Читать книгу Drago #6: And the City Burned - Art Spinella - Страница 8

Too nervous to sit, Sal and I silently stood in Forte’s office. There was little to say. The map behind his desk now marked areas where we thought were possible locations for the bombs; red, yellow and green indicating high, medium and low probability. But those were merely guesses meant to provide a focus rather than a true course of action.

“What do you want us to do?” I asked the Chief.

He never had a chance to answer.

Beth barged into the office, hyperventilating. “Shooting in Old Town, Chief.”

Forte stared at her as if she had leprosy.

“When?”

“Now.”

“Where?”

“Continuum Center.”

Forte stood and looked at us. “You are now officially deputies of the BPD.” He reached into a bottom desk drawer and pulled out two leather cases, tossing one to me the other to Sal. In a single splurge of words, Forte said, “You’ll uphold the law, constitution and whatever else I say, so help you God. Say ‘I do.’”

We did.

The three of us raced from the Chief’s office to the parking lot. Sal and I climbed into the Crown Vic and followed Forte’s black cruiser onto Highway 101, lights and siren bringing traffic to a halt. He skidded onto Chicago Street under the Welcome arch and left onto Second.

We barreled the half block to the Center and skittered to a stop. People were backing away from the building. Those in shorts and short sleeve shirts clearly tourists. Locals in jeans and untucked Ts.

Forte jumped from his cruiser, unholstered his Glock and began yelling at gawkers to get back. Sal climbed from his seat, pulling his ever-present Colt and racing to Forte’s side.

I threw the Crown Vic into reverse and slammed the gas pedal, leaving black stripes on the pavement, the high revving and loud exhaust my version of a siren.

At Chicago, I twisted the wheel and the Vic drifted the corner, tires billowing smoke. I slammed open the door, threw the Vic into Park and in a single motion was out of the car with my Taurus Magnum in hand.

The Continuum Center has a back entrance along a narrow, short but classy little promenade. Racing up the brick to cover the rear entrance, a family stood in front of the entry about to go in.

“Get away from there! Now!”

Their eyes grew to saucers, frozen by the sight of a six-foot-five crazy man with a honkin’ big gun running at them.

“NOW!”

They complied, the father grabbing his wife’s and young son’s hands and hustled toward Chicago Street.

I heard two gunshots.

The glass panel on the entry door shattered, the two slugs slamming into the wooden fence on the opposite side of the pedway.

Back to the building’s wall, left of the doorway, I twisted for a quick peek into the Center. On the left, a small raven-haired man in black jeans and a striped pullover shirt held what looked like a Beretta. He was pointing it toward the front of the building where Sal and Forte would have entered.

Further along the mostly glass hallway, behind a corner, a hand popped out, a dull silver revolver spitting big caliber slugs. Big enough to catch the guy in black jeans in the gut causing an ugly large hole. He looked down at his wound as if to ask what had just happened? Then crumpled. The man with the silver revolver sprinted down the hallway to the fallen guy, gun still aimed at his adversary. Tall, muscular. Someone I’d have expected to be carrying a .45 or .357 or a nine-mil. Instead, the weapon was old, with an octagonal barrel.

“Stand where you are!” I yelled through the shattered door glass. Rather than putting the gun down, he swung it toward me, pulling the trigger twice.

The heat of the bullets passing my ear pissed me off. I fired once. Dead center mass. He dropped to the floor just as Forte and Sal rounded the corner from behind.

Forte moved quickly to the downed gunner. I banged through the door and with my Magnum leveled at the fallen guy in jeans went to my knees next to him.

He was still alive.

I looked at Forte, who had a couple of fingers on the neck of the guy I shot. He shook his head.

My guy was gurgling, blood oozing from between his lips. Trying to talk. Not having much luck. I bent close to his mouth. “What? Who are you?”

Sputtering, spraying droplets of blood, it sounded like, “Scab.”

Then he passed.

1936

The strains of music filled the Howard household on the 40-acre farm near Rosa Road. Mother played the piano, earning some additional money playing for dances on Saturday nights at the Dew Valley Club. Father fiddled while the kids had guitars, mandolins, harmonicas, accordions and drums to add to the musical thunder.

A big family with eight children, three boys, five girls. Hard working. Happy. Until September 26^th.

Fifteen-year-old Jim and ten-year-old Bob were busy cutting and stacking wood. They had spent the summer turning timber into eight cords of wood that would heat their home during the cold weather. Lacking electricity in their house, canning and jarring produce from their family’s garden, large and abundant, was tremendously important. Literally hundreds of quarts of meat, fruit and vegetables would supplement their farm-grown cows, chickens, pigs and geese.

The boys, home alone and in the midst of cutting wood, smelled the smoke first. Bitter. Neighbors reported a fast-moving fire was heading toward their homestead. They should gather their things and get away.

Not far from the house, the fire pushed its head to the crowns of nearby trees; angry, devilish, overwhelming.

Hoping to save some of the canned food, the boys moved jars to the garden area, hoping that being in the open would save them. They helped setting backfires to no avail.

Trying to escape on Rosa Road, they ran into a wall of fire that had jumped the tarmac. Returning to Two Mile Road and down to Highway 101, they headed north, two of their three dogs in tow – the other lost to the fire.

Smoke so thick, the highway virtually disappeared. But the Howard boys eventually reached Bandon, leaving behind everything but two dogs and their father’s .22 rifle that remains in the family.