Crow shook his head. "Not possible, sheriff. The charges are too small. You might lose a next-door window or two."
Hattoy's tone was one of withering disgust. "'A window or two'?" he repeated. "What about fire? Shouldn't you have fire trucks all over the area?"
Jack Crow was starting to get hot. He didn't like the change in Hattoy's tone and he didn't like his antagonistic manner. Just when he thought he had finally found somebody, dammit, with brains enough to see!
"Yes, sheriff. You're right about fire trucks. But it wasn't my idea to seal them out of this area."
"No. You're just the one who's gonna risk a whole city block and maybe a whole downtown by going ahead anyway."
Jack met his eyes. "Yes."
"You take a lot on yourself, Crow. You think maybe that's why you got yourself kicked out of every fucking federal agency in the Congressional Registry?"
And that did it for Jack.
"Two things, sheriff," he all but barked. "One: you find me a president with enough balls to publicly recognize this nightmare and I'll be his janitor for life. Two: you could lose a couple of blocks. Or downtown. Or this entire one-horse town as far as I'm concerned and I'm not just real sure anybody this side of the interstate would notice, much less care! I'm not killing people, for crissakes! I'm killing old dead buildings. I'm trying to save the people in this dump. Or maybe you think the ones that died so far are AIDS victims?
"Look. We can kill two master vampires today. But only today. We know where they are. And they can't move for..." He looked up at the inexorable sun sinking lower and lower. Crow pointed at the horizon. "That's all the time we've got. It's a chance that won't come again.
"And it's a chance I'm fucking well gonna take if you send the marines in here! Risk? Risk? Lemme tell you something, Hattoy:
"Fuck your buildings and fuck your town and fuck your mayor and if you aren't going to help us - knowing we're right - just because you're afraid of a little risk... Well, then, fuck... you... too!"
Dead silence for three long beats.
Then the sheriff said, without taking his eyes off Crow, "I can see why you like him, Kirk. Let's go."
Kirk, dumfounded, managed, "Where to?"
"Well, I gotta save this here Jack Crow hero type and then get him outta town... before I have to kick his butt in half for talking to me that way. C'mon."
And then as they were walking away the sheriff looked at Felix, looked down at his hand, and Felix followed his gaze and only then realized he was carrying the squashed Browning.
"Having a little pistol trouble, boy?" whispered the sheriff and then he was gone.
Felix lifted his hand in front of his face and looked at what was left of the gun. In the sunlight the marks of the monster's fingers were clear. No machine could have vised like that.
Now when, he wondered, did I find time to pick this up? And when, he wondered next, glancing down at his second pistol back in its holster, did I put this one back?
Hell, he didn't even remember drawing the second gun.
When, he asked then, is this luck going to run dry?
In the meantime, Carl was arguing with Crow over the sheriff.
"... testing you, Jack. Picture this from his point of view for a second. It's one thing to call up some old favors and have you checked out. But this is his town. He had to read this face-to-face. And if you hadn't shown the balls to stand up to him for what you knew you had to do... Well, he probably wondered why you didn't detonate up front. Probably wondered why you tried to go inside in the first place."
"So do I," offered Cat quietly and Carl didn't like the look that passed briefly between Cat and Crow.
"He was trying to piss you off," Carl went on quickly. "I'm surprised you didn't see that one coming."
Jack lit a cigarette, looked tired. "You're right."
Carl's voice grew gentle. "Rough in there, huh?"
"If you hadn't opened that door," replied Jack Crow softly, "or if you had waited just five more minutes to open it, we'd all be dead."
"Felix," said Cat. "Show him the gun."
Felix tossed the lump to Carl and sat down on the curb.
Carl caught it and drew in a sharp breath. "It did this?"