Part 3 (1/2)
”Why didn't the cop shoot him?”
”Didn't have to. Renda's gun's empty.”
”He doesn't sound too bright. Pulling a dumb thing like that.”
”They say he wanted the man bad, couldn't wait.”
Majestyk was studying Renda. Maybe he was dumb, but he looked cool, patient, like somebody who moved slowly, without wasted effort. He didn't look like an accordian player now. He looked like some of the guys he had seen in prison, at Folsom. Mean, confident, hard-nosed guys who would give you that look no matter what you said to them. Like who the f.u.c.k are you? Don't waste my time. How did guys get like that? Always on the muscle.
”They got him this time,” the black guy said. ”Gonna nail his a.s.s for ninety-nine years-you ask him is he gonna eat his sausage.”
Because of Renda they brought the five prisoners out the back way to the parking area, where the gray county bus and the squad cars were waiting. Get them out quick, without attracting a lot of attention. But a crowd of local people had already gathered, along with the reporters and TV newsmen who had been in Edna the past two days and were ready for them. A cameraman with a shoulder-mounted rig began shooting as soon as the door opened and the deputies began to bring them out in single file, the two Chicanos first, startled by the camera and the people watching, then the black guy. They held up Renda and Majestyk in the hallway inside the door, to handcuff them because they were felons. A deputy told them to put their hands behind their backs; but the deputy named Ritchie told him to cuff them in front-it was a long ride, let them sit back and enjoy it.
When Renda appeared, between two deputies, the TV camera held on him, panning with him to the bus, and a newsman tried to get in close, extending a hand mike.
”Frank, over here. What do you think your chances are? They got a case against you or not?”
Renda held his head low, turned away from the camera. A deputy stuck out his hand, pus.h.i.+ng the mike away, and two more deputies moved in quickly, from the steps by the rear door, to stand in the newsman's way and restrain him if they had to. This left Majestyk alone at the top of the steps. He watched them put Renda aboard the bus. Four, five deputies standing now with their backs to him. He watched the newsman with the mike come around and mount the steps. The newsman turned, facing the bus, and the TV camera swung toward him.
Majestyk was close enough to hear him and stood listening as the TV newsman said, ”Today, Frank Renda is being taken to the county seat for pretrial examination on a charge that will undoubtedly be first-degree murder. Renda, a familiar name in organized crime, has been arrested nine times without a conviction. Now, it would appear, his luck has finally run out. The prosecutor's office is convinced Renda will stand trial, be convicted of the murder charge, and spend the rest of his life in prison. This is Ron Malone with TV-Action News coming to you from Edna.”
Majestyk walked down the steps past the newsman, came up behind the deputies standing by the bus door and said, ”Excuse me.”
The two deputies nearest him turned, with momentary looks of surprise. One of them took his arm then and said, ”Get in there.”
He got in, moved past the driver and the deputy standing by him, and took a seat on the left side of the bus, in front of the black guy, who leaned forward as he sat down and said over his shoulder, ”You get on TV? Your mama'll be proud to see you.”
Renda sat across the aisle, a row ahead of him. The two Chicanos sat together on Renda's side, two rows closer to the front. When the door closed and the bus began to move, circling out of the parking area with a squad car leading and another following, the deputy standing by the driver moved down the aisle to take a seat in the back of the bus. Both he and the driver, Majestyk noticed, were unarmed.
He said to himself, How does that help you? And settled back to stare out the window at the familiar billboards and motels and gas stations, the tacoburger place, the stores that advertised used clothing, Ropa Usada Ropa Usada. Railroad tracks ran parallel with the highway, beyond a bank of weeds. They pa.s.sed the warehouses and loading sheds that lined the tracks, platformed old buildings that bore the names of growers and produce companies. They pa.s.sed the silver water tower that stood against the sky-edna, home of the broncos-and moved out into miles of fences and flat green fields, until the irrigation ditches ended and the subdued land turned color, reverted to its original state, and became desert country.
