“Who are you?” Stan boomed again. “I don’t owe nobody nothin’, so who the fuck are you?”
I didn’t answer, but traced the sound of his voice toward the hall to the left of the kitchen. I could just make him out, his gray sweatshirt a faint glow on the dimly lit floor. He’d shimmied out into open space. Probably to sneak around on me, but also to keep himself from getting cornered. The tiny kitchenette was no good to either of us; too small and cramped. Family room was better. Rear bedroom, with its open window leading to the fifth-story fire escape, best yet.
But for me to get to the bedroom, Stan had to get out of the hallway. Fine.
I shot him again.
For a big guy, Stan moved pretty fast. Sprang out of his crouch and leapt through the doorway into the kids’ room. Couldn’t tell if I’d got him or not, and didn’t wait to see. I bolted down the short hallway into the back bedroom, as he opened fire behind me. Carpet exploded at my feet. Sheetrock rained down from overhead.
He was an even worse shot than I was. Course, spending the past few hours in a bar probably didn’t help his aim, thank goodness for me.
I took four zigzagging steps and staggered into the rear bedroom. Another ringing shot, and I was hurling myself over the windowsill, wincing as I flopped awkwardly onto the metal fire escape. I could feel the rickety deck sway upon impact. Couldn’t stop. I’d be trapped on the tiny fenced-in balcony, and he’d come for me, like shooting fish in a barrel.
I didn’t think anymore, I moved. Crabbing around, trying desperately to find the top rung of the descending metal ladder in the dark. I banged my head against another set of metal rungs, the ones heading up, staggered back, and a meaty fist clamped onto my shoulder.
Stan thrust his massive head and shoulders through the window and held tight.
“Gotcha! Gonna make you hurt, girl. Gonna get my ax, gonna get my hammer, gonna get my knife. Gonna make you pay.”
Which was a funny thing for him to say, given that I was the one holding a gun. One small twist, and I had the barrel of my. 22 pressed against his temple.
Stan stilled. His eyes rounded. His mouth formed the proverbial O and he sucked in a breath, as I dug the barrel of my gun harder against his fat head. Big ol’ Stan had made a mistake. He’d grabbed me with his left hand, and given the width of his massive shoulders wedged through the narrow window frame, his right hand, the one holding his own gun, was trapped uselessly in the bedroom. He’d need to release me and bring his left shoulder back inside the apartment, in order to get his right arm through again.
Battles are won in the first two seconds, or in the final two minutes.
The fire escape swayed unsteadily, making me feel as if I were surfing on air. I smiled at Stan. I exhaled and watched my frosty breath mist in the cold night.
The scene felt exactly right.
Shoot. Pull the trigger. For Tomika and Michael and Mica.
For Stan’s hammer and his family’s fingers and their long, terrified nights.
I wanted to. I needed to.
For that little boy in Colorado, whom I still couldn’t forget. For all the crying kids, all the terrified women who called 911, except they had problems too big for any dispatch operator or patrol officer to help.
Pull the trigger.
Baby. Crying down the hall. I could hear her again, so close, so clear. Baby, in my mother’s house, crying down the hall.
Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.
Sugar and spice and broken glass, I should’ve told the nurse. If only I’d told the nurse. Why hadn’t I told that nice nurse?
PULL THE TRIGGER!
Pull the fucking trigger!
But I couldn’t do it. I stared at Stan Miller, peered into the whites of his eyes, pressed my nickel-plated semiauto deeper and deeper into his temple…and I couldn’t do it. My hand shook too badly.
I pulled back my arm and pistol-whipped him instead.