House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“I don’t know. Neither do you.”

Darl finished loading his revolvers and moved from the live oak’s shadow to the corner of the building and tried to give one of the revolvers to Andre.

“As I have explained to Mr. Holland, I do not want one,” Andre said.

Darl looked at Hackberry, who said, “It’s his choice. Stay out here unless there’s shooting inside the building. If it starts, come in through the front and shoot anything wearing pants, except Andre and me and my boy, who looks a lot like me.”

“That don’t sound good, Mr. Holland.”

“Darl, would you stop examining every word I use? You have to think in a metaphorical fashion. Got it?”

“Yes, I have absolutely got it. Want me to go for he’p if y’all don’t come out?” Darl said.

“No, burn the place,” Hackberry replied.

“That’s not a metaphor?” Darl asked.

“It’s a literal statement.”

“Burn it down? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Who wants to be a good loser?” Hackberry said.

“They must have done it a lot different in your day.”

“I’m about to hit you, Darl.”

ISHMAEL STOOD IN the doorway of the room with the plastered walls and the wood cookstove. Jeff lay on the floor, his tongue blue, his eyes like drops of mercury. The manacles on Ishmael’s wrists were old-style, connected with a length of chain that was threaded through the steel rings on the restraint belt, and the rings on the belt were placed so his fingers could not reach the buckle. To get the key off Jeff’s body—if he carried one—Ishmael would have to get to his knees and try to search Jeff’s pockets with almost no mobility in his hands, all the while dealing with the pain in his legs. In the meantime, Beckman might be coming down the tunnel while Ishmael wasted time trying to figure his way out of an impossible problem.

He went out the door and turned right, back toward the basement and the half-sunken window that gave onto low hills and the Spanish ruins near the river.

Where are you, Big Bud? My legs are weak, my race almost done, whether I agree that this is the end of the line or not.

Then he realized that he was no longer rational and had returned to the Marne and the cacophony of no-man’s-land and the frame of reference that, once branded on the unconscious, could never be removed from one’s memory. The admonitions were many: Don’t silhouette on a ridge. Get rid of civilian jewelry. Turn into a stick and look at the ground when trip flares pop overhead. Remove your officer’s bars. Don’t be the third man on the match unless you want to eat a sniper’s round. Zigzag and never run in a straight line. Tape your gear on patrol and don’t let Fritz hear you clink. If you’re about to be overrun, throw away the souvenir belt buckle, the pornographic pictures of dollhouse girls, the machine pistol that sold for fifty dollars in Paris, the warm German greatcoat that means an immediate death sentence.

What did all this wisdom mean? Nothing. They were killed just the same, often by shells fired from guns fifteen miles away.

Was he losing his mind? Probably. But the sane man accepted the world and, in so doing, became part of it; the irrational and unbalanced man rejected and overcame it, and it was from him that others learned. Ishmael thought he heard machine-gun fire but couldn’t be sure, any more than he could be sure about the sounds of footsteps across wood floors overhead and the jiggling of electric bulbs on the tunnel roof that created multiple shadows on the walls. Then he heard a new sound, one that was different from the rest, like mountain-climbing cleats scraping on stone, clicking methodically toward him.

He entered the basement. Maybe there was a door that opened on a stairwell. Or maybe he could climb onto a chair or a stool and knock the glass out of the window. He heard a single shot, one that was high-powered, followed by a man’s scream. Then the entire building was silent, except for the clicking of cleats or hobnailed boots on the stone.

HACKBERRY AND ANDRE found a service door at the rear of the building. The door was made of oak and dead-bolted in at least two places, the knob key-locked, the small glass panes overlaid with iron grillework.

“There’s a window on the other side of the building,” Hackberry said. “You may have to lift me up.”

“Why not go through the door?” Andre replied.

“Because it might as well be made of steel.”

“Stand back, please,” Andre said.

“What are you doing?”

Andre didn’t reply. He balanced himself on his injured leg and drove his good one into the door, cracking one of the panels. Then he began cracking one panel after another. He gripped the grille and tore it out of the frame as though ripping apart a packing crate. He reached inside and unlocked the dead bolts and kicked what was left of the door onto the floor. “There,” he said. He stepped back to let Hackberry walk in first.

“They know we’re inside, Andre. Legally, they can kill both of us. Stay behind me.”

“Should you have brought the cup, Mr. Holland? What if we die here? What will happen to it?”