The taxi's door opened. The long tall helicopter who stepped out was wearing what Callahan thought was called a dashiki over jeans and huge mutant sneakers with boomerangs on the sides. There was a fez on his head, which probably accounted somewhat for the impression of extreme height, but not entirely. Callahan guessed the guy was at least six and a half feet tall, fiercely bearded, and scowling at Jake. Callahan started toward this developing scene with a sinking heart, barely aware that one of his feet was bare, slapping the pavement with every other step. The street preacher was also moving toward the developing confrontation. Behind the taxi stopped in the intersection, another driver, interested in nothing but his own scheduled evening plans, laid on his horn with both hands - WHEEEOOOONNNNNNK!!! - and leaned out his window, hollering "Move it, Abdul, you're blockin the box!"
Jake paid no attention. He was in a total fury. This time he brought both fists down on the hood of the taxi, like Ratso Rizzo inMidnight Cowboy - THUD! "You almost ran my friend down, you ass**le, did you even LOOK - " THUD! " - where you were GOING?"
Before Jake could bring his fists down on the hood of the taxi again - which he obviously meant to do until he was satisfied - the driver grabbed his right wrist. "Stop doing that, you little punk!" he cried in an outraged and strangely high voice. "I am telling you - "
Jake stepped back, breaking free of the tall taxi driver's grip. Then, in a liquid motion too quick for Callahan to follow, the kid yanked the Ruger from the docker's clutch under his arm and pointed it at the driver's nose.
"Tell mewhat? " Jake raged at him. "Tell mewhat? That you were driving too fast and almost ran down my friend? That you don't want to die here in the street with a hole in your head? Tell meWHAT? "
A woman on the far side of Second Avenue either saw the gun or caught a whiff of Jake's homicidal fury. She screamed and started hurrying away. Several more followed her example. Others gathered at the curb, smelling blood. Incredibly, one of them - a young man wearing his hat turned around backward - shouted: "Go on, kid! Ventilate that camel-jockey!"
The driver backed up two steps, his eyes widening. He held up his hands to his shoulders. "Do not shoot me, boy! Please!"
"Then say you're sorry!" Jake raved. "If you want to live, you cry my pardon! And his! Andhis! " Jake's skin was dead pale except for tiny red spots of color high up on his cheekbones. His eyes were huge and wet. What Don Callahan saw most clearly and liked least was the way the barrel of the Ruger was trembling. "Say you're sorry for the way you were driving, you careless motherfucker! Do it now!Do it now! "
Oy whined uneasily and said, "Ake!"
Jake looked down at him. When he did, the taxi driver lunged for the gun. Callahan hit him with a fairly respectable right cross and the driver sprawled against the front of his car, his fez tumbling from his head. The driver behind him had clear lanes on either side and could have swung around but continued to lay on his horn instead, yelling"Move it buddy, move it!" Some of the spectators on the far side of Second were actually applauding like spectators at a Madison Square Garden fight, and Callahan thought:Why, this place is a madhouse. Did I know that before and forget, or is it something I just learned?
The street preacher, a man with a beard and long white hair that descended to his shoulders, was now standing beside Jake, and when Jake started to raise the Ruger again, the preacher laid a gentle, unhurried hand on the boy's wrist.
"Holster it, boy," he said. "Stick it away, praise Jesus."
Jake looked at him and saw what Susannah had seen not long before: a man who looked eerily like Henchick of the Manni. Jake put the gun back into the docker's clutch, then bent and picked up Oy. The bumbler whined, stretched his face toward Jake's on his long neck, and began to lick the boy's cheek.
Callahan, meanwhile, had taken the driver's arm and was leading him back toward his hack. He fished in his pocket and palmed a ten-dollar bill which was about half the money they'd managed to put together for this little safari.
"All over," he said to the driver, speaking in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "No harm, no foul, you go your way, he goes his - " And then, past the hackie, yelling at the relentless horn-honker: "Horn works, you nimrod, so why not give it a rest and try your lights?"
"That little bastard was pointing the gun at me," said the taxi driver. He felt on his head for his fez and didn't find it.
"It's only a model," Callahan said soothingly. "The kind of thing you build from a kit, doesn't even fire pellets. I assure y - "
"Hey, pal!" cried the street preacher, and when the taxi driver looked, the preacher underhanded him the faded red fez. With this back on his head, the driver seemed more willing to be reasonable. More willing yet when Callahan pressed the ten into his hand.
The guy behind the cab was driving an elderly whale of a Lincoln. Now he laid on his horn again.
"You may be biting my crank, Mr. Monkeymeat!" the taxi driver yelled at him, and Callahan almost burst out laughing. He started toward the guy in the Lincoln. When the taxi driver tried to join him, Callahan put his hands on the man's shoulders and stopped him.
"Let me handle this. I'm a religious. Making the lion lie down with the lamb is my job."
The street preacher joined them in time to hear this. Jake had retired to the background. He was standing beside the street preacher's van and checking Oy's legs to make sure he was uninjured.
"Brother!" the street preacher addressed Callahan. "May I ask your denomination? Your, I say hallelujah, yourview of theAlmighty ?"