Looking out at the land he wondered when he would be coming back. When, or if he would be coming back. He said to himself, What are you doing here? How did it happen? Sitting handcuffed in a prison bus. His fields miles behind him. Going to stand trial again. The chance of going to prison again. Could that happen? No, he said to himself, refusing to believe it. He could not let it happen, because he could not live in prison again, ever. He couldn't think about it without the feeling of panic coming over him, the feeling of being suffocated, caged, enclosed by iron bars and cement walls and not able to get out. He remembered reading about a man exploring a cave, hundreds of feet underground, who had crawled into a seam in the rocks and had got wedged there, because of his equipment, and was unable to move forward or backward or reach the equipment with his hands to free it. Majestyk had stopped reading and closed the magazine, because he knew the man had died there.
Prison was for men like Frank Renda-sitting across the aisle with his own thoughts, slouched low in his seat, staring straight ahead, off somewhere in his mind. What was he thinking about?
What difference did it make? Majestyk forgot about Frank Renda and did not look at him again until almost a half hour later, when the land outside the bus had changed again, submitting to signs and gas stations and motels, and the empty highway became a busy street that was taking them through a run-down industrial area on the outskirts of the city.
He noticed Renda because Renda was sitting up straighter now, stretching to see ahead, through the winds.h.i.+eld, then turning to look out the windows as the bus moved along in the steady flow of traffic. The man had seemed half asleep before. Now he was alert, as though he was looking for a particular store or building, a man looking for an address written on a piece of paper. Or maybe he had lived around here at one time and it was like revisiting the old neighborhood, seeing what had changed. That was the feeling Majestyk had. He was curious about Renda again and continued to watch him and glance off to follow his gaze. Through the winds.h.i.+eld now-to see the intersection they were approaching, the green light and the man standing in the middle of the street, caught between the flows of traffic.
Later, he remembered noticing the man moments before it happened. Maybe ten seconds before-seeing the man in bib overalls holding a paper bag by the neck, a farmer who'd come to town for a bottle of whiskey, guy from the sticks who didn't know how to cross a busy street and got trapped. He remembered thinking that and remembered, vividly, the man in bib overalls waiting for the lead squad car to pa.s.s him and then starting across the street, weaving slightly, walking directly into the path of the bus.
There was a screeching sound as the driver slammed on the brakes and the tires grabbed the hot pavement. Majestyk was thrown forward against the seat in front of him, but pushed himself up quickly to see if the man had been hit. No, because the driver was yelling at him. ”G.o.dd.a.m.n drunk-get out of the way!”
He saw the man's head and shoulders then, past the hood of the bus, the man grinning at the driver.
”Will you get the h.e.l.l out of the way!”
The deputy who'd been in the rear was coming up the aisle, past Majestyk, and the driver was standing now, leaning on the steering wheel.
The man in the overalls, whose name was Eugene Lundy, was still grinning as he took a .44 Colt magnum out of the paper bag, extended it over the front of the hood, and fired five times, five holes blossoming on the winds.h.i.+eld as the driver hit against his seat and went out of it and the deputy was slammed backward down the aisle and hit the floor where Majestyk was standing.
Lundy drew a .45 automatic out of his overalls, turned and fired four times at the squad car that had come to a stop across the intersection. Then he was moving-as the doors of the squad car swung open-past the front of the bus and down the cross street.
Harold Ritchie knocked his hat off getting out of the lead squad car, swinging out of there fast and drawing his big Colt Special. He put it on Lundy, tracking with him, and yelled out for him to halt, concentrating, when he heard his partner call his name.
”Ritch!”
And he looked up to see the panel truck coming like crazy on the wrong side of the street, swerving around from behind the bus to take a sweeping right at the intersection. Ritchie jumped back out of the way, though the truck had room to spare. He saw one of the rear doors open and the bottle with the lighted rag for a wick come flying out and he was moving to the right, running hard, waving an oncoming car to keep back when the bottle smashed against the rear deck of the squad car and burst into flames. Five seconds later the gas tank exploded and instantly the entire car was on fire, inside and out.
Ritchie was across the street now, waving at the traffic, yelling at cars to stop where they were. He didn't see his partner or know where he was. From this angle he could see the second squad car close behind the bus and the driver-side door swing open.
