Continued from here. Table of contents for ease of navigation here.
28.
The same name—“Spider”—had been calling all day, that 718 number, again and again. Gaye looked at the phone each time, closed the drawer each time, and each time waited it out, waited for the ringing to stop. It had to be rightmething important; under ordinary circumstances he’d just call it over the horn—“Oberman, someone wants you”—but he knew Wanamaker would have his ass. Nevertheless, a combination of concern and annoyance—how did you turn off that rebarbative ringing?—inspired him to action. He looked up Campbell’s cell number in the spiral directory. He slid close to him the big desk phone with the side row of clear buttons…
29.
Traffic duty, while the King of Cottiened, so-called, was dead in his car a few miles away, was very frustrating for Oberman. There were not enough ambulances nearby, and he could hear backups being called from Binghamton and Ithaca. On the other side of the road, the south side, pooled a large margin of survivors, some mildly wounded and others just waiting to leave an official statement. Lepage was over there, trying to keep the press from coming too close and harassing everybody.
It was just another car to turn away. A white man, fortyish, in a hooded jacket, his window rolling down as Oberman leaned in to say, once again, that there was a police action ahead; take a right; detour; etc.
“What’s the deal, officer?” the man said, but Oberman barely noticed. It was the smell instead, the smell that clung to the man’s rumpled hair.
“Please step out of the car,” Oberman said. His tone of voice had Campbell dropping his cigarette, looking up.
“Wait, is there a problem, officer? I’m just trying to—”
“No problem, sir, I’m just going to have to ask you to step out of the car.” He put his hand on his pistol, unsnapping the holster. It was the smell of gunfire. Oberman knew it well, from the practice range, but it was the concentrated stench from that red car…
“I don’t know what the problem is, officer.” He slowly extracted himself from the car. He stank.
“What’s that in your pocket, sir?” Oberman said.
“My wallet? Oh, this? Oh.” There was a bulge in the man’s jacket. Oberman just reached in and pulled out a rumpled rubber mask. Alfred E. Neuman.
Everyone seemed to freeze.
30.
Alan was dimly aware of voice coming down from the top of a great pit. He was at the bottom of the pit. The voice said, “We have a live one.”
It was very bright—the light, it turned out that two men were shining in his eyes.
“Scalp laceration. Looks like a ricochet?”
Alan should probably tell them something.
“Lord love a…look, there’s metal in here. Dude’s got metal plates in his head.”
Well of course he does, though Alan. He is I. But that’s not what he wanted to say.
“Saved his frigging life.”
The lips of this corpse he controlled were moving, but it seemed there was no breath. He tried to gather his breath.
“Don’t worry, guy, you’ll be all right. You’re in good hands.”
“Two,” said Alan.
“Don’t try to talk.”
“Two men. In the Zephyr.”
31.
Colin felt like—he felt like he had done this all before. He started to feel like he must have done everything right, if it had brought him to this moment. He was just watching for them to forget something, to leave something unattended; like their car keys, for example. Pennsylvania was closer than it ever had been.
The younger cop turned to gape at the mask, which dangled from his hand like a severed head. Like a picture Colin had seen in an art museum once—that Doré exhibit? The older cop, ten feet away or so, took a step forward. Everyone had a ridiculous, popeyed face except (he assumed) himself.
As the younger cop turned Colin saw his open holster.
No one was prepared for this except Colin Lang. Colin Lang was prepared for anything. That gave him a moment’s lead time.
He whisked the pistol from the holster, making sure to draw it up and out. He’d never drawn a pistol before, but he figured from his angle it would be easy for the tip to catch on the holster’s edge. He pulled it straight up, and then stepped back. Don’t waste time, he thought, on the unarmed cop. Colin was looking directly at the pistol, and not at anyone else; if the safety was not obvious, he’d be in trouble.
It was obvious.
He turned the gun towards the older man, who had taken the moment to begin drawing his own sidepiece. He’d had to unsnap his holster, though, and Colin had the drop on him. He started firing. The first shot went wild, but the cop was so close now there was really no way the second and third bullets could. The older cop wheeled, his gun firing wild as he spun to the ground. The young cop had stepped forward to grab Colin, and one of those wild shots hit him. He fell down at Colin’s feet.
Lucky break, Colin thought. But as long as the old cop was still able to shoot, even at random, he was a threat. Colin wasted a couple of bullets on him. Ludicrously, as the shots went home, the cop’s cell phone began to ring. “La Cucaracha.” It was like shooting a target at the county fair to make a bell ring.
Satisfied, Colin turned back to the car and immediately fell down. The young cop, gripping his bleeding belly, had Colin’s ankle in his other hand.
From the ground, Colin looked back at the younger cop’s face. His eyes were shut and he seemed to be in pain; but his grip was strong. Colin pointed the gun at the cop’s face.
He wasn’t sure if he’d shot off five bullets or six. He also wasn’t sure if cop guns held six bullets or if that was just cowboys’. It was exciting, though. He was excited to find out.
It turned out cop guns held a lot more than six bullets.
He pulled his leg from the slack dead grip, clambered to his feet. But then something knocked the wind out of him. He fell to the ground. He’d been so intent on the two cops, he hadn’t really been focusing on the background screams. There’d been so many background screams today. But now some of what he’d been hearing registered.
