Dead-Bang (30 page)

Or, in other words, if I had my pants on.

It just didn't seem fair that a pair of pants-should make so much difference. But I knew those cats out there. I knew what they'd think. They'd think the
worst
, that's what they'd think.

Lula said, “I know those flockers as well as you do, Shell. You get out there and wave a leg at 'em, they'll use you for a tug-of-war. They'll pull you seven different ways and make fourteen wishes. They'll put cranberry sauce on you and—”

“Don't remind me. I'm trying to—I'm thinking.”

It was a simple problem: All I had to do was stroll up to the mindless mob and appeal to its intelligence; occupy all its attention while the lovelies fled; and then remove myself from the mob's presence before it … did any of the things Lula had mentioned.

Yes, the problem was simple; its solution was something else. I couldn't let that mob gobble me up or bite me or scratch me or even pull off my bandages much less arms and legs. I began feeling depressed. What if the solution wasn't merely difficult, but impossible? Maybe there
wasn't
any way to do it; maybe I'd met my match. Always has to be a first time. Even if I surrendered and advanced under a flag of truce, due, to the present drastic shortage of materials I'd probably have to use my shorts—

I stopped.
That
wasn't positive thinking. In the old days—before today—I had always said to myself, “There's
always
a way!” I wasn't always right; but that's what I'd always said.

So I said to myself, “There's
always
a way!”

“A way to what?” Emilie asked curiously, rubbing her well-rounded derriere with both hands.

“I wasn't speaking to you,” I said. “But I am at last thinking clearly. Give me another half a minute.”

The problem was exactly the same as it had been a couple minutes ago, except that it was now much worse. How could a solitary pagan, unarmored and unarmed, stop a whole horde of Lemmings in their tracks? How could a lone infidel hold at bay, even briefly, an entire division of Christian soldiers? Especially if God was on
their
side.…

Something fluttered in the cave of memory. As I thought of “Christian soldiers” I heard again, faintly—fortunately—the sound of voices raised in apparent agony; heard again last night's Chorale, here in the Church of the Second Coming; and put together Christian soldiers-agony-Chorale-Second Coming; and I knew what to do. But I knew I wasn't going to do it.

That is, for a second or two I knew I wasn't going to; and then I knew I was.

“Yeah,” I said—after a lapse of some time—to Lula. “I'll have to sort of change my plans a little. O.K., which one of you gals can run the fastest?”

“Run?” Britt clenched her hands into fists before her and made running motions. “Lige in a race?”

“Yeah—and that's what it may be. You can quit that now. Britt, you can
quit
—thanks.”

“I gan,” she said.

“You can what?”

“Run fastest. I gan run faster than anybody. Anybody here.”

“Well.… Even that may be a bit overoptimistic, but—O.K. You're the runner, then. If you want to be. The runner starts later, and takes more of a chance than anybody else. It could be dangerous. And I'm not kidding.”

“You mean … if somebody gatches me?”

“Yeah.”

“Nobody will gatch me.”

“Well.… O.K. Who's almost as fast as Britt?”

“Me. I'm probably faster.” Lula sort of bounced on the balls of her feet. At least, that's where it started.

“You? I gould beat you with one leg tied behind—”

“Chickie, I'll give you fifty yards and pass you—”

“Girls!
Damnit, don't you realize I'm trying to save you from the Christians? And while we dawdle, they may—”

Even here inside the church it was clearly audible this time. We all froze, listening. I saw the girls' eyes widen, felt my skin get cold. It was the voice of the crowd, rising slowly, an eerie quality to it, like a howl and hiss and roar in a monstrous raw throat. It was a sound appalling and unreal, like a huge beast growling and gnawing on still-living bone.

I glanced around. “Dina.”

Her huge eyes moved to mine, her face composed but pale.

“Run to the door,” I said. “If you hear anything scuttling around on the other side—anything—come back. If not, crack it open and keep an eye on that mob. If it looks—”

“I know what you mean,” she interrupted, turned immediately, and started running like a deer.

