"Ohfuck," Doc says.
"Wanda, no!" Jack cries. Doc has let go of his left hand (Dale has still got his right one hoisted high in the summer air) and Jack holds it out to her like a traffic cop. Wanda Kinderling's first bullet goes right through the palm, mushrooms slightly, begins to tumble, and punches into the hollow of Jack's left shoulder.
Wanda speaks to him. There's too much noise for Jack to hear her, but he knows what she's saying, just the same: Here you go, you railroading son of a bitch — Thorny says hello.
She empties the remaining five bullets into Jack Sawyer's chest and throat.
No one hears the insignificant popping sounds made by Wanda's bulldog .32, not over all that clapping and cheering, but Wendell Green has got his camera tilted up, and when the detective jerks backward, our favorite reporter's finger punches the Nikon's shutter-release button in simple reflex. It snaps off eight shots. The third is the picture, the one that will eventually become as well known as the photo of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima and that of Lee Harvey Oswald clutching his belly in the parking garage of the Dallas police station. In Wendell's photo, Jack Sawyer looks calmly down toward the shooter (who is just a blur at the very bottom of the frame). The expression on his face might be one of forgiveness. Daylight is clearly visible through the hole in the palm of his outstretched hand. Droplets of blood, as red as rubies, hang frozen in the air beside his throat, which has been torn open.
The cheering and the applause stop as if amputated. There is a moment of awful, uncomprehending silence. Jack Sawyer, shot twice in the lungs and once in the heart, as well as in the hand and the throat, stands where he is, gazing at the hole below his spread fingers and above his wrist. Wanda Kinderling peers up at him with her dingy teeth bared. Speedy Parker is looking at Jack with an expression of naked horror that his wraparound sunglasses cannot conceal. To his left, up on one of four media towers surrounding the platform, a young cameraman faints and falls to the ground.
Then, suddenly, the freeze-frame that Wendell has captured without even knowing it bursts open and everything is in motion.
Wanda Kinderling screams "See you in hell, Hollywood" — several people will later verify this — and then puts the muzzle of her .32 to her temple. Her look of vicious satisfaction gives way to a more typical one of dazed incomprehension when the twitch of her finger produces nothing but a dry click. The bulldog .32 is empty.
A moment later she is pretty much obliterated — broken neck, broken left shoulder, four broken ribs — as Doc stage-dives onto her and drives her to the ground. His left shoe strikes the side of Wendell Green's head, but this time Wendell sustains no more than a bloody ear. Well, he was due to catch a break, wasn't he?
On the platform, Jack Sawyer looks unbelievingly at Dale, tries to speak, and cannot. He staggers, remains upright a moment longer, then collapses.
Dale's face has gone from bemused delight to utter shock and dismay in a heartbeat. He seizes the microphone and screams, "HE'S SHOT! WE NEED A DOCTOR!" The P.A. horns shriek with more feedback. No doctor comes forward. Many in the crowd panic and begin to run. The panic spreads.
Beezer is down on one knee, turning Jack over. Jack looks up at him, still trying to speak. Blood pours from the corners of his mouth.
"Ah f**k, it's bad, Dale, it's really bad," Beezer cries, and then he is knocked sprawling. One wouldn't expect that the scrawny old black man who's vaulted up onto the stage could knock around a bruiser like Beezer, but this is no ordinary old man. As we well know. There is a thin but perfectly visible envelope of white light surrounding him. Beezer sees it. His eyes widen.