Norris yelled furiously to Trooper Joe Price. "Now get your thumb out of your butt and give me a help!"
This shocked Price into action. He tried to take his own revolver out of its holster, discovered the safety strap was still on, and began fumbling with it. He was still fumbling when the barber shop and the funeral home blew up.
Buster, Norris, and Trooper Price all looked upstreet. Ace did not. He had been waiting for just this golden moment. He pulled the automatic from his belt with the speed of a Western quick-draw artist and fired. The bullet took Norris high in the left shoulder, clipping his lung and smashing his collarbone. Norris had taken a step away from the brick wall when he noticed the two men drifting apart; now he was driven back against it. Ace fired again, chipping a crater in the brick an inch from Norris's ear. The ricochet made a sound like a very large, very angry insect.
"oh Christ!" Trooper Price screamed, and began to labor more enthusiastically to free the safety strap over the butt of his gun.
"Burn that guy, Dad!" Ace yelled. He was grinning. He fired at Norris again, and this third bullet tore a hot groove in the skinny Deputy's left side as he collapsed to his knees. Lightning flashed overhead. Incredibly, Norris could still hear brick and wood from the latest explosions rattling down on the street.
Trooper Price at long last managed to unsnap the strap over his gun. He was pulling it free when a bullet from the automatic Keeton held took his head off from the eyebrows on up. Price was hammered out of his boots and thrown against the brick wall of the alley.
Norris raised his own gun once more. It seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. Still holding it in both hands, he aimed at Keeton.
Buster was a clearer target than his friend. More important, Buster had just killed a cop, and that shit most definitely did not go down in Castle Rock. They were hicks, maybe, but not barbarians.
Norris pulled the trigger at the same moment Ace tried to shoot him again.
The recoil of his revolver sent Norris flying backward. Ace's bullet buzzed through empty air where his head had been half a second before. Buster Keeton also went flying backward, hands clapped to his belly. Blood poured through his fingers.
Norris lay against the brick wall near Trooper Price, panting harshly, one hand pressed against his wounded shoulder. Christ, this has been a really lousy day, he thought.
Ace levelled the automatic at him, then thought better of itat least for the time being. He went to Buster instead and dropped on one knee beside him. North of them, the bank went up in a roar of fire and pulverized granite. Ace didn't even look in that direction. He moved old Dad's hands to get a better look at the wound. He was sorry this had happened. He had been getting to like old Dad pretty well.
Buster screamed. "Oh, it hurts! Oh, it hurrrrts!"
Ace just bet it did. Old Dad had taken a.45 slug just above his belly-button. The entrance hole was the size of a headbolt. Ace didn't have to roll him over to know the exit hole would be the size of a coffee cup, probably with chunks of old Dad's spine sticking out of it like bloody candy-canes.
"It hurrrts! HURRRRRRTS!" Buster screamed up into the rain.
"Yeah." Ace put the muzzle of the automatic against Buster's temple. "Tough luck, Dad. I'm going to give you some painkiller."
He pulled the trigger three times. Buster's body jumped and was still.
Ace got to his feet, meaning to finish the goddam Deputy-if there was anything left to finish-when a gun roared and a bullet whined through the windy air less than a foot over his head. Ace 'de the Slier'if's looked up and saw another cop standing just outsi Office door to the parking lot. This one looked older than God.
He was shooting at Ace with one hand while the other pressed against his chest above his heart.
Seat Thomas's second try plowed into the earth right next to Ace, splashing muddy water on the toes of his engineer boots. The old buzzard couldn't shoot for shit, but Ace suddenly realized he had to get the hell out of here, anyway. They had put enough dy***ite in the courthouse to blow the whole building sky-high, they had set the timer for five minutes, and here he was, all but leaning against it while f**king Methuselah took potshots at him.
Let the dy***ite take care of both of them.
It was time to go see Mr. Gaunt.
Ace got up and ran into the street. The old Deputy fired again, but this one wasn't even close. Ace ran behind the yellow newsvan, but made no attempt to get into it. The Chevrolet Celebrity was parked at Needful Things. it would do excellently as a getaway carBut first he intended to find Mr. Gaunt and get paid off. Surely he had something coming, and surely Mr. Gaunt would give it to himAlso, he had a certain thieving Sheriff to find"Payback's a bitch," Ace muttered, and ran up Main Street toward Needful Things.