Red Lips has no trouble reading his mind. ‘I don’t have to kill you, you know. Not right away, at least. I can put a bullet in your leg. If that doesn’t loosen your lips, I’ll put one in your balls. With those gone, a young fellow like you wouldn’t have much to live for, anyway. Would he?’
Pushed into a final corner, Pete has nothing left but the burning, helpless outrage only adolescents can feel. ‘You killed him! You killed John Rothstein!’ Tears are welling in his eyes; they run down his cheeks in warm trickles. ‘The best writer of the twentieth century and you broke into his house and killed him! For money! Just for money!’
‘Not for money!’ Red Lips shouts back. ‘He sold out!’
He takes a step forward, the muzzle of the gun dipping slightly.
‘He sent Jimmy Gold to hell and called it advertising! And by the way, who are you to be high and mighty? You tried to sell the notebooks yourself! I don’t want to sell them. Maybe once, when I was young and stupid, but not anymore. I want to read them. They’re mine. I want to run my hand over the ink and feel the words he set down in his own hand. Thinking about that was all that kept me sane for thirty-six years!’
He takes another step forward.
‘Yes, and what about the money in the trunk? Did you take that, too? Of course you did! You’re the thief, not me! You!’
In that moment Pete is too furious to think about escape, because this last accusation, unfair though it may be, is all too true. He simply grabs one of the liquor decanters and fires it at his tormentor as hard as he can. Red Lips isn’t expecting it. He flinches, turning slightly to the right as he does so, and the bottle strikes him in the shoulder. The glass stopper comes out when it hits the carpet. The sharp and stinging odor of whiskey joins the smell of old blood. The flies buzz in an agitated cloud, their meal interrupted.
Pete grabs another decanter and lunges at Red Lips with it raised like a cudgel, the gun forgotten. He trips over Halliday’s sprawled legs, goes to one knee, and when Red Lips shoots – the sound in the closed room is like a flat handclap – the bullet goes over his head almost close enough to part his hair. Pete hears it: zzzzz. He throws the second decanter and this one strikes Red Lips just below the mouth, drawing blood. He cries out, staggers backward, hits the wall.
The last two decanters are behind him now, and there is no time to turn and grab another. Pete pushes to his feet and snatches the hatchet from the desk, not by the rubberized handle but by the head. He feels the sting as the blade cuts into his palm, but it’s distant, pain felt by somebody living in another country. Red Lips has held onto the gun, and is bringing it around for another shot. Pete can’t exactly think, but a deeper part of his mind, perhaps never called upon until today, understands that if he were closer, he could grapple with Red Lips and get the gun away from him. Easily. He’s younger, stronger. But the desk is between them, so he throws the hatchet, instead. It whirls at Red Lips end over end, like a tomahawk.
Red Lips screams and cringes away from it, raising the hand holding the gun to protect his face. The blunt side of the hatchet’s head strikes his forearm. The gun flies up, strikes one of the bookcases, and clatters to the floor. There’s another handclap as it discharges. Pete doesn’t know where this second bullet goes, but it’s not into him, and that’s all he cares about.
Red Lips crawls for the gun with his fine white hair hanging in his eyes and blood dripping from his chin. He’s eerily fast, somehow lizardlike. Pete calculates, still without thinking, and sees that if he races Red Lips to the gun, he’ll lose. It will be close, but he will. There’s a chance he might be able to grab the man’s arm before he can turn the gun to fire, but not a good one.
He bolts for the door instead.
‘Come back, you shit!’ Red Lips shouts. ‘We’re not done!’
Coherent thought makes a brief reappearance. Oh yes we are, Pete thinks.
He rakes the door open and goes through hunched over. He slams it shut behind him with a hard fling of his left hand and sprints for the front of the shop, toward Lacemaker Lane and the blessed lives of other people. There’s another gunshot – muffled – and Pete hunches further, but there’s no impact and no pain.
He pulls at the front door. It doesn’t open. He casts a wild glance back over his shoulder and sees Red Lips shamble out of Halliday’s office, his chin wreathed in a blood goatee. He’s got the gun and he’s trying to aim it. Pete paws at the thumb-lock with fingers that have no feeling, manages to grasp it, and twists. A moment later he’s on the sunny sidewalk. No one looks at him; no one is even in the immediate vicinity. On this hot weekday afternoon, the Lacemaker Lane walking mall is as close to deserted as it ever gets.
Pete runs blindly, with no idea of where he’s going.
30