I pulled the car keys from my shirt pocket, which was the only place I'd found to put them, and handed them to Lula. “All you gals—except Britt—gather at the door back there in the corner.” I pointed. “When I go out the front door, run like hell.”

I told them where my Cadillac was parked, how to reach it, that they'd be concealed the first hundred feet or so but in view, in very plain view, for the last stretch, maybe two hundred feet and all of it uphill.

“Lula, you lead the way. When you get to my Cad start it, and honk the horn a couple times in case some of the gals don't have the heap in sight. Britt, you come up front with me, let me out, lock the door behind me and start running.”

She nodded.

“You'll have to run down the aisle again, to the rear of the church, and then follow the others. They'll be way ahead of you, and I don't know what else might be out there by then. So you don't have to be the one to lock the door if you don't want to. I suppose I could lock it myself and throw the key—”

“No.” She was paler than usual, and white-blonde Britt had been pale as milk—and smooth as cream—all over, to begin with. But she said, “I'll do it.”

“Thanks. There isn't time to explain why, but it would be difficult for me to handle. One more thing, Lula. None of this may be necessary, but it
might
—we'll know damned soon. When you've got the Cad started, don't wait around for me unless it's obvious to you there's no need to hurry.”

She said, “You think they're going to light out after us, don't you?”

“It's possible. Festus is really pouring it to them, and—well, it's quite possible.”

“You suppose if they grabbed us they'd, like, mess us up pretty good?”

“Not if they stopped to think about it. But once they start running—if any of them do—it isn't likely they'll be doing much thinking. It isn't likely they'll be doing
any.”

“You're not going to come arong after us?” Yumiko asked sweetly.

“Beats the herr out of me, dear. Don't think I wouldn't like to, and I say that sincerely to every one of you lovelies. But I shall simply go where the spirit moves me, and where that may be I know not.”

Silence.

“Any questions?”

There weren't any.

I'd been keeping an eye on Dina most of the time, and I got an extremely queer feeling when I saw her suddenly push the door shut and lock it, then spin around and come tearing down the aisle. Ah, she was a lovely sight, erotic poetry in a kind of mellifluous motion, but I couldn't give that moment the concentration, much less the appreciation, it deserved.

The other gals moved aside to let Dina through, and she pounded and bounced and quivered deliciously to a stop inches from me. Panting, staring up at my face with those luminous brown eyes now not merely huge but enormous, she gasped, “They're going freaky!”

“Are they moving up toward the church?”

“No, not—yet. But they were waving their arms and making a lot of noise and … well, one of them fell down. And then in a few seconds two more, one right after the other. As if they'd fainted. Only the first one, an old man in front where I could see him, shook and rolled and kicked and … do you know what it means?”

“Yeah.” I swallowed. “I fear I do. We won't dwell on it But … I don't consider such conniptions encouraging.”

I felt suddenly tired. And my skin, which had seemed to become cool when we all heard that last blood-chilling sound, was still cool, was cold. I brushed moisture from my forehead and upper lip, sucked in a deep breath.

Then I looked at the girls. “That's it, except for this. In case we get separated for … a while, you've got to know about a few things. And people, including Dave Cassiday.”

I told the tale fast. In thirty seconds they knew all the essential facts even though there wasn't time to include any of the reasons or explanations. But I made sure each of them realized how important it was to get the info to Emmanuel Bruno.

And even as I spoke I realized, very clearly, that what I was telling them was—from a legal standpoint—merely hearsay evidence, of little if any value. Whether I liked it or not, I was the only man on the planet with firsthand knowledge and evidence sufficient to ruin Cassiday, the only man who could
prove
what Dave had done and was planning to do. Well, the next few minutes would undoubtedly determine who was ruined: Dave Cassiday—or me.

I didn't pause to think about that but went ahead, “So on your marks, gals, at the back door. And when I yell go, you
go!”

There was a little verbal bubbling and some fluttering, then short and shapely Ronnie said plaintively, “I'll probably be
last
up that damned hill. Hell, I run like a
girl.”

