$200 and a Cadillac - By Fingers Murphy Page 0,107
driver’s side. But Lugano hadn’t moved, he was crouched along the back of the truck. Hank got off another shot, but it was a bad one, thrown off by the surprise of seeing Lugano right there, barely ten feet away.
Lugano jumped at the shot, firing as he turned. The metal of the fender wrinkled right in front of Hank’s face where the bullet went in at an angle before exploding the glass of the headlight all over him. He could see Lugano backing away from the truck, moving quickly toward the brush at the edge of the lot. Hank stood and moved on him, firing two, three, four shots as he sped up.
Lugano stumbled slightly and then fired again as he turned to run into the forest of high sagebrush and Joshua trees. Hank was running now, thinking to himself, that was six, about the same time he felt the weakness in his right leg. He looked down and stumbled into the sage brush. The meat of his thigh was torn. The bullet had missed the bone, but it had taken a lot of flesh with it.
For a second, he dropped his gun and lay there, resting his palms on the wound and knowing there was nothing he could do about it. Not now. Not there. His only hope was to finish the job and try to get back to town. Lugano was somewhere in the brush up ahead. Just out of sight. Probably watching him now, waiting to make a move. Hank knew if he turned back and headed for the truck he’d never make it. Lugano would get him.
The sand stuck to his bloody hands as he pushed himself up and grabbed his gun. He lurched forward through the heavy brush. He could put very little weight on his right leg, which left him hopping forward on his left.
There were small clusters of twenty-dollar bills every few feet. Hank followed them with his eyes, like a trail of crumbs. Up ahead and above him, he saw Lugano scrambling up a dirt rise, like a miniature cliff, barely taller than a man. Hank raised his gun and fired three more shots and watched Lugano slide back down the wall, clawing at the dirt as he slid.
Ten yards further and the brush opened up on a dry streambed, the opposite side of which was a solid wall of cracked dirt. This was where the water ran when the rains came. A flash flood would course through this channel in the desert once or twice a year, and had for thousands of years, carving a miniature dirt canyon.
Lugano lay against the opposite wall of the creek, facing him. Hank could see the front of his shirt was dark and wet. One of his last shots had found its mark. Lugano grinned up at him, a flicker of recognition on his face, and raised the revolver in his hand. He pulled the trigger and almost laughed at the dry click.
“Well,” he smiled. “At least they sent one of the best to get me. Show’s a certain respect I guess. Might as well finish it. Your leg ain’t looking so good.”
Hank smiled back and raised his gun. But the blood and the sand had worked their way inside and it jammed when he pulled the trigger. “Goddamn it,” he muttered, and then felt a weakness come over him from the loss of blood.
Hank’s body sagged downward, into the dry streambed. He lay there for a moment. Lugano studied his face, searching his memory for a name. Then Hank crawled over toward Lugano and took up a large rock with both hands. Lugano laughed at the sight of it. “Seriously? Jesus Christ, man. Why bother? We’re both going to die out here anyway.”
But just as he said it there was movement in the brush and the two of them turned to see Mickey emerge on the dirt bank.
Mickey held his gun on the two of them. The surveyor, unarmed with a rock up over his head, and Grimaldi, leaning against the opposite bank, holding a revolver. What had happened? Who were these people? Mickey aimed at Grimaldi, the radio static that went unanswered still echoing in his head. What was Jimmy going to tell him? And what did it matter now? Mickey eyed the revolver in Grimaldi’s hand. How many shots had there been? He hadn’t counted. There was no way to know.