In the same moment he saw the station wagon coming up fast from behind. He saw the shotgun muzzles poke out through the side windows and heard them and saw them go off as the station wagon swerved in, sheared the door off the squad car, and kept coming, beginning a sweeping right turn around the bus.
Ritchie raised his big Colt Special, steadying it beneath the grip with his left hand and squeezed off four shots into the station wagon's winds.h.i.+eld. The first two would have been enough, because they hit the driver in the face and the wagon was already out of control, half through the turn when the driver slumped over the wheel and the wagon slammed squarely into the burning squad car.
One of the men in the back seat of the wagon tried to get out the left side and Ritchie shot him before he cleared the doorway. But then he had to reload and the two who went out the other side of the wagon made it to a line of parked cars before Ritchie could put his Colt on them. He still didn't know where his partner was until he got to the station wagon, looked out past the rear end of it and saw his partner lying in the street.
Watching from the bus, Majestyk recognized Ritchie, the one with the tattoo who looked like a pro lineman. He was aiming and firing at two men crouched behind a parked car-until one of them raised up, let go with a shotgun and they took off, running up the street past a line of storefronts. Ritchie stepped out from behind the station wagon, fired two shots that shattered two plategla.s.s windows, then lowered his Colt and started after them, waving his arm again, yelling at the people on the sidewalk and pressed close to the buildings to get inside, to get the h.e.l.l off the street.
Now there were no police in front of the bus.
The moment Renda moved, Majestyk's gaze was on him, following him up the aisle past the two Chicanos huddled low in their seat. He watched Renda-who did not bother to look at the dead driver lying on the floor-reach past the steering wheel and pull a control level. The door opened. Renda approached it cautiously, looking through the opening and down the cross street a half block to where Eugene Lundy and the panel truck were waiting. He seemed about to step out, then twisted away from the opening, dropping to his hands and knees, as two shots drilled through the pane of gla.s.s in the door panel.
Majestyk's gaze came away and he looked down at the deputy lying in the aisle. He was sure the man was dead, but he got out of his seat and reached down to feel for a pulse. Nothing. G.o.d, no, the man had been shot through the chest. Majestyk was about to rise, then hesitated as he saw the ring of keys hanging from the deputy's belt. He told himself to do it, now now, and think about it later if he had to. That's what he did, unhooked the ring and slipped the keys into his pants pocket. As he rose, turning toward the rear of the bus, he saw the black guy, only a few feet away, staring at him.
Neither of them spoke. The black guy looked away and Majestyk moved down the aisle to the back windows.
The second squad car was close behind, directly below him. He could see the deputy behind the wheel, his face b.l.o.o.d.y, talking excitedly into the radio mike. The next moment he was out of the car with his revolver drawn, moving around the back end of it to the sidewalk. Majestyk watched him. The deputy ran in between two cars that were facing out of a used car lot, then down behind the row of gleaming cars with prices painted on the winds.h.i.+elds to where his partner was covering the door of the bus from behind the end car in the line.
Majestyk made his way back up the aisle in a crouch, watching the used car lot through the right-side windows. He saw both deputies raise their revolvers and fire.
With the closely s.p.a.ced reports Renda dropped again away from the door and behind the first row of seats.
Halfway up the aisle Majestyk watched him.
Renda was looking at the two Chicanos now who were also crouched in the aisle, close to each other with their shoulders hunched.
After a moment Renda said, ”Come on, let's go. We're getting out of here.”
When they realized he was speaking to them the two Chicanos looked at him wide-eyed, frightened to death, and Renda said again, ”Come on, move!”
One of the Chicanos said, ”We don't want to go nowhere.”
”Jesus, you think we're going to talk it over? I said we're going.” Renda was reaching for them now, pulling the first one to his feet, then the other one, pus.h.i.+ng them past him in the narrow aisleway.
The other Chicano said, ”Man, I was drunk driving-I don't run away from that.”
And the Chicano who had spoken before was saying, as he was pushed to the front, ”Listen, please, they see us coming out they start shooting!”
”That's what we're going to find out,” Renda said.