A shadow moved in Josh’s door and the gardener with the ponytail stepped out. He carried a stubby black automatic like the welterweight. Maybe stubby black automatics were the new thing and I had missed the memo.
Josh came out next with the meatball riding his back. Josh’s head drooped and dark smears striped his face like fingerpaint. The meatball seemed to be holding him up and steering. I didn’t see Ryan.
The gardener started down the steps and saw me. He stopped right in front of me and dropped into a clumsy crouch. The welterweight and the meatball saw me and the welterweight ran forward three steps and covered me with his gun. The three bad guys were focused on me. They thought I might spring into action and watched for a sudden wrong move. They were looking at me, so they didn’t see Joe Pike slip past the blue bungalow above. Pike was a silent shadow within the dark.
The meatball spoke quietly but firmly.
“Lower your weapon and walk away. Walk away and I’ll let you leave.”
Pike’s shadow moved again. Coming closer.
The welterweight edged to the side.
If they wanted Josh dead they would’ve killed him. They wanted to know what Rachel had given him and they wanted it back. They wanted Josh to tell them what those things were, and produce them, and they wanted to destroy them. They would ask him the way they asked Rachel and they wouldn’t stop asking until they believed Josh had told them the truth. He’d be dead by then.
I said, “Leave Mr. Schumacher and walk away. Walk now and I’ll let you go.”
Leon Karsey’s shout echoed from his window.
“Meatball fuck! Last warning!”
Josh finally saw me. His drooping head came up. His eyes were vague and glassy and maybe it took him a moment to recognize me, but he met my eyes and did.
I said, “It’s going to be okay.”
No one else saw his face change. Veins bulged beneath the blood streaks on his forehead. His eyes shrank into furious knots. His face grew dark and large as if a volcanic pressure was building within him, and then the volcano erupted.
Josh threw himself backward into the meatball with a guttural grunt. He drove himself back, huge legs pushing and pumping, grunting as he pushed, unh-unh-unh. He slammed the meatball into the wall, then bucked and spun like a rhino trying to toss a rider so he could gore him to death.
The gardener and the welterweight hesitated, unsure what to do, then the gardener ran to help his boss and grabbed Josh. Joe Pike flashed from the shadows and hit the welterweight so hard he dropped as if he’d been shot in the head.
I slammed into the gardener’s side. The meatball scrambled away, dropped to a knee, and raised his gun. Maybe Josh didn’t see it. Maybe he didn’t care. He charged forward as I grabbed the meatball’s gun and pushed it aside. I was trying to hold on when Josh hit us like a runaway bus. The meatball and I hit the ground together and grappled for the gun. The gardener reappeared beside Josh and slammed him in the head with his pistol. Josh staggered and fell, and Leon Karsey shouted a final time.
“Fucking meatball! I warned you!”
A high-speed rip of automatic-weapon fire lit up his window and thundered across the neighborhood. The meatball flinched. I worked my fingers under the meatball’s thumb and strained to pry his thumb off the pistol. I didn’t know whether Karsey was firing bullets or blanks or what kind of weapon he had, but the noise was horrendous. The gardener spun toward the sound and fired three fast shots—bapbapbap. I heard the bullets hit Karsey’s bungalow as Joe Pike shot the gardener.
Karsey cut loose again, a long chattering light show behind his curtain. I prayed I wouldn’t get hit.
The meatball kneed me four fast times and tried to roll away, but I wrapped him up with my legs and held on tight. His thumb began to give. Golden lights swirled and gathered overhead, but I only caught glimpses.
Then Joe Pike blocked the lights. He clubbed the meatball twice with his pistol, cocked his Python, and pressed the muzzle hard into the meatball’s ear.
The meatball stopped fighting. His eyes rolled as he looked up to see Pike.
Pike said, “Release your weapon.”
The meatball’s hand relaxed. I twisted away his pistol and scrambled to my feet. Sirens were coming.
A woman’s voice echoed down from above.
“Don’t move, Josh. Don’t try to get up. We’re coming. We’re almost there.”
Wendy Vann.
I looked up, but saw only lights. I stood and made my way into Josh’s bungalow and found Ryan Seborg in their studio. He looked small and pale and younger than he was. He looked like a twelve-year-old.