Southern Cross (33 page)

He was dressed in worn-out, soiled jeans, a filthy tee shirt and dirty scuffed Red Wing boots. A paint-spattered baseball cap was low over his eyes. He wore Oakleys and hadn’t shaved in days. No one paid any attention to him as he walked across yards, trying to see the parade like everybody else.

Smoke had conducted a thorough surveillance in the George Wythe parking lot while the parade was lining up. He knew where everyone was. He had spotted Weed. Smoke had walked right past the police chief and the two cops who had spoken in Godwin’s auditorium. It was hilarious. Smoke’s nerves were humming. He was pumping adrenaline and almost manic.

Concealed inside the pouches around his waist were the stolen Beretta and four ten-round clips and two fifteen-round clips and his Glock with three seventeen-round clips. That made a grand total of one hundred and twenty-one Winchester 115 grain Silvertip high-power cartridges.

He watched antique Jaguars and Chryslers cruise by, then the Corvette Club. People were waving and clapping, the weather great, everybody in a good mood. He spotted a sloping lawn that was a little higher above the street than those around it. Some jerk and a mousy woman were having a picnic on a red-checked tablecloth. Smoke had found the perfect spot. He walked right up to them, crossed his arms and looked out as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Red Cross rolled by.

Bubba recognized the Stanley tool belt immediately. Some construction guy was wearing it. The big black belt with its deep pouches was exactly like the one missing from Bubba’s garage. Bubba focused the binoculars a little more, zooming in on the guy’s face.

He looked about fifteen or sixteen, kind of puny and pale. The pouches were bulging and looked heavy. He had the padded yellow belt pulled as tight as it would go, the entire rig huge on him because it was an extra-large and the kid couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds. Bubba didn’t see a single tool, no tape measure, no nails, nothing in the hammer holder, not so much as a handle protruding.

“That’s my belt,” Bubba said as his heart picked up speed. “I know it is!”

Pigeon looked where Bubba was looking, squinting as he smoked another Merit Ultima that Bubba had been pleased to give him.

“How do you know?” Pigeon inquired.

“I see a little white mark on the quick-release belt buckle. It might be my initials. I paint my initials in white on all my tools, on everything, to make sure when Smudge borrows something he can’t turn around and say it’s his!”

“Who’s Smudge?” Pigeon asked, tapping an ash.

The last of some band in black and white was marching by, playing “Take the ‘A’ Train.” The drum major of the Godwin band was right behind it. Bubba stared through the binoculars, blood rushing to his head, his heart beating faster than a snare drum as he focused on the dark blue
convertible carrying Hammer, West and Brazil. They were one band behind Godwin.

The guy wearing Bubba’s tool belt seemed tense. His right hand was twitching. He seemed to be waiting for something or someone. He was searching the ranks of the Godwin band, then looking straight at Chief Hammer. Bubba was sure of it.

Godwin started in on the theme from
Titanic.
The construction guy looked left and right and slipped his right hand into a pouch and kept it there. Bubba’s stolen guns flashed in his head. He ran out into the street as the woodwinds were going by. He wanted to pull out his new Browning but thought better of it.

“Stop him!”
he yelled at the top of his lungs.

The fat man Smoke had met at Muskrat’s Auto Rescue and soon after burglarized was pointing right at Smoke and yelling. Smoke was cool. He looked around and shrugged.

“What a wacko,” he said to the man and woman picnicking next to him.

Cops were running out. One galloped up on a horse. They were trying to calm the fat man and get him out of the street. Smoke smiled. This was going to be better than he thought. He zoomed in on Weed. The little retard was crashing and flashing his cymbals, the dude to the left trying to outdo him on the snare drum. Smoke took his time. He didn’t want to slip his hand into the pouch again until the fat man quit pointing at him.

“Somebody do something!”
the fat man was screaming as two cops grabbed his arms.
“Get him, not me! The kid up there in the Stanley tool belt!”

Pigeon was concerned. He walked out on the street as Bubba struggled with the cops and continued to yell.

“Look, he’s with me,” Pigeon told the cop on the horse.

“Stand back!” the cop yelled at Pigeon.

“It’s his tool belt. You can see the white initials on the buckle. I mean with binoculars you can.” Pigeon wasn’t to be deterred. “The kid stole it.”

Bubba’s binoculars flew off. A pistol fell out of somewhere and clattered to the street. This seemed to upset the cops quite a lot. All of them snatched handcuffs and red pepper spray off their belts. The Godwin band quit playing and froze as some little kid suddenly broke out of formation and rolled his cymbal down the street. Pigeon realized it was Weed.

Chief Hammer had no idea what was going on. The parade halted as what sounded like a huge bronze hubcap rolled toward her car.

“What’s happening?” Hammer asked, standing up in the back seat, trying to see.

West stopped the car.

“GET DOWN!” Brazil yelled as he pushed Hammer to the floor and band members jumped out of the way and the cymbal hit a little dip in the road and picked up speed, loudly flying past, scattering the Mason clowns, sending Sergeant Santa scurrying, almost running the mayor’s car into the crowd. The Florettes dropped their batons.

