The Demolishers (7 page)

Sandra laughed shortly. “All the official comings and goings just confirmed our neighbors’ opinions that we were highly undesirable residents for their pure Palm Beach. They’re very restricted in that high-class community over on the ocean side of the Intracoastal Waterway, which is wide enough there to be called a lake. Lake Worth. They’d get rid of us if they could. I mean, even with all his money, Daddy couldn’t have bought our place there; they’d have blocked him somehow. Gangsters and niggers keep out. But they couldn’t keep him from marrying it.” She gave me another sharp glance. “Talking about marriage, if you knew all about me two years ago, why didn’t you come charging along to save your precious son from that dreadful female he’d dredged up out of the slimy underworld?”

I laughed. “Telling people whom they can’t marry isn’t a very profitable occupation. I was more concerned about the way you kids were jumping the gun; I’d have liked to see you wait until you were out of school. As it turned out ...” I cleared my throat. “As it turned out, obviously you did the right thing, and I’m glad I minded my own business. As far as your family was concerned, I figured that if your pop could stand having a Helm in his family, 1 could stand having a Varek in mine.”

She laughed. “That was very tolerant of you. Daddy’s attitude was pretty much the same. Matthew . . . Matthew said he knew how Romeo and Juliet must have felt, squished between the feuding Montagues and Cap-ulets, except that you both turned out to be more reasonable than we expected ...” She stopped and gripped my arm hard, leaning forward to look out the car window. “Oh, God, here we are! La Mariposa is right around the corner ahead. . . . Slow down a little, please, Leonard.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We turned into a narrow side street of old two- and three-story buildings; storefronts at street level and offices above. The restaurant was on the right about halfway down the block; it wasn’t hard to spot. Raw plywood, braced by two-by-fours, covered the large front window. The sign hanging over the door, scarred by flying debris from the explosion, showed a colorful butterfly: La Mariposa. The only butterfly I recognize is the Monarch; this seemed to be a gaudy distant cousin. A cardboard placard on the door, black with glowing red letters, read:
closed.

As we cruised by, Sandra drew a long, shaky breath, but her voice was quite steady when she spoke. “It’s too bad, they used to serve the best enchiladas in town. All right, Leonard, you can take us home now.” She released my arm and smoothed my coat sleeve. “Sorry. Circulation will probably return in a couple-of hours. ...”

She stopped. An elderly car had come screeching around the comer ahead; now it slued around broadside to block the street. Leonard reacted instantly; I felt the Mercedes leap forward and swing sharply as he tried the maneuver that was still called the bootlegger’s turn back when I was a boy, although the rum runners had mostly vanished with repeal. Times change, but happy-stuff still gets transported illegally, so maybe they call it the drug smuggler’s turn nowadays. Leonard hit the gas hard to break the rear wheels loose and skid the heavy car around in the narrow street; but he never made it. Something punched through the top edge of the thick windshield and took away most of his head and splashed it over the heavy glass that separated us.

The report of the ambush weapon was loud even inside the closed car. I placed it above street level, ahead and to the right. So unload to the left. The Mercedes was still rolling, unguided now; as it jumped the curb I grabbed Sandra’s purse from her lap and threw the same arm around her. I hit the door handle with my free hand and threw myself out, dragging the girl out with me. A moment later, the violent, ringing report came again and a projectile smashed into the rear of the car where we’d been. I caught a glimpse of the muzzle flash at a second-story window, level with the roadblock and on the same side of the street as the restaurant.

I hauled the girl to her feet and shoved at her, trying to head her towards that side of the street, but she resisted me, wanting to get back to the car for some reason. It had come to rest across the sidewalk with its front end buried in the side of a building. She’d cost us too much time, and I swore and slammed her roughly to the ground again, as the heavy weapon fired and something very authoritative blasted through the air above us with a supersonic crack and screamed off the pavement beyond us. I yanked the girl upright once more and slapped her face hard.

“Snap out of it, stupid! That doorway over there.
Run!"

