Ten Big Ones

Sixteen

I remember seeing a nature show on television where a ground squirrel was hiding in an underground den, and a wolverine reached in and grabbed the ground squirrel. It happened so fast it was a blur on the screen. That's the way it is with disaster. In an instant your future can disappear. And nothing can adequately prepare you for the moment. There's a millisecond of surprise and then a heaviness of heart when finality is recognized.

I didn't have the gun. It had fallen out of my pocket in the scramble. And I didn't have my cell phone. My phone was in my purse, and my purse was inside the car. I'd made some noise, so there was the possibility that Rangers man might have heard me. I didn't think the possibility was good. There might have been a way to open the trunk from the inside, but I was at a loss. It was an old car, designed before safety features like interior-opening trunk lids.

I felt around the lock area, trying to pry the lid up with my nails, trying to trip a catch that I couldn't see.

'I was twisted into a fetal position, wrapped around and on top of a spare tire. I knew there had to be a tire iron in the trunk. If I found the tire iron I might be able to force the trunk open. Or I might be able to do some damage when one of the Slayers opened the trunk. Enough to give me a chance to run.

The air was thick with the smell of tire, and the total blackness was smothering. Still, the smothering blackness was better than what awaited me when the trunk was opened. More irony, I thought. I drove Anton Ward to the shore like this. And here I am being driven to my fate under the same frightening, painful conditions. The Catholic in me rose to the surface. What goes around, comes around.

I gave up searching for the tire iron. Probably it was under the tire. And try as I might, I couldn't get myself into a position to get under the tire. So, I concentrated my energies on kicking at the trunk and yelling. The car was stopping for lights and pausing at intersections. Maybe someone would hear me.

I was so absorbed in kicking and yelling that I missed the moment when the engine cut off. I was in midscream when the trunk was opened, and I looked up into the faces of the men who'd abducted me. After all my recoveries, I was on the other side.

I'd always thought in a situation like this the major emotion I'd feel would be terror, but my major emotion was anger. I'd been taken away from my sister's shower. How freaking rude is that? And on top of it, I was still dieting, and I was cranky as hell. There'd been meatballs at the shower. And sheet cake. I'd been steadily working myself into a frenzy while I was in the trunk, thinking about the sheet cake. I glared out at the faces of the degenerate losers who'd kidnapped me, and I wanted to get close enough to them to sink my thumbs into their eye sockets. I wanted to draw blood with my nails.

I was hauled out of the trunk, in full rant, and dragged across the street to a bleak vest-pocket playground. The playground equipment was skeletal, covered with gang graffiti. The ground was littered with bottles and cans and fast food wrappers. The lighting was eerie. Dark shadows and an unearthly green wash from an overhead streetlight.

The playground was surrounded by four-story brick apartment buildings. Windows were tightly shut and shades drawn on the park exposure. No one wanted to see or hear what transpired here.

This was the middle of the seven-hundred block of Comstock Street. This was Slayerland.

Someone had painted a large white circle onto the cracked blacktop. I was shoved into the circle, and the members gathered around, careful not to step inside. Most of them were young. In their teens or early twenties. Hard to say how many there were.

Could be ten. Could be fifty. I was still in a blind rage, too crazed to count.

A big guy stepped forward, his face lost in the shadow of his hooded sweatshirt. Junkman.

This is the circle where we try the enemy,' he said. If you're not a member, you're the enemy. We already disposed of three of the enemy. This is your night. Are you the enemy?'

I didn't say anything. His fist swung out and caught me on the side of my face. The impact cracked like a rifle shot inside my head, my teeth cut into my bottom lip, and I staggered back. A roar went up from the group and hands grabbed at me, holding fast to my jacket, tearing my T-shirt. I lurched away, sacrificing the jacket to the grabbing men, going down to one knee.

This is the game, I thought, crawling to the relative safety of the center of the circle. They can't put a foot inside the ring. Only Junkman was inside the ring. And Junkman would continue to hit me until I was dragged out of the circle by the grabbing hands. And once I was out of the circle I guessed I was at the mercy of the gang, and they would do whatever it was that crazed depraved mobs did to women.

Junkman pulled me to my feet and hit me with another roundhouse swing, the force of the blow sending me to the circle's edge. I tried to escape to the center, but one of the men had a handful of T-shirt and another had me by the hair. I was yanked over the line and hand-passed deep into the mob. And brought face to face with Eugene Brown.

Remember me?' Eugene asked. 'You ran over me. Now I'm gonna be the first to run over you.'

My nose was running, and my vision was blurred by tears. Hard to say if the tears were from fright or from roiling, flaming fury. I didn't think I had a lot to lose by getting in one last kick, so I swung from the knee with as much power as I could find, and I caught Brown square in the crotch with my toe. He doubled over and went to the ground. I'd probably get raped by every other member of the gang, but I had the satisfaction of depriving Eugene Brown of the honor. I'd shoved Brown's nuts halfway up his throat. Brown wasn't going to be raping anyone for a while.

A murmur rippled through the men behind me. I was ready to kick out again, but the mobs attention had shifted to the street.