Jed saw the cymbal coming before Lelia Ehrhart did, and he suddenly threw the red Cadillac into reverse. Azalea bushes jumped off the back seat, clay pots breaking, bees darting out of harm’s way, dirt flying everywhere as streamers of blue ribbons changed direction and flew in Ehrhart’s face.

The blond cop Jed had picked up in the cemetery the other day had just leaped out of Chief Hammer’s car and was running like hell. Jed slammed on the brakes. A pink azalea bush sailed over the back of the front seat and Ehrhart shrieked. The cymbal went screaming past, flashing in the sun like a runaway gold chariot wheel.

Jed jumped out of the Cadillac without opening the door, neglecting to put the car in park. It began moving forward on its own as Ehrhart fought with streamers of blue ribbons, getting more entangled, and Patty Passman, nearby in the rioting crowd, threw down her Death by
Chocolate ice cream cone and pushed people out of the way.

“MOVE, FUCKHEADS!” She shoved and punched, sugar-charged and unstoppable.

She chased the red Cadillac and hurled her fat body over the driver’s door, landing with her feet in the air, grabbing the gear shift and jamming it into park.

Smoke was momentarily confused by the commotion. The plan in his head turned to page three and stopped. He looked around and backed up a little, almost slipping on the grass. At first it didn’t register that the blond cop he had heard at school, and Weed and a street person were running toward him at top speed.

“EVERYBODY GET DOWN!” the blond cop was yelling.

The crowd started panicking. The cops lost interest in the fat man. They charged toward Smoke, too, the blond cop running the fastest.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” the fat man screamed at Smoke.

The picnicking couple dove out of the way as the fat man ran across their red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. Smoke panicked and pulled out the Beretta. In his confusion he forgot how to take the safety off.

People were thundering toward Smoke from all directions, with Weed in the lead, the plume on his black hat straight back as he ran at incredible speed. Smoke dropped the Beretta and groped for his Glock as Weed leaped five feet in the air and punched Smoke in the nose and grabbed his hair, knocking Smoke to the ground. They struggled over the Glock. Smoke let go of it when Weed bit his wrist hard.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” Weed kept yelling as he pummeled Smoke with his fists.

Brazil struggled to handcuff Smoke, who was rolling in the grass and yelling, clips of ammunition falling out of the stolen tool belt around his waist. At this point, community involvement was making matters worse.

Bubba was poised, taking jabs at Smoke whenever Weed left an opening. Pigeon was on the ground, trying to hold Smoke’s ankles. Other cops were grabbing at Smoke and getting in Brazil’s way. Unfortunately, one of them started squirting pepper spray. Then everyone was rolling on the ground, hands over their eyes, yelling in pain.

Smoke kicked straight up and caught one of the cops in the groin and grabbed the Sig Sauer pistol out of the other cop’s holster. Smoke was bloody and breathing hard as he gripped the pistol in both shaking hands, his eyes watering and crazed with rage. He didn’t see the two women cutting through the space between the two houses behind him.

Hammer and West had their pistols out and were moving in fast. It seemed Smoke was trying to figure out who to shoot. He wildly pointed the gun at a fat man Hammer recognized as Bubba. Then the gun was pointed at Brazil and the other cops on the ground, then out at the fleeing crowd and participants in the parade.

Hammer didn’t have a clear shot because a street person and a little kid in a band uniform were in the way. Drifting pepper spray irritated Hammer’s eyes and lungs. She and West split up as Smoke wheeled around, apparently hearing the sound of approaching feet. The barrel of his pistol seemed huge and unreal as he pointed it straight at Hammer’s face. She couldn’t shoot first. There were too many people in the way.

Hammer hadn’t been in a good fight in a while but she hadn’t forgotten her training. She hurled her pistol at Smoke as hard as she could, and it sailed and spun like a boomerang, and Smoke involuntarily raised his arms to ward it off, giving Hammer an opportunity to dive at his feet, knocking him down. They struggled over his gun.

“GIVE IT UP!”
Hammer demanded.

He tried to point the gun into her ribs and she managed to get a good purchase on one of his thumbs. She bent it straight back, an old and reliable police trick. He howled in pain. She wrested the gun away from him and shoved it hard under his chin.

“MOVE I’LL BLOW YOUR MOTHERFUCKING HEAD OFF!”
she yelled at him.

Her finger was on the trigger. She wanted him to give her an excuse.

“You goddamn little bastard,”
she said in his face.
“That helpless old woman you murdered was my neighbor.”

Brazil had recovered enough to help West handcuff Smoke and haul him away. Bubba sat up, tears streaming down his cheeks. Pigeon was facedown, still covering his eyes. The sock had come off his stump. Weed was unsteady as he got to his feet. He looked at Chief Hammer with red, watering eyes. She was standing very still, a gun at her side, pointed at the grass.

“Thanks,” Weed said to her. “I sure am glad you’re here.”