She obeyed, limping for a couple of steps with one high-heeled shoe already lost; then kicking off the other and hoisting her narrow dress and running like a deer in her stocking feet. Under other circumstances I’d have found the sight intriguing, but the clock was ticking in my head. Clearly it was a single-shot weapon and so far he’d taken about five seconds to reload .... We made it in four and he didn’t shoot at us again. Presumably we’d been too fast for him; now we’d reached a place he couldn’t cover, on the same side of the street and below him. I’d hoped for that. There had been some small stuff flying around, but nothing had hit me.

“You okay?” I asked Sandra, as I crammed myself into the doorway beside her, trying to make myself skinnier than I really am.

She nodded breathlessly. There was another shot from the heavy artillery and some small-arms fire, both singleshot and automatic; we had us a real little war. I saw that the cannon in the window had just taken out a headlight and most of a fender of the car that had been following us, smacking it as it turned the corner after us. But the vehicle was still operative; it was backing hastily out of the danger zone.

It had left two men behind. Widely separated, one on each side of the street, they were crouching as they moved forward to attack, firing machine pistols in professional little three- and four-shot bursts. One was hosing down the ancient car that blocked the street, from which shots had been coming. The other was trying for the high window—but he didn’t walk his bullets onto the target fast enough. The heavy weapon fired and the projectile picked him up and threw him backwards to land on his shoulders with his legs kicking high into the air before flopping down limply onto the sidewalk. That’s the dramatic way * they often die in the movies when shot, but I’d never . before seen it happen in real life since real rifle and pistol bullets don’t have that much power. But this slug did.

The weapon the dead man had been holding had slid 50

out into the street, but much too far away for me to try for it. I opened the purse I held and took out the small automatic pistol I’d spotted earlier through the thin silk.

I closed the purse and put it into Sandra’s hands, noting that they were no longer very clean after our tumbling act in the street.

“Sorry I had to slug you; there wasn’t time to argue,”
I said."

She dismissed the incident with a quick shake of her head. “I didn’t mean ... I was all confused, poor Leonard, everything happening so fast, and Daddy said we were supposed to stay with the car no matter what, it’s bulletproof."

“Bulletproof, hell!” I said. “That’s a big fifty up there, probably with AP ammo. It can make a sieve of a real armored car, let alone a fancy sedan with some tin stuck on it.” Now there was gunfire down the street beyond the roadblock; apparently our lead car was engaging the enemy from behind. A bullet hit the building above us and ricocheted away with a nasty, wavering, dying shriek. I said, “Let’s beat it and let the boys fight World War Three without us. Are you ready for another sprint?”

There was dirt on Sandra’s face as well as on her hands, but her grin was clean and bright. I couldn’t help thinking that my son seemed to have found himself quite a girl; it was too bad he hadn’t lived to enjoy his marriage.

She said, “Speedy Sandy is right with you, sir. Or a little ahead.”

“Good girl. Stay on this sidewalk close to the wall so the big gun can’t reach you. Head for the main street we came from, and don’t stop for anything. . . . Go!”

As we lunged out of our shelter, such as it was, I found myself hoping that the remaining gunner from the following car wasn’t in the habit of shooting everything that moved. He wasn’t. Seeing us pop into sight, he stepped away from the wall to give.us room to pass and, from the kneeling position, laid down a long burst of covering fire; then we were around the corner. The driver was there holding a big Browning 9mm pistol, ready to take out anything hostile that followed us. I shoved the girl at him.

“She’s all yours, keep her safe,” I said.
₅

Sandra, badly winded, gasped, “Matt, whc
_nc
jare you going?”

But I was already crossing the big street at a run. The building over there was two stories high; and from a couple of the second-floor windows there would be a good view down the side street on which La Mariposa was located. One was labeled neatly, in gold lettering:
RA
MIRO S. SANCHEZ—ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
The Other Was shabbier and painted:
crown numismatics and philately-stamps and coins.
I thought that was kind of backwards, and the coins went with the numismatics, but it was no time for semantic technicalities. I paused briefly to check my borrowed gun, and found it loaded and ready, cartridge chambered, safety on. I headed for the door between the storefronts that presumably served the offices above.

