The Hollow Page 0,56

that tune from Napper, consider who was whistling it."

"I got kicked out of my own goddamn house." Block's blue eyes were bright with rage in a wide face stained red with more. "I gotta go into Ma's to get a decent breakfast because of you."

"I wasn't the one with my hand down my sister-in-law's shirt." Talk was his business, Fox reminded himself. Talk him down. So he kept his voice cool and even as he danced back from another punch. "Don't hang this on me, Block, and don't do something now you're going to have to pay for."

"You're going to fucking pay."

Fox was fast, but Block hadn't lost all the skill he'd owned on the football field back in his day. He didn't punch Fox as much as mow him down. Fox hit the ivy-covered slope of a lawn-and the rocks underneath the drenched ivy-and slid painfully down to the sidewalk with the enraged former defensive tackle on top of him.

Block outweighed him by a good fifty pounds, and most of that was muscle. Pinned, he couldn't avoid the short-armed, bare-knuckled punch to the face, or the punishing rabbit jabs in his kidneys. Through the vicious pain, the blurred vision, he could see a kind of madness on Block's face that had panic snaking in.

And the thoughts sparking out were every bit as mad and murderous.

Fox did the only thing left to him. He fought dirty. He clawed, going for those mad eyes. At Block's howl, he rammed his fist into the exposed throat. Block gagged, choked, and Fox had room to maneuver, to jam his knee between Block's legs. He got in a few punches, aiming for the face and throat.

Run. That single thought bloomed like blood in Fox's mind. But when he tried to roll, crawl, fight his way clear and gain his feet, Block slammed Fox's head against the sidewalk. He felt something inside him break as the steel-toed boot kicked viciously at his side. Then he fought for air as meaty hands closed around his throat.

Die here.

He didn't know if it was Block's thoughts or his own circling in his screaming head. But he knew he was slipping away. His burning lungs couldn't draw air, and his vision was dimmed and doubled. He struggled to push what he had into this man he knew, a man who loved the Red-skins and NASCAR, who was always good for a bad, dirty joke and was a genius with engines. A man stupid enough to cheat on his wife with her sister.

But he couldn't find it. He couldn't find himself or the man who was killing him on the sidewalk a few steps from the Town Square on a rainy Sunday morning.

Then all he could see was red, like a field of blood. All he could see was his own death.

The pressure on his throat released, and the horrible weight on his chest lifted. As he rolled, retching, he thought he heard shouting. But his ears rang like Klaxons, and he spat blood.

"Fox! Fox! O'Dell!"

A face swam in front of his. Fox lay across the sidewalk, the rain blessedly cool on his battered face. He saw a blurred triple image of Chief of Police Wayne Hawbaker.

"Better not move," Wayne told him. "I'll call an ambulance."

Not dead, Fox thought, though the red still swam at the edges of his vision. "No, wait." It croaked out of him, but he managed to sit up. "No ambulance."

"You're hurt pretty bad."

He knew his one eye was swollen shut, but he managed to focus the other on Wayne. "I'll be okay. Where the fuck is Block?"

"Cuffed and locked in the back of my car. Christ, Fox, I had to damn near knock him cold to get him off you. What the hell was going on here?"

Fox wiped blood from his mouth. "Ask Napper."

"What does he have to do with it?"

"He'd be the one who got Block worked up, making him think I'd been screwing around with Shelley." Fox wheezed in another breath that felt like broken glass inside his throat. "Never mind, doesn't matter. No law against lying to an idiot, is there?"

Wayne said nothing for a moment. "I'll call down to the firehouse, get the paramedics here to look you over at least."

"I don't need them." As helpless anger, helpless pain churned inside him, Fox braced a bleeding hand on the sidewalk. "I don't want them."

"I'll be taking Block in. I'll need you to come in when you're able, file formal assault charges."

Fox