get out of the car, all of their words muffled. But they kept talking. I focused on that. Their words. Their sounds. That was all I could do.
Each breath that came out of me was hard and uncertain, my last breath over and over.
I did something that I hadn’t done in years. I prayed.
That’s what I had been doing all along.
Not imagining. Praying.
A key went into the lock. The lock clicked. The trunk creaked open. It felt like the world had opened up too. Cool air flooded this tomb. Salty air filled up my damp pores.
Couldn’t play possum and wait because they might zap me again. Hands aching, I squeezed the trigger. First I aimed at their voices, then I shot at their screams.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Felt like I had missed. I raged, tried to get up, tried to hear where they were.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Lisa screamed again, wailed like a Gaelic female spirit. My death had arrived.
Then a hundred lightning bolts went through my body.
30
Reverend Daddy used to take me and Rufus to the movies. Momma was into movies like Claudine. Reverend Daddy was crazy about Dirty Harry.
In movies, gunshots echoed like cannons. In reality, most just sounded like pops. A quick noise that, in a land of car alarms and back-firing trucks, made people crank up the volume on their televisions so they could hear what color scheme they were talking about on HGTV.
I tumbled out of the trunk of the Deuce. Suffered awhile. Expected more lightning to race through my body and deep fry my soul. I was frantic, yanked the prongs out of my flesh. Struggled and did the same with the dark covering over my head, pulled it hard. Hands were swollen, hurt so bad I could barely get loose. I held on to the bumper, made it to my feet. Leg cramped and that stab of pain hit me hard, sent me backward, threw me into the sand.
They were watching me cling to life. I knew they were.
This was their entertainment for the night.
Pain grew.
Had to sit there spitting sand out of my mouth, with sand all over my face, sand caked on my sweaty skin. Wait for them to have their fun.
They didn’t say anything. But I knew they were there, circling me.
Darkness became lighter, but only by a few degrees. I tried to shake the sting out of my eyes, but too much sweating had left me almost blind.
Focus, boy. Focus.
I mumbled, “Yessir.”
The moonlight showed me that the .380 was next to me, sinking in the sand.
I grabbed that smoking gun, juggled it until I got my swollen finger back on the trigger, and growled out my warning, pointed the gun wherever I heard noise.
Ocean.
Seagulls cried.
Heard a noise.
I jumped, pulled the trigger.
The .380 was empty.
A car or two hummed in the distance.
No homes were in this area, none that I could see. So I wasn’t in Venice or Santa Monica. No homes etched in the side of the hills, so I wasn’t up by Malibu. They’d taken me down to an industrial strip, a remote spot where no one would be around in the thick of the night. Where no one could hear me scream. My mind told me I had to be somewhere between Marina Del Rey and Long Beach. Then my mind told me I was wrong. Could’ve been down in Orange County, somewhere on that strip of PCH that went into Dana Point.
I blinked over and over until I managed a little vision. The world was like a television with bad reception. It gave me a blurry vision of the lion, dressed in jeans and a black jacket, his hands in gloves, that big, square head under a black skullcap.
He was on the ground, on his side, sand dusting his body. He stared at me with one eye. His right eye. A bullet hole was where his left eye used to be. The stun gun was next to that cave in his head, a cavern created by a hollow point. The prongs were extended. He was the one who had shot me. Maybe we shot each other at the same time.
Looked like his fingers were moving, like he was typing a farewell e-mail to his children.
Then he stopped typing. Guess he had hit the send button.
My legs had been tied with Lisa’s Egyptian shawl, the knot was pretty good. I got free, stumbled away from him. Bile rose in my throat. My reaction to all the abuse my body