Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 by The Steel Mirror (v2.1) Page A

and belly. He still had a thin man’s long
legs and narrow shoulders. He was wearing a dark suit without a vest, a striped
white shirt and a bow tie. When his coat swung open you could see the star
pinned on the shirt. You could also see the cartridge belt constricting the
abdomen, the lower part of the holster showing below the coat; but the holster
was empty. The man had his gun in his hand. A lanky, sandy-haired boy in jeans
and a blue shirt got out of the Ford on the far side and started walking
gingerly around it. He held a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun across his body
and looked quite nervous.
                 A
car, approaching from the east, slowed and then, slamming into second and
swinging wide into the far lane, screamed past with a whine of tortured gears,
accelerating to hell out of there; it swerved crazily to avoid a large trailer
truck. The truck rolled past with the hiss of released airbrakes.
                 The
tall man made a motion with his gun. Emmett cleared his throat, pushed the seat
forward and, opening the door, climbed out. The tall man jerked the gun again
and Emmett raised his hands. The gun was a .44 or .45 Smith and Wesson with a
six-inch barrel, he found himself noticing distantly. His brother Dave had had
one like it for a while, trading it later to another guy for a .32 hammerless
and a radio that did not work. The bluing was worn off the tall man’s gun at
both sides of the muzzle, the top of the front sight, and the ribs of the
cylinder, from being carried in the holster. The muzzle looked big enough to
stick a forefinger into.
                 “What’s
the matter, officer?” Emmett asked. The words sounded silly, in the face of the
gun, but his voice was fairly good, he thought, considering the circumstances.
                 “Who
the hell are you?” the tall man demanded.
                 Emmett
told him.
                 “What
are you doing in that car?”
                 Emmett
told him.
                 “Oh,
a hitch-hiker,” the tall man said contemptuously.
                 The
sun was very bright. There was a ditch on either side of the road, and beyond
each ditch a barbed wire fence. Emmett had a vision of himself fleeing crazily,
hanging up in the barbed wire, feeling the bullets go into him as he struggled
to get free.
                 The
boy with the shotgun stood between the cars, his weapon uneasily trained on the
convertible.
                 “Keep
those hands up,” the tall man said sharply to Emmett. “Tell the girl to get out
here.”
                 Emmett
turned slowly. “You’d better come here, Miss Nicholson.”
                 “Nicholson,
eh?” The tall man spat. “Bud, go around and check that license again.”
                 He
waited unmoving in the sunshine for his order to be obeyed. He had a long face,
wide at the cheekbones and narrow at the chin and forehead. There were more
freckles on the face than Emmett could remember seeing on a human face before.
He had a long, rubbery, thin-lipped mouth, and small, very blue eyes, set close
together on each side of a large curved nose.
                 “Six-one-o-two-six-one,”
the boy said. “ Illinois .”
                 Ann
Nicholson got out of the car. Emmett heard her footsteps come to him and felt
her hand take his arm. The hand was trembling.
                 The
tall man looked at her. “Your name’s Ann Nicholson?”
                 “A…”
The word did not come out; all the self-possession she had showed with Emmett
earlier in the morning was gone. She was quite terrified. She tried again. “…
Yes.”
                 “We
had a call from the Chicago police,” the tall man said. “Girl wearing light gabardine suit, light
hat, blonde, about five-four, a hundred and fifteen pounds, driving tan