L A Woman

“Roger Wilco.”

“This shouldn’t take long, but keep your eyes open.”

“That’s a big ten-four, Rubber Ducky.”

I saw movement in my rearview mirror and watched as a trash truck pulled into the alley. It hooked onto one of the big dumpsters, lifted it up, then backed out of the alley and moved out of sight. Several minutes later Hondo’s voice came over the speaker, “Got it.”

“Time to boogie, then,” I said, and started Shamu.

Right then the trash truck pulled into the alley in front of us, still holding the dumpster in front of it. The truck stopped.

I started to back up and saw another trash truck coming into the alley behind us. It picked up another dumpster and came towards us. I glanced forward and saw the front truck was coming, too.

Jett said, “We need to leave the pickup. Now.”

The trucks lowered the dumpsters so they could be used as rams, and both came at us, in no hurry. They were so large and the alley so narrow and filled with dumpsters and trash that there was no way past them.

I pulled my .45 and talked into the mike, “Come running.”

Hondo’s voice came over the speaker as we exited the pickup, “Front sight, Ronny, front sight, front sight, front sight.”

We exited the pickup and I motioned Jett to an area beyond the pickup where we both looked for an escape. There was no place to go. The garbage trucks came on, now scooting other dumpsters and trash ahead of them. We moved away from Shamu as the mass reached it and the pickup moved backward, then sideways and dumpsters rolled down and crashed into it, shattering the windshield and gouging huge rents into the hood and roof. Shamu became part of the rolling metal wall and its protest noises joined the dumpsters in a rumbling, screeching sound so loud I had to yell at Jett.

“Get ready!” I aimed at the driver coming up the rear of the alley and watched him lay over in the seat, out of sight. The truck still moved forward. I turned and saw the driver of the other truck do the same thing.

Jett said, “I’m ready. What are we going to do?”

“Not now.”

“Okay, when? Time’s getting a little short here.”

I looked up at the building walls on both sides. No fire escape, and maybe twenty feet to the flat-roofed top. The trucks rumbled closer, shoving the tumbling, churning dumpsters ahead of them like a flesh-rending metallic wave.

I said, “When the piles of dumpsters get close, climb up on them and try to go over the top of the truck.”

Jett’s eyes got big, “That’s your plan?”

“If I can get up high enough, maybe I can shoot down into the cab at the driver and stop it.”

“Yeah, while those things grind you into hamburger. Let’s try the walls.”

Jett went to the brick wall and felt of the grooves. She shook her head. “Too shallow.”

We only had about fifteen feet left before they reached us. Hondo wasn’t going to make it in time. I readied to jump on the moving metal wave.

At that moment, I heard shooting coming from beyond the front trash truck. “That’s Hondo,” I said.

We watched in that direction and heard the staccato shooting get closer, faster, and then I saw Hondo coming across the top of the garbage truck at a run.

He didn’t stop, but leaped into the air and shot down through the window into the driver in the truck, then as fast as he could swing his arm and fire, shot the other driver.

I helped catch him as he landed. But the drivers must have wedged the gas pedals down, because the trucks continued closing on us.

“Why didn’t you shoot the keys in the ignitions, graze the top of them to turn off the engines?” I said.

He said, “Next time.”

Hondo slipped his pistol in the holster and put his hands against the brick wall. The moving metal was less than ten feet from us, screeching closer every second. Hondo said, “Climb up, then Jett can climb up on your shoulders.”