Death Sentence

21

The girl was nearly grown; she must have been at least thirteen but her father had her tightly by the hand. He was a big man, black-skinned, overcoat flapping in the wind. With her free hand the young girl held her hat, though it was battened to her head by a scarf tied round her chin. Together they executed careful negotiations of the ice slicks and plow-piled snow at the curb, stepping over it and crossing the street into the grey dusk.

The man in the beret followed them, and Paul followed the man in the beret: a pilgrimage from the pawn shop into the darkness.

Paul had been in his car watching the pawnshop. It had happened quickly; he’d hardly parked the car. The father and daughter had been in the shop when he’d arrived and he hadn’t seen them enter but it was likely they’d carried something in with them — something they weren’t carrying now — and that was what had attracted the man in the beret. Paul hadn’t seen that one either until the man had emerged from his post in the doorway beyond the pawnshop. There was no mistaking the fact he was following them; he put his own feet in the prints the father had left in the snow at the curb.

By the time the man in the beret stepped off the curb to cross the intersection the father and daughter had disappeared into the cross street beyond the movie house; the man in the beret was giving them a lead, possibly to avoid alarming them.

Paul crossed the street directly from his car, cutting across the man’s path; he gained distance that way and at the same time made it look as if he was heading toward the movie house on the corner.

A man was up on a ladder changing the movable letters on the marquee: one X-rated double bill died, another was born. Paul walked under the marquee and pretended to examine the posters advertising the lewdness within. The man in the beret went past the foot of the ladder and turned into the cross street. Paul kept his back turned until the predator was gone; then he went straight across to the far side of the cross street before he looked left.

Father and daughter were picking their slow careful way home hand in hand. The man in the beret wore soft black shoes — possibly sneakers: they made no sound. His stride had lengthened; he would overtake them in the next block.

Paul stayed close to the buildings; he moved in spurts from shadow to shadow. He’d thought days ago of tennis shoes but he’d had to abandon the idea; they’d have been out of place with his clothing. He could afford to do nothing that might attract notice.

The man in the beret was not tall but he had long legs and Paul had gained no ground on him by the end of the first block. Father and daughter were two-thirds the way to the second intersection and the man in the beret was only a half dozen paces behind; all three walked on the opposite side of the street from Paul.

He had to cross under the street light but the man in the beret didn’t look back.

Paul reached the curb and a car went across the intersection behind him, tires slithering a little: the temperature was a good many degrees below freezing and everything had hardened.

He took the right glove off and slid the naked hand into his pocket and formed it around the revolver’s grip.

Before he entered the darkness he looked to his right along the cross street — a random glance — and it made him stiffen: the car that had crossed behind him was a police car, quietly cruising. But it kept moving away steadily and he thought, All they saw was my back, and then he turned to search for the father and daughter and the man in the beret.

They had disappeared: the street was empty.

He moved swiftly, almost running, precarious on the ice; after half a dozen strides he angled toward the long ridge of snow the plows had piled up along the curb; he ran awkwardly, overshoes plunging ankle-deep into the snow, but it was better than falling.

He was scanning the doorways across the street. The lights were all gone: stone-throwing and sling-shooting kids routinely used them for target practice in streets like this. Here and there a dim glow splashed from a window imperfectly curtained; but the dusk had given way to night and visibility was very bad.

He was making a racket but scaring the predator off was better than nothing. He plunged his foot deeper than it should have gone — a chuckhole in the street; he fell into the hard snow and his cheek banged against the crusted ice.

He had to take his hand out of his pocket to push himself to his feet and then he took the first step gingerly, not sure whether he might have hurt his ankle. It was all right and he moved on, fumbling for the revolver.

A scream: it had to be the little girl’s voice. He searched the shadows. There was a strange whacking noise: loud, sudden; he couldn’t make it out. He ran along the edge of the street. The girl began to scream again and he heard the hard slap of flesh against flesh; the scream was cut off abruptly in its middle.

It was close by him. Somewhere almost directly across the street. He left the snowbank and slithered across the iced asphalt, lifting the Centennial from his pocket. His face stung where he’d fallen on it.

The man in the beret leaped at him.

He came from a well beyond the stone railing of the front stairs: a single bound onto the curb, an immense weapon raised high overhead — huge, a great enormous blade.

Machete.

The man’s eyes gleamed in the night. Paul lost his footing, went down, broke his fall with the heel of his left hand. The two-foot machete loomed above him, lofted in both hands: a wallet fell on Paul’s leg. The man’s bewildering cry thundered: “Get that mother!”

Paul fell back flat in the street: he fired.

The bullet caromed off something. It slid away with a sobbing sound.

Trigger and then trigger again...

He was still shooting when the revolver was empty and the machete clattered on the ice and the man was falling across Paul’s overshoes.

He dragged himself out from under, trembling uncontrollably. He got to his knees.

The man died with a blast of breath and a single twitch, and a stench that immediately expanded around him.

Paul crouched, staring at the dead man as if to prove to himself that he could take it.

Finally he stood, trying to breathe through the nausea. Around the body it was spreading, a great bloodstain like a psychiatrist’s inkblot.

He stumbled toward the stone steps and peered into the darkness there. At the foot of the service stair, half a floor below ground level, the young girl stood huddled in the corner. Her face was slack with shock.

Her father sagged beside her, sitting down, his back to the stones, clutching an arm from which blood poured sickeningly. His chin was down on his chest; he was rocking himself in pain. He never looked up.

But the young girl stared upward and Paul thought, She’s seen me.

Then when he moved her eyes didn’t stir. He saw the glaze then, the unfocus.

She was blind.

That was why her father had held her so closely by the hand.

He heard a siren. He couldn’t tell where it was or which direction it was going.

He reached up. The empty gun was still in his hand. He dragged the back of his hand across his cheek. Blood still dripped from the scraped side of his jaw where he’d fallen.

The girl was trying to speak to him but the siren grew louder.

Paul lurched away.