It was open for customers. Inside, a hall ran clear through the building to another door in the rear. Maybe there was a parking lot back there. The lighting was dim and it was like seeing daylight through a long tunnel. A lighted sign on the left, about halfway down the corridor, indicated a stairway going up to the right. I paused to listen and it was my day for lucky guesses; somebody was coming down it in a hurry. I moved forward cautiously, wishing the stairs had run the other way; it’s hard for a right-handed man to shoot around a corner to the right without making a target of himself. I can shoot lefthanded if I have to, but I wasn’t going to compound the uncertainty of an unknown guy by using my weak hand.

I gambled that I wasn’t dealing with a pro, and pulled the old loudmouth gag, bellowing: “Jim, you go on through and cover the back; I’ll see what’s up the stairs.”

The sound of my voice was shocking in that quiet building. I heard my man, or woman, stop momentarily on the stairs. Then the footsteps started retreating upwards towards the second floor. I stepped out, gun ready. It was a man, as near as I could tell in the dim light of the stairway; long hair and jeans and T-shirts are no longer reliable means of sex determination. He sensed me behind and below him, and spun around with a gun in his hand, which made him no innocent lawyer or rare-stamp dealer. Or client or customer. I hoped. It’s always nervous when you need them alive. You can’t afford to shoot them where it’s permanent. You have to try for a merely disabling hit, and so run a much greater risk of getting shot yourself. I aimed for the calf of his leg and fired. He came down right away, losing his weapon, a considerable relief.

But when I got to him, I stopped being so pleased with my marksmanship. Sandra’s pistol had thrown high, and the man’s right pants leg was already soaked with blood; it was pumping from a wound in his thigh in a volume indicating that I’d probably got the femoral artery. I pocketed the automatic hastily, and the cheap revolver I’d picked up on the stairs. I got out my knife and flicked it open. I pushed the wounded man flat on the stairs, on his back, and showed him the wicked little blade.

“No,” he gasped. “Please, no.
Por favor, senior.
I am wounded, I bleed. Help me!”

He was a man, but just man enough to grow a thin little moustache to prove his masculinity; a pretty, slight, dark, scared boy with shoulder-length black hair that needed washing.

“I want a name,” I said harshly. “The lady in the peasant skirt with the bomb.
Mujer con bomba.
What is her name?” When he didn’t respond, I laid the knife blade against his cheek and slid the point close enough to his left eye that he’d be able to see it blocking part of his vision, blurred and shiny and menacing.
“La nombre!
You must give me the name, first; then we’ll fix that leg for you. The woman who helped bomb the restaurant. Her name or I ’ll gouge out your fucking eyeball and make you eat it.
Digame la nombre de la dama, pronto!
Come on, come on, give!”

He licked his lips. “Angel,” he whispered weakly. “The little angel ...”

Then he died. Hearing a sound below me, I turned quickly, but it was only the driver of the escort car with his big Browning, and Sandra looking up the stairs at me with wide, shocked eyes.

The
evacuation was run more efficiently than the military engagement had been. As we came out of the building, a sedan pulled up in front of us. Beside the driver sat the surviving gunner who’d covered our retreat from the shot-up Mercedes. He jumped out to open the rear door for Sandra.

“I retrieved your shoes, Mrs. Helm; 1 thought you might like them back,” he said, straight-faced. He glanced my way. “And your suitcase, Mr. Helm . . . Get in, please, both of you. Richard will take you home; we’ll clean up here.”

Then Richard was driving us away. Sirens wailed in the distance. After a little, Sandra reached for the dusty black pumps on the seat beside her and started to put them on her feet. She stopped upon discovering that her stockings, never designed for direct contact with the pavement, had pretty well disintegrated down there. Her knees were also emerging through the laddered nylon. She started to reach up under her skirt, unselfconsciously, raising herself off the seat so she could strip off the ruined panty hose; then she stopped with a quick, embarrassed glance my way.