He came into the room slowly, walking straddle-legged around his injured testicles. He had heavy leather work gloves on, and as he took them off I could see that his right hand was rusty as if he had dipped it in paint. And the empty half of my handcuffs still dangled from it.
"Ask him," he said in a low, hoarse voice. He came through the crowd of seated men and stood a few feet from me. I willed Sam not to growl and he didn't, his training too deep to presume in my presence.
"Wondering how I got away? Is that it, tough guy?" He held up his right hand so I could see it better. I could see that the rust was turning to black and I knew what had happened. "Easy," he said, and laughed with a sound like the bark of an angry dog. "Easy. You didn't look around that cabin too good, did you? There was a hatchet in the kindling box. I disconnected the kid."
"You cut his hand off?" I could hardly believe it. I knew he was a killer, but that kind of deliberate horror was too hard to imagine.
"Don't worry about him none. He won't be needin' it. You worry about you." He held out his left hand and I saw what was in it. "See this? Know what it is? It's a grenade. Seen one before?"
I had seen, and used, dozens of them. It was an M67, a fragmentation grenade, capable of killing most of the people in the hall. If he was careful and went out to the doorway he could bounce it in among us, then drop flat below the stone step that rose to this level. He would live. We would die, or suffer injuries most of the men in this room had never dreamed of. Only the Legion veterans knew what grenades can do.
I noticed he had already removed the safety clip. Now he removed the pin, keeping his hand clamped around the lever. He tossed the pin casually among the people on the floor and they scrambled away from it, all except for one gray-haired man who looked at it without flinching.
"If you killed the kid that makes four people you've wasted tonight."
He laughed again, stopping in mid-bark as pain struck his diaphragm. He coughed gently, clutching the hand with the grenade to his solar plexus. Then he straightened. "You've done better than that in your time," he said. "Women, kids, no problem to our big tough Marine."
I glanced at Margaret Sumner. She was sitting mesmerized on the edge of the stage, her mouth slightly open. The gun was slumped upside down across her knees, the muzzle pointing harmlessly up at a spot high on the side wall. This was the break I'd prayed for earlier, but now it was too late. Her son had us much more secure than her single-hit gun ever did.
I was willing her to shoot him. If she did, I could have a chance to grab the grenade before he dropped it, before the lever flipped away and the last four seconds of our lives began to tick. But if I was too late, I was helpless. There were heavy drapes over the window. I would not have time to part them, smash the glass, and throw the grenade out. And if I did, I had the new problem of my own making. The parking lot was full of women sitting behind the eggshell security of their Detroit sheet metal. The fragments would slice through three of them in a row. I would have dead women on my hands.
But otherwise? Otherwise, what? I would die here, among a number of others. I had to negotiate.
"Margaret, talk to him. He's your son, he'll listen to you. Tell him not to let go of that thing, I'll put the pin back in."
Tom waved his left hand, pushing out his lower lip and making a downturned smile. "I'm through takin' orders, Bennett. And so are you." He jerked his head to the women on stage. "Come on, you two. Out in the lobby an' lay down. I wanna open these guys' Christmas present."
Margaret slid down, holding the gun in one hand by the barrel. Then Rachael followed. She had lost her anger but none of her hatred. She sneered at me without speaking as she passed.
Tom waited for them to go to the door, then followed slowly, painfully. I had caused him pain. So far that was the best news I had had all night. We all swiveled our heads to watch him go. He stood at the door and addressed us all. "Any of you wanna say a prayer, get it said." He paused to give another painful cough. "Only make it quick. This here is a capitalist weapon, same as your hero used in Viet Nam. When I pitch it in, you're on your last four seconds. It will kill most of you like a lot of people got killed in that rotten war. Any of you as don't die, I'll come back for."
My head was racing. Around me men were weeping, praying, some pushing themselves back, vainly, on hands and heels. I knew I had to load the dice my way if I could. I broke in on his speech.
"Don't listen to this punk. He's nothing more than a jailhouse queen acting butch."
He pointed at me with his right hand. "You sent me in there, you sonofabitch. I was straight as an arrow up to then."
"Gearbox!" I roared it. "The only way you can bang anything is with a grenade."
It worked. Instead of tossing the grenade he hurled it directly at me, hard as a line drive in baseball, hard as the hockey slap-shots I used to grab out of the air when I played goal for Sudbury my last year in high school. I was ready. It was all slowed down as if I were on dope. The lever catapulted away in a series of slow lazy loops. I counted in my head, the seconds booming like cannons.