“That’s him! That’s the guy.”
Colin was offended! Didn’t they know that Bernie was dead in a car a few miles from here? Why should they take this out on him?
And indeed most of them were running away or playing dead. But a couple of guys—thrill seekers, no doubt—had charged forward. One was wrapped around Colin’s waist as they rolled in the grass. Another grabbed his feet, both feet, while a third wrapped himself around his shoulders and neck.
“You shot my brother, you asshole!”
“That was someone else,” said Colin. “These dirty cops, for example.” But it was hard to say things with these three people on top of him. And once everyone saw that the three people had him pinned, they all came over. Big heroes, jump on a subdued man.
“Where’s the gun?” one of the geniuses said.
“I think he dropped it.”
But Colin had not dropped it. It was in his hand, which was lodged under his chest, which was pressed into the dirt by the weight of a pigpile.
With a sigh of resignation, Colin waited until everyone had settled into their respective positions. In some tree some bird was blathering on, but everyone else was still. Only then did Colin pipe up: “Let me go! There are lives at stake.”
“I’ve already called the police,” a reassuring voice nearby said.
“There’s no time for that. Listen! This is only one of the several mass shootings people dressed as cops—terrorists—they’re pulling off today. Look, you saw what direction I drove up from. It was the opposite way. I just got here too late to stop this one, and I’ll be too late to stop the next if you don’t let me up. That’s all. You need to get me to the elementary school.”
Colin tried to apply all the lessons he’d learned about lying. Don’t give too much information. Remember everything you say. Keep a low, authoritative voice—that had seemed to work well. And perhaps it was working now.
“The elementary school?”
“Yes, Burton Elementary. You know where that is?”
“My—my daughter goes there.”
“I obviously,” Colin continued, “didn’t do this. I shot no one innocent. The fact that I came driving up from the south should be proof enough. I’m the only thing standing between this town and three hundred dead children, and right now you’re killing them! If you don’t trust me, just put me in you car, one of you. You can drive. Drive like the devil is after you, and we can still make it on time.”
“I’m calling Burton,” the reassuring voice said, but no one seemed to think that action was enough. Everyone—they acted as one, didn’t they? looking at each other constantly for confirmation—started to ease a little, just a little.
“I,” suggested one man who was sitting on Colin’s neck, “have a fast car. I know how to get there.”
Another: “We can grab some handcuffs off the cop. Make sure this guy doesn’t try anything funny.”
Yet another: “The cops were acting a little off, weren’t they?”
And just as the pile of bodies started to shift and Colin could breathe somewhat easily again, a screaming sound, the sound of sirens, tore through the still morning.
“Let me up,” said Colin, “so I can make sure they’re on out side.”
But the spell was broken. “Give it a moment,” someone, everyone said.
Two and then three cop cars skidded up. By craning his neck, Colin could see that the police, as they leaped out, sheltered their fat bodies behind their car doors. They looked ridiculous, crouched like action heroes in their ill-fitting sweaty uniforms.
“Officer down!” one cried, lamely. But the rest of them were shouting other things. One by one, their hands in the air, people peeled away from Colin’s prone form. “I’m unarmed! I’m unarmed!” each one said.
Colin thought hard, but there was only one thing he could come up with. The police were too well shielded. But everyone else was just standing there, their hands up like idiots. As soon as the last man obediently clambered off, Colin rolled over. The gun was already in his hand. It was harder to aim than the rifle, especially while flat on his back, but everyone was much closer.
He was almost out of bullets when they finally came out from behind their doors and shot him dead where he lay.
32.
Carol woke before noon into a surreal landscape she didn’t recognize as her own apartment or even, for a moment, Colin’s house.
Then she remembered: Colin’s wild night out, her own shameful hours of pining for him like a schoolgirl. Here she’d slept in her clothes, too. She felt stale and gross, but the thought of taking a shower and putting the same clothes back on felt even grosser. The mystery of Colin Lang remained unsolved, and perhaps she’d never solve it.
She was preparing to leave when she discovered that she had neglected to plug in her phone last night. The battery was dead. An old caution forbade her from leaving the house with no phone, so she went to the kitchen and, as she had so many time before, plugged into Colin’s charger. Then she remembered Colin’s phone, and the voice mail. There was only a moment of conscience-wrestling before she played the message. It was from Colin’s mother, calling to say that he should come a little late the next day, as she was scheduled for some kind of test in the morning. Carol deleted the message and set the phone next to her own on the kitchen counter, planning on plugging it in once she charged up.
While she waited she made a pot of coffee. Idly she wandered into the living room with a steaming mug—it literally had a Radcliffe Worth Partners logo on—and put on the TV. Some kind of breaking local news was interrupting the networks. A mass shooting right here in Cottinend. She could hear sirens in the distance, getting louder; could it be nearby?
Carol Wernick blew across the top of her coffee as she sat down. The sirens were louder now, too loud, really, but Carol’s focus was on the newscaster. With the attention of someone who has lived so long by numbers, she settled back to wait for the count of how many had died.
(Thank you for reading! Tell all your friends!)
