The long way home

CHAPTER SIX

Two Motorcycles The police had approached the library quietly, trying not to scare me off. But now they saw me making my escape and they charged in to stop me. The blaring sirens and flashing lights went off like bombs. Four patrol cars came swooping in toward the library, two screeching around the corner from the left, two more from the right.

Mustache-Man, Blockhead, and I had just reached the last stair and were about to step down onto the sidewalk. The blond killer was holding the door of the dark car open only a few yards away. Other men, other thugs, were lurking in the shadows at the edges of my vision, lurking all around us in the deepening dusk.

But when the air suddenly filled with the screaming sirens, when the oncoming night suddenly burned red and blue with the cruisers' lights, everyone froze in place, startled. Mustache-Man. Blockhead. Blond Killer. The shadows all around. Everyone froze.

Everyone but me.

I was the only one who'd been expecting it-hoping for it. I was the only one who was ready to move.

At the first siren's wail, I yanked my arm free of Mustache-Man's grip. He tried to react. He started to turn. A stiletto-a long, thin knife-suddenly flashed in his hand in the light of the streetlamp.

But he wasn't quick enough. I brought my fist down like a hammer on the bridge of his nose. Blood sprayed from his nostrils as his head flew back. In the same movement, with the same arm, I sent my elbow driving back, smashing it into Blockhead's teeth.

The thugs fell away from me. Blockhead stumbled off the bottom step and spilled to the pavement.

That was all the room I needed. I leapt forward and ran-not toward the dark car, but toward another car parked behind it. I threw myself at the hood, hit the top of it, and rolled. I dropped off the other side, landing on my feet in the middle of the street.

Blinded by the headlights of the onrushing cop cars, I stumbled forward but managed to keep my balance, to keep moving. In less than a second, I was rushing for the far curb, rushing for the motorcycle I'd seen from the window, the one parked just across from the entrance, just in front of the grassy park.

I didn't know if it was the right motorcycle, the one the key in my pocket would fit. There was still that other one parked farther down the street. But this one was closer. This was the only one I could get to before the police cars reached the front of the library.

I had no choice. I had to take the chance.

What happened next took only an instant, but that instant seemed to go on forever. Everything around me was noise and light and confusion. The discordant screams of the sirens, like cries from a jungle where the animals have all gone insane. The white glare of the headlights stampeding toward me. The whirl of the red and blue flashers bouncing off the trees and the cars and the sidewalks and the dark of evening with a sort of crazy gaiety. Even as I ran through that onrushing chaos, I glanced back over my shoulder. And yes, I saw the hulking shadows of the Homelanders. I saw them hurrying away, slipping off into the deeper shadows, escaping the police. None of them paused to shout after me. None of them drew a gun and took aim. None of them dared. The police were just too close, screaming closer and closer with every moment. There was nothing the Homelanders could do but run for it and hope to find me again another time.

So now-for me-there were just the police. Just, that is, the threat of being arrested again, of being sent back to prison for murder, put in a cell for twenty-five years.

I faced forward and ran with all the speed I had in me.

Two more steps-two, then three-and I was there, at the motorcycle. I saw the orange-and-white logo: it was a Harley at least. But was it the right one? With one hand I was reaching out for the handlebars. My other hand was in my pocket, my fingers on the key I'd taken from the blond killer in the bathroom. I pulled the key from my pocket even as I grabbed the handlebar and threw my leg over the cycle's seat.

In the same instant, I heard the hoarse screech of tires as the police hit their brakes. The cruisers jolted to a halt right beside me, to the left and right of me, blocking the street off in both directions.

I jammed the key into the bike's ignition.

The sirens stopped. I heard the cruiser doors thumping open. I heard shouts in the night.

"Hold it, West!"

"Hold it right there!"

"Freeze!"

For one second, I looked up, looked around me. I saw the faces of policemen going blood-red and night-black as the flashers played over them. I saw their figures poised and tense, their arms at their holsters-and then lifting, bringing up their guns, bringing them to bear on me.

Did I have the right motorcycle? Did I have the right one?

I turned the key.