Читать книгу Allied Zombies for Peace - Craig Nybo - Страница 26

Chapter 19

Smash and Fern watched the skirmish between just a few hippies and Nam Vets roll into an all-out brawl. It was as if the singular, contained incident had been a firing pin for a bomb of violence, screaming, and curses. Fists clapped into jaws. Boots woofed into bellies. The wheole scene became electric with shouts and curses, spitting, and grunting. Where the NRPL lacked fighting skills, they made up for in numbers, slogans, and raw passion.

Smash shouted over the din to Fern. “Serge says to bag the perp who started this fracas. Did you see where that kid with the American flag pants got to?”

Fern shrugged.

Both men panned the street, catching glimpses through clods of men leaning into each other, all piss and vitriol, smashing faces, kneeing groins, tearing at clothing and hair. Finally, Fern spotted the NRPL protestor with the American flag pants. Schecky had pushed himself up to a crouch, heavily favoring his shooting hand. Gouts of blood splattered all the way to the kid’s elbow and onto his chest. “There he is,” Fern shouted, pointing.

“Let’s get him,” Smash said and started pushing his way through the crowd, his nightstick drawn, Fern fought his way along beside Smash.

Schecky looked up at the two cops as they approached. His lips parted into an impish grin.

“Hold it right there, kid; you are under arrest,” Smash shouted, wielding his nightstick. Just as Smash leaned into a run, a group of seven or eight NRPL closed the gap between he and Schecky.

“Out of the way,” Smash said but the throng of hippies didn’t move.

“You think we’re going to take orders from a lousy pig,” one of the hippies said.

“Out of the way or pay the price,” Fern said, stepping up next to his partner, his nightstick clenched in one fist.

“What do you say we teach these pigs what it means to give peace a chance,” the NRPL protestor said. After a chorus of chortles, nods, and general grunts of agreement, the cadre of NRPL hippies burst into action, all fists and head-butts.

Smash took a right cross to the temple. His head snapped to one side. He shook off the impact of the blow and swung his nightstick across the hippie’s face. A welt along the ridge of the hippie’s chin instantly rose.

Fern jabbed the end of his stick into the solar plexus of another protestor, sending him woofing to the ground. Two other NRPL ran away, perhaps in fear, perhaps to find better weapons than skin.

In the next few moments, with a series of well-planted blows, Smash and Fern put down the rest of the NRPL punks, leaving two knocked out, two holding their bellies, and the last crouched on the ground with his head in his hands, sobbing.

“Now where’d that son of a bitch go?” Smash said. He and Fern scanned the area, squinting through the melee, looking for the kid with the American flag pants. There was no sign of him. Schecky had escaped.

Fern looked to his partner for any idea of what to do. Smash bit his bottom lip. The two of them had let the American Flag pants wearing bastard slip through their fingers and the Serge would be furious. Smash visored the sun away from his eyes with one flat hand and panned back and forth along the parade route for any sign of the perp; but with violence escalating in every direction, the chance of spotting one man in the fray seemed impossible. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Smash said.

Fern listened but kept alert, flicking his eyes over the fighting, watching for the perp.

“I want you to get across the street. Don’t worry about breaking up anything; this storm is already too big for the two of us. The Serge is going to have to call in a hell of a cleanup crew for this mess. We are going to concentrate on finding the perp and slapping the cuffs on him. Once you get to the other side, I want you to stay within eyeshot of me. We’ll walk the whole damn parade route if we have to, but we are going to find that hippie bitch.”

“Shouldn’t you run this up the flag pole?” Fern pointed at the radio handset on Smash’s shoulder?

“Lets wait until we find the kid in the American flag pants before we jingle the Serge. Trust me, it will be better that way.”

Fern nodded, clamped down his grip on his retractable nightstick, and trotted off across the street.

Smash drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. “Lord help us, we’re going to need it.”