Killing Time

Thirty-Two

Silence for ten minutes. The plant building was dark-windowed and still, waiting. The three bodies lay unmoving on the pavement, half-lit by a streetlight farther to the left. There was no traffic and no pedestrians. Front Street was exclusively commercial property and now, almost one in the morning, the only people around were the combatants.

Silence for ten minutes. And then all hell broke loose.

A sudden roar of truck engines came from the right, and a Casale Brothers truck rumbled into sight, followed by another truck and another and another. The first jumped the curb in front of the main entrance to the plant, crossed the sidewalk, plowed through the hedge, and jolted to a stop a yard from the main entrance. The second and third followed the first, passed it, and halted on the lawn between hedge and building. The fourth tore through the hedge on the other side of the main entrance and stopped just behind the first, as two more trucks raced down from the other direction and into the parking lot to the left of the building.

Men poured from the backs of the trucks, carrying rifles and pistols. Red and white light-flashes spurted at the windows as those inside fired on the attackers, and then the Casales had shot the lock off the front door, and burst through and into the building.

There had been maybe sixty men in the trucks that had stopped at the front of the building. Five of these were now lying on the walk near the front door. The rest had surged inside, and I could hear gunfire and shouts from within the building. To the left, a second skirmish had started in the parking lot, out of sight.

The shooting went on and on, spreading out as the Casales moved deeper into the building. A man — Casale or Wycza, I couldn’t tell — suddenly burst out the gaping front doorway and ran for the street. He got halfway before fire flared in the doorway behind him, and he hurtled to his face, skidding on the pavement. Glass shattered in a second-story window, and a body dropped out, twisting in the air, crashing onto the hood of one of the trucks.

Then a group of men raced out of the empty building to the left of the one we were in. They dashed directly across the street and through the main entrance of the plant.

Art grunted, and said, “That’s Jack. That’s his way. Let them into the building, then hit them from two sides.” He got to his feet suddenly and said, “If we’re going to move at all, Mr. Smith, now’s the time.”

I kept watching. Mike and Sal and Bill still lay on the sidewalk, out where I could get a good view of them. One of the trucks had driven over Bill’s legs. That seemed like a hell of a thing to do.

“Now, Mr. Smith,” said Art coldly.

I looked up at him. He didn’t think as much of me any more, and he wasn’t bothering to hide it. It must be nice, I thought, to not give a damn. But of course he didn’t know any of the Casales. “All right,” I said. “Now.”

I stood beside him, looking out the window, trying to think. “We’ll want to go through the parking lot,” I said. “Reed’s offices are on that side, on the fifth floor.”

“All right,” he said.

“We’ll go out the back way,” I said, trying to think. I closed my eyes. “We’ll go down through the back yards to the corner, and cross there.”

“All right,” he said again. He started away, turned to look at me. “Come on, Mr. Smith,” he said.

I opened my eyes. They were still lying there. “All right,” I said.