flops on his belly. He peeps through the clearance at the bottom of the door. He sees cop feet milling. He breaks down and checks the shell box. Empty!

He stands and rocks as he squeezes his skull between his palms to stop the doomsday roaring inside his head.

He goes to sit on the side of the bed. His face is radiant.

He smiles oddly as he lifts and fondles the shotgun, decides to dream the sweetest dream there is. He rams the shotgun barrels into his throat.

The irrepressible Los Angeles sun explodes through the ramparts of coffin grey clouds like a golden cannonball to illuminate the Bambi face of his misery Goddess. Zenobia's child gazes at her as he slams his giant thumb down on the trigger.