We sure as hell did, Rick said.
Nat was smiling. The sense of relief that flooded through him was like nothing he had ever experienced, a great slackening as if some overinflated tire had burst through its own sidewall, hot and stagnant air rushing out all at once, and all he could think was that he had done it and that he was free. He turned the wheel downhill toward the opening that led out onto the street.
And that was when he saw the El Camino.
Its low slanting shape slid out before them like a huge door rolling shut across their path, the Datsun’s headlights shining upon its front wheel, its long rust-colored side panel, and finally upon the tattooed man’s face in the driver’s-side window, a face that stared back at them without concern or expression.
No, Nat said. And then he said it again in a long frantic stream: No no no no. He did not stop the car, could not. Instead his foot came down hard on the gas, his hands pulling the wheel and the little Datsun’s engine flooding up in a quick hard hum and then leaping forward at a diagonal as if possessed of some new purpose or function, the gap between the front of the El Camino and the metal pole that marked the edge of their escape route closing even as they sped toward it. Rick was yelling next to him but he could not hear the words, only the weak roar of the tiny engine and then the crunch of metal as the Datsun struck the El Camino at the wheel well and both cars ground immediately to a stop.
What the fuck? Rick said, his voice high and loud and his hands scrabbling the floorboards for the .38.
We gotta get out of here.
I fucking know that.
But the tattooed man was already out of his car, Nat slamming into reverse but the front of the Datsun clinging to the El Camino, the little car’s tires squealing against the asphalt and then abruptly breaking free, that moment coming just as Rick’s door flew open and Rick himself was pulled outside, the man grabbing Rick’s jacket and the Datsun whipping him out of the car by the pure force of its sudden motion, Nat staring now at a scene unfolding in the diminishing distance below him, all of it caught flat and brutal and impossible in the yellow of his headlights: the tattooed man throwing Rick to the asphalt, the baseball bat coming down and coming down and coming down, Rick’s body seeming to collapse in on itself and his voice rising into that lit nightscape in a flurry of curses and screams.
He stopped the Datsun at the top of the driveway almost in the same location Rick had parked, the car’s single functioning headlight pointing down the long slope, a parking lot empty of cars, the whole of the night crushing down on him all at once. Then he reached into the backseat for the rifle before wrenching open the door and stepping outside.
Stop goddammit, he yelled. Stop stop! and when the man raised the bat again Nat pointed the rifle into the sky and pulled the trigger. The sound of it was bright and hot and the flash blinded him for a moment but the man had stopped now, looking up to where Nat stood, the rifle held in his grip.
Now you think you’re gonna shoot me? the man said.
Get away from him, Nat said.
Rick slid backward across the asphalt on his elbows, his feet kicking out for purchase.
I told you, you fucked with the wrong guy. A man repays his debts. And I sure the fuck owe you two sons of bitches.
I said get away from him, Nat said again.
The man laughed then, the black smears of his tattoos snaking up and down his arms, his teeth shining in a wide grin. Let’s have a look at what you got in your trunk, dipshits, the man said. Maybe we can make a deal.
We triggered the alarm, Rick said from the ground. The cops are already on their way.
Then I guess we don’t got much time, the man said. Despite the cold, he wore an unbuttoned collared shirt with the sleeves torn off, and he pulled the shirt out of the way to reveal the grip of a pistol extending from the front of his pants. You think you can shoot me before I draw? he said.
Shoot him, Rick said from the ground.
The man laughed again. He’s not a killer, the man said, and neither are you, Mr. Medium Security. He smiled. Then he said, But I am.
And that was when Rick came at him, his body nearly parallel to the earth as he dove, crashing into the man sideways and both of them coming down. Nat could not see anything in the headlight glow, there were only bodies, hands on the bat, a kind of furious dissolve of flesh as if they had become one man with four arms and four legs, one man gone wild, striking at himself, predator and prey all at once.
He thought he could hear distant sirens now and he called his friend’s name again and again, the rifle still held in his hands, the car behind him, his own shadow cast as a long straight arrow pointing down to that crazed and multiarmed figure. And when the shot rang out he jolted backward, staring for a quick moment at the rifle before realizing that he had not accidentally pulled the trigger on his own, that the shot had come from below.