It took Matt’s eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness, but gradually the alley took shape. They were standing between two brick walls, but thirty feet away, the alley was lined with wooden fences. There was what looked like a derelict car parked against one wall, between them and Suffern’s car. Matt wondered how Suffern had managed to get past it in the dark.
And then, as he looked at Mickey O’Hara, who was wiping the lens of his 35-mm camera with a handkerchief, the hair on the back of Matt’s neck began to curl.
What the hell is the matter with me? Abu Ben Whatsisname is sound asleep in his bed. He won’t know what hit him when those guys come crashing into his house. And I am a good hundred yards from where the action is going to be anyway.
But he pulled off his right glove, stuffed it into the pocket of his topcoat, and then quickly knelt and took his revolver from the ankle holster on the inside of his left leg. Hoping that Mickey O’Hara hadn’t seen him, he quickly put it, and the hand that held it, into his topcoat pocket.
And then there was first a creaking, tearing noise, like a board being split, somewhere down the alley, and then the sound of crunching snow.
A moment later he saw something moving.
It has to be a cat, or a dog, or something—
Then he realized that what was coming down the alley toward them was too large to be a dog.
Everything shifted into slow motion.
“Stop!” Matt heard himself say. He had trouble finding his voice. “Police officer—”
“Out of my way, motherfucker!” an intensely angry voice called.
There followed a series of orange flashes, accompanied by sharp cracks.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Mickey O’Hara said softly.
Matt was slapped in the face and then, a half second later, with terrifying force, in his right calf. He felt himself falling hard against the brick wall to his side.
As a voice from the recesses of his brain told him, Hold it in both hands, he pulled his revolver from his topcoat pocket. He got it free and up as he slid to the ground.
There was no way to hold the pistol with both hands. He fired instinctively. And then again. And a third time.
There was a grunt from the vague figure coming down the alley, and then the figure stood erect. Matt fired again. The figure took two more steps, and then fell forward.
Matt tried to get on his feet by pushing himself up the wall, but his hands slipped and his leg seemed unstable. He got on all fours, and somehow, that way, managed to get on his feet.
Now holding the pistol in both hands, Matt moved unsteadily toward the fallen figure.
You only have one cartridge left! Don’t fuck this up!
The man on the ground was writhing in pain. Matt saw his pistol—a semiautomatic, probably a Colt .45—on the ground, half buried in snow. The man made no move for it. Matt hobbled to it and put his foot on it and nearly fell down.
There was a white flash, and he turned quickly toward it, pistol extended.
It was Mickey O’Hara’s goddamn camera!
“Easy, kid!” Mickey said, fear in his voice.
Matt aimed the pistol at the man on the ground.
A moment later the camera flash went off again.
“Fuck you, O’Hara!” Matt heard himself shout furiously.
Now there were lights, all kinds of lights, headlights, flashing red and blue lights, portable floodlights.
He looked down the alley and saw an RPC squeeze past Lieutenant Suffern’s car, and then, in his headlights, Suffern, his pistol drawn, running down the alley.
Suffern hoisted the skirt of his coat and holstered his pistol and came out with handcuffs. He put his knee in the back of the man on the ground and grabbed his arm to handcuff him.