Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Forty-Two

Spike rolled over in front of both of us, his gun somehow already cleared.

I held Rosie to me, as low to the ground as I could keep both of us, and could see a man running up River Street in the direction of the Meeting House.

“Stay down,” Spike said. “I’m going after him.”

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

I had my gun out of the side pocket of the leather jacket by now, and could see lights going on all around us.

“Go back inside,” Spike said, “and call nine-one-one if somebody hasn’t already.”

He looked like a sprinter coming out of a crouch now. All the times and all the miles we had run the Half Shell, I knew how fast he was, as big as he was, how quickly he could get himself up to full speed when he wanted to show off.

But as he got near the corner of Charles and River, I saw the retreating figure suddenly stop and turn and get into a crouch himself and fire again.

Spike went down.

I heard a scream from up above me as I ran for him, and then another scream, and Rosie barking as she ran behind me, and a screech of tires somewhere up ahead. Then the street was quiet again until I could hear the first sirens in the distance.