“Give thanks to God. But that reminds me,” I told them all, “it may or may not get squeaky out there for you, scampering up the hill, but if it'll make you feel any better I'll be doing my damnedest to make sure
all
the bugging eyes bug me and me alone until you're well on your way. Or at least for as long as I can hack it. I won't try to explain right now, but I
know
every eye out there will be on me for a while. So you can at least count on a good head start.”

Dina, still short of breath—but nothing else she needed—said, “Shell, if you're going out there with all those nuts, you must be crazy yourself.”

“That's my only chance—I intend to fight fire with fire.”

“You're
really
going outside, where they are?” Emilie asked.

“Of course. The best defense is a good offense, right? Well, if I wait for them to attack me,
they'll
have the advantage.”

Then Lula, each soft word wrapped in hot goose down: “Shell, honey … don't you go out there and get yourself killed.”

“Dear, why would I do a dumb thing like that?”

She had leaned a bit closer to me as she spoke, and her right breast brushed against my arm. “Hrrum,” I said. “Lula, I'm going to be in
enough
trouble when I confront those suspicious cats … as it is.” It was still brushing. I gazed down at her warm, firm, brown breast. “As it … was.” She smiled, moved back slightly.

I turned, slapped the nearest gal firmly on her fanny, and shouted, “On your way! Skedaddle! Get your sweet.… Sorry, Britt. Little goof there.”

“Id's all right.”

“The
other
gals skedaddle.
You
get to stay with me.”

“Ain't I the luggy one?”

“Britt, this is no time for dumb Swedish wisecracks. Or any other kind of—in fact, this is no time for—Kids, I am now convinced Divine Providence has been watching over us. True, we've got the right place for it. And this
is
Sunday. But even Divine Providence must get fed up after a while. For, as the old Wise Men have wisely told us, ‘As it is above, so it is below,' and if that is true …”

I looked around at all the girls, taking what might be my last look at them—what might be my last look at girls—and concluded, “Skip it. So much for the Wise Men. Let's
go.”

The lasses ambled toward the back of the church. I said to Britt, “Get up there by the doors, honey. Join you in a minute.” Then I turned and followed the girls past the hanging curtains into the gloomier rear of the building, walking speedily and passing a couple of them on the way. The concealed jumble—concealed, at least, from anyone who might sit on those backless benches—was the same as it had been last night: huddled chairs, circular stairway rising, table with uneven stacks of black books upon it. Nearer, against the wall, was the ten-foot-high crucifix, its spiked base resting on the floor and top against the wall, only one arm of the cross touching the wood behind it, and nailed to the cross the carved-wood corpse, Christ, crucified in effigy, for perhaps the ten-billionth time.

For a few moments I stood before it thinking, not for the first time, that to anyone who had never heard of Christ or Christianity—who didn't
know
he was gazing upon something warm, beautiful, and inspiring—this broken man nailed in bloody agony on a wooden cross would seem a terrible symbol of brutality and violence, torture and death, a constant reminder of pain, sorrow, failure, a degrading depiction of man's savage inhumanity to man. Almost surely he would suspect that constant contemplation of such a symbol might require or in time produce a state of mind bordering on the pathological. And unquestionably, it would be difficult if not impossible for him to believe that it represented the virtue, invincibility, and splendor of any man who ever lived or god who died, and he would surely adjudge you mad as a hatter if you told him it was—a billion times multiplied, worshipped, revered—the centuries-old and supreme symbol of Christian hope, optimism, gentleness, goodness and beauty and truth.

I glanced over my shoulder. The girls were moving like bright shadows through the dimness. Lula was already at the half-open door, the eight others sort of floating toward her. I watched them all for a few seconds, watched the dull gleam of their swinging thighs, sensuous swaying of hips, gazed at smoothness of back and limb, swoop of waist, plump roundness and firm line and lustrous curve, admired their splendid nakedness, let my eyes linger a last moment on the sweet, reviled flesh.…