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“Mei!”Licata screams, as if the bullet had hit him and not her.
Then there’s another shot fired out of the night, and another.Jimmy and I are flat on the ground then, reaching for our guns. As I roll to my side I make out the figure of someone scrambling into the sand at the bottom of the second dune, stopping just long enough to raise a long gun and fire another shot at Anthony Licata.
Who the hell is that?
I look the other way and see Licata running for cover, sliding down the dune in the direction of the ocean.
Jimmy and I drop to the ground.
“Who’s that?” Jimmy asks.
“Dunno—is he on our side?”
“Or wants to take everybody out,” Jimmy says, “one by one.”
Then he adds “Fuck it” and tells me to go after the shooter.
Then he’s on the move in the night, going after Licata to end this once and for all.
ONE HUNDRED TWELVE
TOO MUCH SAND AND slope and distance between the shooter and me. I wait for him to turn and fire at me, but he doesn’t, and I can almost make him out as he runs into the woods, heading south, in the general direction of the parking lot.
A man, tall and slender, wearing dark clothes. Maybe black clothes.
Eric Jacobson was dressed in black when he came to my house.
I’m the one sprinting back to where I left Jimmy.
I slide down the dune. I spot Licata moving in a crouch of his own along the thickest woods over there, as if he’s after Jimmy now, and not the other way around.
In the light of the moon, I see the blue cap and the glint of Licata’s gun.
The only shooter I can worry about in the moment is him.
Licata isn’t looking in my direction as I crawl, gun in hand, slowly through the sand in his direction.
Where is Jimmy?
I know I’m finally close enough to take the shot if I want it.
No time to wait for Jimmy, or for Licata to take the first shot if he spots me.
Just Anthony Licata and me now at the bottom of the dunes.
“Drop it, Licata,” I shout at him now. “Or I will shoot you dead.”
He freezes.
“Okay,” he shouts back. “Okay.”
I see him turn, slowly raising his hands, until he’s facing me.
But as I move toward him, the world begins to spin.
I’m dizzy again, the way chemo makes me dizzy sometimes, the way I was dizzy that night at the restaurant before I fainted.
As I struggle to maintain my balance, I lower my gun to my side.
