Part 5 (1/2)
”hell, no You didn't say it had to be warm”
”Switch it over to hot” My voice shook Every part of ed the sound of the slarotesquely distended, the condo water works like a two- to be a race as to which burst first, the condoirl pushes while the other one pulls”
Through the atched the trooper stride toward the shed
”Tie a knot in the end,” I told Norbert, taking another step backward
Tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth, Norbert worked at the knot
”Now squeeze it Make it into a shape,” I coached
”What shape?”
”What do you think, Norbert?” One and a half baby steps back I tensed all h for two bad girls”
He squeezed the center of the condom It exploded
Norbert yelled in shock The shed door banged open The trooper burst in and spun toward Norbert, startled at the yell Going into a crouch, he whipped out his gun and aimed it at Norbert
I bolted toward the shed's rear door and barreled into the barn'sparlor-empty noith the cows already htness of the shed and I was te outside Blundering around in the murk, I stumbled across a set of crude wooden steps Behind ed open and Norbert detonated into the barn, the trooper right behind
”Hold it!” yelled the trooper
I practically levitated up the steps
Norbert was across the barn in a flash, boiling up the stairs behind ly rodent in a whack-a- from his hair and face The instant my feet hit the second-floor deck, I heaved over the trap door, sreasy head Take that, you stinking pervert!
Judging fro of curses, Norbert had toppled onto the trooper I didn't inquire; I wove through the junkyard of prehistoric-lookingto find a way out There it was, just a couple of yards away-the floor-to-ceiling track doors at the far end of the barn
Just as I reached them, the doors rolled open with a thunderous boo as his eyes accli German shepherd strained at its leash
”She's up here,” the cop yelled to soot her!”
Behind ed froot her,” the trooper yelled
In that split second of jurisdictional horn-locking, I darted behind a corn sh theat the snout and apparently believing the reward applied whether I was dead or alive, pounded across the floor bellowing about hoas going to wring eons erupted fro swarms, rats streaked across the floor, and I darted fro places Walkie-talkies blared, dogs barked, cops argued over who had coency vehicles, sirens screah it were the site of a 747 crash
I leaped onto Norbert's grain escalator, a tall, narrow led at a steep but still-climbable pitch Whilenobody would think to look up I was halfway up when my foot slipped and I crashed tolike a steel drum Every head in the barn jerked up
I looked down Norbert lumbered over to the escalator, snatched up the ed it into an extension cord The escalator suddenly clattered to life, its cogged belt haulingbelow
”Coht The escalator was carrying me up, up, up Up to the barn's rafters, three stories above the barn floor And at the end of the escalator there was
An open cargo door fraht blue sky
Below, Norbert and the S it tightly in his grirowled I hoped heto scoot back down the chute now, but the thing was cranking along at twenty-five o hatchfourthreeand then the escalator spat rabbed at the machine's underlip witheon nesting on the tackle block above the door observed me with beady pink eyes Far below I could see the manure-caked cement of the cow yard Police cars, a on the far out of a stepped-on anthill
My eyes swiveled back to the barnyard, with its rip on the escalator Why was it I always seeo but down?
A cop must have rammed a cattle prod up Norbert's ass, because the escalator abruptly stopped I felt it vibrating as someone in hard-soled shoes clao doorway Froood view of his nostrils We stared at each other for a longKatz”
He nodded In real life he wasthan on TV His eyes were so dark they were alh each hair had been clipped individually He wore a button-down shi+rt, a tie withsuit jacket feathered with hay chaff He was as out of place crouched on a grain escalator as Norbert Lautenbacher would have looked on Macy's mezzanine
”You don't look like a marshal,” I said
The corners of his eyes crinkled ”You want I should wear a ten-gallon hat?”
My fingers slipped down a couple more inches ”You're fro blood
”Busted”
”How come you're here?”
”In the wilds of Minnesota, you s of terror We cheeseheads hate being confused with those lutefisk-eaters across the river
”Wisconsin”
He gave a potato-pohtahto shrug ”I pissed off the wrong people”
This was probably the most bizarre conversation I'd had in my life ”What if you don't catch me?”
”Then they'll send uys with twelve-year-old wives” He levered hi his hand until it nearly grazedto overbalance, kill himself, and ruin his expensive suit ”You'll fall”
”Nah I'her than those cowboy marshals I won't let you drop”
I looked up into the licorice eyes ”I didn't kill , then, as though channeling Marshal Gerard in The Fugitive, said, ”I don't care”
His fingers wiggled invitingly, inches aboveline All I had to do was bite Not far away, so a hook and ladder truck into bet there was a four-story extension ladder on that truck
You'll never take me alive, copper
I've alanted to say that