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"Left?" Macon looked at the counterman. "Did he go out the kitchen?"
"No, boss."
"Then-"
Macon heard plastic flapping. He followed the sound to the music player. Behind a shelving unit filled with stacked boxes of dry supplies a hole in the wall, plastic-covered, flapped. He suspected there'd once been a wall-unit air conditioner, probably long since sold off, the hole then filled with a couple of layers of roofing sheet.
Well, you'd have to expect a few rats to dodge a trap. Maybe Stutters-with-Gimp wasn't as stupid as he looked.
The whore came out of the washroom.
"Anyone who doesn't want to be dead, follow me," Macon said, looking pointedly at her. "You too, Red. Casp, bring up the rear, I don't want any more stragglers."
He strode out the door. The Transporter waited in the lot near the exit. They probably wouldn't be able to see into the windowless back compartment until they were inside. He just needed them to follow him to the back doors. Half of your Authority was in how you presented yourself, walked, talked, confidence bred-
Hands swung down out of the daylight like a mousetrap snapping shut. Before Macon processed that a man-a very strong one-must be up on the Wayside roof, somehow he was in the air, swung aloft by the straps on his Model 18 and his own field harness. He sagged as his gun hitched around some invisible projection, he could just see the shoulder brace of the folding stock ...
"Casp!"
A shadow dropped, the steel hammer pick in its hand. The Indian-
He heard Casp grunt.
Three wet strikes. Two quick, one loud and slow-a secret knock struck by a hatchet on a melon-and Casp fell. He looked like a toppled chess piece. The same neat collar, the same well-trimmed hair, facedown in front of a nowhere fill-up, all those hours in the gym punishing a punching bag obviated . . .
"Run for your lives," the Indian yelled to those inside, his stutter gone.
He swung one leg up on the roof, yanked on his gun until the strap came free, then felt himself fall-pulled down.
The ground hit him, hard.
A flurry of legs and he rolled over. Still had the gun. Smelled blood, saw it leaking out of Casp.
Horror in the lot. Red ran out of the driver's compartment on the Transporter. Those fools . . .
The Indian and Red were throwing bundles into the back of his Pooter. His Pooter! They climbed in, pressed the starter.
Macon raised his gun, sighted. He'd blow their brains out and let a sanitation squad clean up the Pooter.
PKEW! the gun rocked sideways in his hand. It had never done anything like that before in his range practice. He lowered it, tried to work the ejector but it wouldn't slide.
Misfire-
No, the Indian had jammed something in the barrel. The gun's mechanism was jammed. Shit-this had never happened to him in the field before, he'd had classroom training.
The Pooter spun around in the parking lot. Macon rolled out of the way, but they weren't heading for him . . . they pulled up alongside the Transporter and the girl slammed a bag into the wheel well.
The bag hissed and smoked.
The Pooter kicked up pebbles as they roared out of the Wayside.
Panting, heart hammering as it had never beat before, Macon dropped the useless gun and rushed to the side of the truck. Expecting to be torn to shreds any second by the blast, he wrenched the charge free. Hurled the bag-odd shape for a demolition charge, and wet, must be some bathtub fertilizer mix in Kur-knows-what container. Had the presence of mind to hit the dirt between himself and the still-airborne explosive.
It landed on the road. He could see it from beneath the Transporter. The bag had split on impact.
The cigarette she'd stuck inside the bag had gone out. The sputtering hiss had been from a bottle of flavored soda that had sprung a leak as she crammed it against the wheel. It was the bag full of sandwiches he'd told the kid to gather.
Angry, angrier than he'd ever been-who were these fuckers!- Macon climbed into the cab and shoved the dead idiots to the side. The radio was smashed. How had that dolt Casp not heard the Transporter crew being killed? Why had the Reapers remained inside? The passenger-side body was grinning at the secret joke of their demise, a Bicycle brand card still in his hand and a vast hole in his throat, as though someone had pried out his windpipe.
