Down the block a man shouted something incoherent, his leonine roar piercing the night for a moment before being cut off abruptly. A woman howled, and I picked up the phone and dialed Elaine’s cell. Her voice was wide awake when she answered; she hadn’t been sleeping either.
Sam mumbled something behind her and she made unhappy noises aimed away from the mouth piece; there were fumbling sounds as Sam grabbed the phone from her and came on line: “Yeah?”
“Get your butt over here right now, boy. It’s going down.”
Then I was out the door, locking it behind me and checking the knob before heading on. The gun was in my hand pointing at the ground as I rolled up on the bungalow the howling had come from.
It was easy enough to spot: the front door was wide open, all the lights were on, and what looked like every adult male in the Gardens was milling around it. I went inside: a tiny black woman in a nightgown knelt on the floor cradling Big Moe’s bloody head.
“My baby,” she sobbed, staring out the open back door.
I ran out that way and joined the flood of men running toward the brush-line. “He went in there,” somebody yelled, and I followed the herd into the chaotic dark of the undergrowth, people cursing and stumbling, my face getting whipped and stung by branches springing back from the progress of all those ahead. Somebody started shooting, the muzzle flash from one round after another lighting up the shrubbery in front of me and to my left.
“Stop that, idiot,” Mackie shouted somewhere behind me in the dark. “Either you’ll hit the kid or one of us.”
That’s when the Cougar’s engine kicked over somewhere in front of me: He must have come in from above and coasted his car down one of the fire lanes cut through the underbrush surrounding the Gardens, maybe one we hadn’t even known was there. Then he’d ninja-ed his way into the Gardens and taken his prey in a smash-and-grab.
I heard road gravel kicking up as the Driver peeled out, and there were cries of dismay from that direction – his closest pursuers must have gotten pelted in the face by the Cougar’s rooster-tail.
I turned and clawed my way back through the undergrowth. As I was right by the entrance there was still a chance.
I charged full bore across the avenue and down one of the phantom courts, hopping the curb to keep running on the flattened earth of the prepped lot beyond. As I wove my way between surveyor’s stakes, the Cougar’s roar grew clearer and louder behind me as it emerged from the narrow over-grown entrance to the fire lane and gunned out onto the avenue.
The Cougar’s tires screeched as it took the first corner but I just kept running. He rounded the second corner as I neared the Caterpillar, gloating that I’d be in place to take my shot.
That’s when I tripped and fell flat on my face, the pistol spinning from my hand to disappear somewhere in the weeds. I leapt up and took a despairing glance around for the pistol, but it was nowhere in sight.
So much for your grand plan, the unforgiving part of my mind sneered. I ran around the contractor’s hut, to do what I don’t know: throw myself on the hood and scrabble my way inside with my bare hands maybe.
I rounded the hut just in time to see taillights as the Cougar ramped up the access road, turned left onto Moose Creek Road, and headed home to party. I ran up the access road even though my legs were already trembling underneath me, and turned left into the piney woods like I stood a chance in hell of catching up on foot. Even though I doubted I’d do any better this time than at the Arcade with Mai, I still had to try.