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The rear doors of the van burst open with a devastating
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crash, and Russo was hurtled backward across the concrete. Massey fired his
shotgun out of nervous reaction, but his shot went wide.
A short, heavily built man in a glaring white mask swung from the back of the
van and threw himself on Russo. Russo felt as if a whole bag of cement had
been dropped on him from a second-floor window. He pressed the muzzle of his
gun against the man's side and screamed, "Get off, or I'll blow your guts
out!" But the man seized Russo by the neck with mad, unstoppable ferocity and
began to twist.
Russo saw scarlet. Nothing but scarlet. He didn't know where he was or what
was happening. He fired his gun and felt the shock of the recoil and the thump
of the bullet entering his attacker's body. But the pain didn't stop, and the
viselike grip on his neck didn't let up, and he dropped his pistol a numbness
as agonizing and overwhelming as an electric shock stunned his reflexes.
Massey fired again, hitting the masked man in the muscle of the right
shoulder. The shot turfed up a bloody lump of flesh, but the man kept on
wrenching wildly at Russo's prostrate body as if nothing had happened. Massey
ran two or three paces nearer, knelt down, aimed, and fired at pointblank
range. There was a deafening report, and he saw the yellow cotton of the man's
clothes scorch black where the bullet entered his, side.
The masked man lifted his head, turned, and hit out with a swing of his arm
that sent Massey sprawling. Massey knocked his head hard on the concrete, and
for a moment he was stunned.
The masked man climbed to his feet, his clothes bloody and burned from the
gunshots. He picked up Russo as if he were a child, and carried him over to
his patrol car.
The masked man gripped Russo by his ankles and swung him around. Russo was
choked and only semiconscious, but he was still alive. He could feel the grip
on his ankles, and he could feel the world tilting and rushing around him as
the man spun him around like a flail.
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Then, with all of his terrible strength, the man gave Russo a final swing and
smashed him face first into the windshield of his police car. Razor-sharp
fragments of glass sliced the flesh away from Russo's cheeks and forehead, and
a long sliver stabbed up into the soft skin under his chin and penetrated his
tongue.
Russo couldn't scream, or cry, or do anything. He was helpless in the grip of
his maddened killer. He could only close his eyes and hope that the pain would
end.
The masked man swung him back, out of the shattered windshield, and then
around again. He beat him against the police car's hood, and against the
headlights, and against the grille, until the car was splattered with blood
and jellyish brains, and Russo was crushed and dead. Through the darkness of
his concussion, Massey could hear Russo's death as a series of soft, hollow
thumps.
The traffic on the freeway passed by and didn't stop. But this was one time
when you couldn't blame anybody. There was too much blood. Too much horror.
And the sight of a mangled policeman with a head that was nothing more than a
smashed watermelon, sliding off the hood of his wrecked car, well, that was
reason enough to step on the gas pedal and keep going, trembling, until you
reached home in Pasadena.
The masked man turned toward Massey. His breath came in deep, distinct whines.
Massey opened his eyes and saw the man standing over him, and he tried to
think where his shotgun was, and whether it was even worth struggling. He felt
a moment of utter helplessness and fear.
But then the masked man turned away. Unsteadily, uncertainly, as if the pistol
bullet and the two shotgun bullets had hurt him at last. He stood by the side
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of the freeway, rocking on his heels, and then promptly sat down. After
another few seconds, he collapsed.
Massey tried to stand up. He had managed to lift himself onto all fours when
Yoshikazu came around the van; he had been hiding on its other side. Yoshikazu
raised a
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warning finger, instructing Massey to stay where he was. Then, with great
difficulty, he gripped the masked man under the arms and began to drag him
across the concrete back toward the van.
Massey watched Yoshikazu for a while. Then he crawled toward his shotgun,
picked it up, pumped another round into the chamber, and knelt on the ground,
pointing the gun at Yoshikazu's back.
"Don't you make another move," he said.
Yoshikazu turned. "I have to put him back in van. He could revive."
"You heard me," said Massey.
A green Plymouth station wagon slowed down beside the police car, but when the
driver saw the blood, and the gun, and Yoshikazu laying the short man down on
the concrete, he took off with a shriek of tires.
Massey said, "Stand up slowly and put your hands on top of your head."
Yoshikazu began to raise his hands. But then, quite suddenly, he dropped to
the ground and rolled behind the body of the masked man, using him for cover.
Massy fired twice. His first bullet hit the short man in the leg, the second
ricocheted off the concrete.
Yoshikazu tugged an automatic out of his windbreaker and fired back. The
bullet hit Massey in the side of the head, in an extravagant spray of blood.
He reeled on his knees and then toppled face first onto the ground.
Yoshikazu scrambled to his feet. His teeth were clenched with tension and
fear. He humped the bleeding body of the masked man back up to the van and
succeeded in dragging him inside. He wedged the doors together, even though
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