One! Grab the grenade out of the air, swinging my arm back and spinning completely around to take the force without shocking the load any further.
Two! Shout "Fight" to Sam, who jumped for Margaret Sumner who was struggling to bring the gun up to a firing position while her son pushed her toward the lobby door and I leaped toward the door of Puckrin's office, dodging the flat bodies of men who groveled there, willing themselves smaller.
Three! Into the office and over the desk.
Four! Roll the grenade into the open safe with my right hand and slam the door with my left.
I hit the floor as the grenade exploded, muffled by the walls of the safe but loud enough to deafen me. Without pausing, I shook my head and came back into the hall on the run in case Sam had failed to pin Margaret Sumner.
She was tugging back against his jaws clamped on her right arm, trying to reach the trigger with her left hand. Tom was looming over and around her, punching at Sam. Sam was ignoring him, snarling, holding, ignoring the punches. Then as I sprinted toward them, I saw Tom making a dagger of his thumb and stab down, going for Sam's eyes. I let out a roar of fury and drove right into him, smashing him up under the chin with the edge of my left hand.
He flew backward and I turned and punched Margaret in the abdomen, a clean, short click of a punch that doubled her over and let the gun clatter to the floor. Rachael was cowering back, covering her eyes with her hands. I pointed to her and told Sam "Keep" and he jumped in front of her, snarling, poised to leap.
I glanced at Tom but he was out of it, clutching his throat, gagging, dying. I knelt and patted his pockets-they were empty-then his mother's. She lay looking up at me sightlessly, and then her breath came back in a long, howling whoop.
I stood up. I was trembling all over. In that second I could have wept, but slowly, one breath at a time, I calmed myself and stood looking down at Tom, who was going blue in the face. Then I felt the first man at my elbow. I turned and recognized Dr. McQuaig. He said nothing, just dropped to his knees beside Tom. "Quick. Your knife," he commanded. I took out my clasp knife, black from the smoke of the chimney of hours, years before when I had straddled the roof of the cottage. He opened it, pausing to wipe the blade on the front of his shirt and made a small incision in Tom's throat. Blood welled out and the doctor shouted, "Quick, a ballpoint pen."
I was too stunned to move but he shouted it again and someone ran up holding a pen. He unscrewed the body and tossed aside the mechanism, then crooked his finger around the exposed windpipe, slit it, and inserted the tapered end of the tube into the slit. Tom kicked and tried to grab it but the doctor held his hands. "Leave it alone and ye'll live," he shouted. Then to me, "Bennett, hold his hands."
I took one, Walter Puckrin took the other, and the doctor sat on his legs and slowly Tom's kicking subsided and air whistled in through the pen body. His color came back. The doctor looked at me and grinned.
"Haven't seen so much excitement since the day we landed in Normandy," he said. Other men came in to take over holding Tom and we all stood up. The doctor retrieved my knife from the floor, wiped the blade on his handkerchief, and said in a voice as Scotch and clear as Irv Whiteside's beloved J & B, "I believe the rascal will live."
"Thanks, Doc." I reached out and shook his hand and as we shook he added, "Y'know, there are times when I wish I weren't quite so damn handy at m'job."
Slowly it was all put back together. Men went out and brought the women back into the Hall. Other men took turns holding Tom's hands and feet while the doctor supervised. Me, I took off my burnt, itchy leather hat and went to the bar. Men were clustering about me, banging me on the back, trying to shake my hands. I was the King. I was the guy who had saved their lives, made good triumph over evil, and most important of all, given most of them the only exciting memory they would ever have. All of which would be forgotten the first time I had to write them a summons for failing to come to a complete stop at the stop sign on the highway.
The barman pushed the bottle of Black Velvet at me, with a tall glass. I poured myself a solid drink and took a good long pull on it. I nodded my thanks and walked over to Sam, who was watching both the women. Margaret had her breath back by now and Rachael was sitting with her knees drawn up and her hands over her face. I ignored them both and stooped to fuss Sam, tickling him under his good ear and telling him he was a good boy.
And then I heard a sudden angry bellow behind me. Moving on reflexes I stood up, holding my glass low, ready to pitch it at the face of the man if he attacked me. I saw Walter Puckrin striding toward me. His face was black as thunder but he was laughing as he came.
"You crazy, dangerous bastard," he roared. "You know what you just did?"
"I saved a bunch of asses," I said. Modesty was taking second place to truth now I had taken a good taste of my rye.
"That's just the half of it." He held up his hands and trickled out a cloud of scorched confetti. "You just blew eight hundred and ninety-three dollars to rat shit."