Several blocks south, a single set of headlights could be seen moving forward down Comstock. There'd been no traffic on the street prior to this. Probably there were Slayer sentries redirecting cars. Or maybe no one dared to travel the street after dark. I prayed that it was Joe or Ranger or Ranger's man in the SUV. No red light flashing. Hard to tell what sort of vehicle was attached to the headlights.

Everyone was watching the approaching vehicle. No one spoke.

Guns were drawn.

The vehicle was a block away.

'What the…' one of the men said.

It was a big yellow school bus.

The disappointment was crushing. I knew who drove the bus, and it was unlikely he could pull off a rescue. His intentions were undoubtedly heroic, but I worried that not only couldn't he save me… he probably was rushing to his own death.

The bus was barreling down the street at an alarming speed, bouncing and swaying, barely under control. It was surreal. It was riveting. And the mob watched in stupefied silence.

The bus went into a skid as it came abreast of the playground. It jumped the curb and plowed into the stunned gang members, brakes squealing, gang members yelling and scrambling to get out of the way.

The bus lurched to a smoking stop in the middle of the circle.

The door to the bus opened with a whoosh, and Sally wobbled out, all long, gangly, hairy legs and knobby knees, in his red chiffon cocktail dress and four-inch red sequined heels. His hair was Wild Man of Borneo. His eyes were dilated to the size of quarters.

I had a split second of mind-numbing terror for Sally. And then I saw that he was two-handing an Uzi.

'Rock and roll,' Sally said.

A bullet zinged past him and bounced off the bus. I dropped flat to the ground, and Sally squeezed off what sounded to me like about seven hundred rounds. When the dust settled there were several bloody bodies writhing in pain on the blacktop. Some had been run over, and some had been shot. Fortunately, I wasn't one of them.

Junkman had been one of those run over, his feet sticking out from under the bus like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz. The rest of the Slayers had scattered like cockroaches when the light goes on.

'F-F-F-fudge,' Sally said. 'Freaking fucking fudge.'

'Guess you were scared, huh?'

'Mother freaking fucking fudge,' he said. 'I almost pissed myself.'

I was surprisingly calm. My life had taken on a feature film quality. I was living Die Hard in Trenton. And Bruce Willis was in drag. And I wasn't dead. I wasn't raped. I was almost completely dressed. I was beyond calm. I was euphoric. The anger was gone.

Sirens and lights were flashing in the distance. Lots of headlights. It looked like everything but the Marines were on their way to the playground.

There were a bunch of dropped guns on the blacktop. I kicked them around to make sure all of the guys Sally'd nailed had a gun by him, not within reach, but close enough to believe they'd first drawn on Sally.

Two heads popped out of the bus door. The rest of the band.

'Holy shit,' one guy said. And they both retreated back into the bus and closed the door.

'We were taking a break out back, and I saw them grab you,' Sally said. 'I couldn't get across the parking lot fast enough to stop them, so I ran and got the bus. By the time I got it started up and out of the lot you were gone, but I got to thinking about this spot. I drive by here all the time on my route, and the kids talk about it, and how this is where the beatings and killings happen.'

The first car to arrive was a Trenton PD blue-and-white. It slid to a stop behind the bus and Robin Russell got out, gun drawn, eyes wide. 'Holy Toledo,' she said.

'I called everyone I could think of while I was driving,' Sally said.

'Including the fire department.'

No shit. I was going to have a seizure from the flashing lights.

Ranger pulled to a stop behind Russell's blue-and-white, and Morelli was behind Ranger. Morelli had his portable Kojak light, flashing red, stuck to the roof of his SUV. I knew he had to have flown through town to get here this fast. Morelli and Ranger hit the ground running. They slowed when they saw Sally and me standing in the middle of the massacre, the Uzi dangling from Sally's trigger finger.

I smiled at Morelli and Ranger and gave them a small wave.

'My heroes,' I said to Sally. 'Upstaged by a guy in a red dress and heels.'

'Freakin' humbling,' Sally said.

Robin Russell was already securing the crime scene with tape.

Ranger and Morelli slipped under the tape and picked their way around the bodies.

'Hi,' I said to them. 'What's up?'

'Not a lot,' Morelli said. "What's up with you?'

'Same old, same old.'

'Yeah, I can see that,' Morelli said.

'You remember Sally Sweet,' I said.

Ranger and Sally shook hands. And Joe and Sally shook hands. 'Sally mowed all these Slayers,' I said.

'I made sort of a mess,' Sally said. 'I didn't mean to run over them like this. I tried to stop, but the brakes aren't what they used to be on old Betsy. And it's friggin' hard to, you know, brake in heels. But what the hell, it turned out okay, right? All's well that ends well.'

Morelli and Ranger were both trying hard not to smile too wide.

'There's a nice reward being offered on Junkman,' Morelli said to Sally. 'Ten big ones.'

Ranger looked at the gun Sally was holding. 'Do you always carry an Uzi?'

'I keep it in the bus,' Sally said. 'Gotta protect the little dudes. I tried an AK- 47, but it wouldn't fit under my seat. I like the Uzi better, anyway. It looks better with the dress. The AK seems too casual to me.'

'It's important to accessorize properly,' I said.

'Fudgin' A,' Sally said.