Vampire$

 

Somehow, in all the comings and goings through the three rooms the team had rented in the trailer court, Davette ended up alone in the same room with Felix.

And she didn't think she was up to it.

It was only the third time she'd seen the man. The first she remembered quite well. He had called her a "siren," while boring shivering holes in her with his angry eyes. The second time was again at his saloon office. By the time she had arrived accompanying Annabelle and Adam, Felix was sitting behind his desk examining Jack's check for $50,000 and studiously ignoring her. And that had been as bad, somehow, as being stared at.

But this time was the worst of all. Because this time she knew what he'd just done. She had sat there beside Annabelle while Cat patiently related the events of the day. There was no time to do a hypnotic total recall - the Team was on again in two more hours - but Cat was a natural storyteller, wise in his use of detail. Besides listening raptly, Davette noticed, Annabelle kept a small tape recorder going as he spoke.

And that had gotten to her, reminding her of just how incredibly dangerous their line of work was. They had to make records now because it was entirely possible that every single man on the Team could be dead by sunset and someone had to be able to pass on what they had learned so far.

But what had really gotten to her was the story itself. The Felix part of the story. The lightning-fast, deadly accurate, cold-calm-killer part of the story.

"He saved our lives, Annie," Cat had said with quiet sincerity, carefully looking her in the eye. "We'd all be dead without him, sure as hell."

And Annabelle had smiled that knowing smile she had and asked him gently, "Then you're happy with him, Cherry?"

He had smiled back and softly replied, "Got to be."

Davette hadn't been at all sure what that had meant. But she was sure of one thing: Felix was not happy.

He hadn't actually said so. He hadn't actually said much of anything, now that she thought about it. But she could read it. And so could everyone else. He moved slowly about the edges of their chaotic planning. He did answer when asked a specific question or even when asked for an opinion on some aspect of Jack's Plan. And his answers were concise and to the point. But he wasn't really with them.

"Are you all right?" people kept asking him and he kept saying he was. But he didn't look it. He looked stunned. Almost dazed.

But no one pursued this, because Jack Crow did not.

And now he sat there in the dusty easy chair in the corner of that musty room cleaning his weapons. He had newspaper spread out on a lumpy ottoman and the parts of his pistols spread out on that and the only sounds were the rustle of the newsprint and the precision snicks and clicks of well-oiled firearms.

At the far corner of the room, Davette stood in the little kitchenette where they'd cooked the Team's lunch. She had offered to tidy up but that had been awhile back when the room was filled with people and now she didn't know if she was still there because she wanted td stay or was just frightened to walk past Felix to get out.

So she stayed there in the corner, cleaning and recleaning like some rabid housewife on speed, sneaking constant glances at him and feeling like a complete idiot until she couldn't stand it anymore and just made herself stop, just stop and stand there with her hands on the edge of the sink and stare out that grimy window and catch her breath.

She said things like: What's the matter with me? and Get yourself together, and it worked a bit. She was almost calm when she felt the silence and turned around and he was just sitting there staring into space.

Then he looked up, caught her watching him, and smiled.

It made her fumble a bit. But she managed a: "Can I get you something?"

He glanced at his empty glass, reached for it. "Some more ice water?" he asked.

"No!" she almost shrieked. And then, more calmly, "I'll get it."

And as she walked toward him she cursed herself for the way she was acting and wondered if anything in the world could make her stop behaving like such a fool and then she reached for his glass and saw his face and it all went away.

My God! she thought, seeing those tired, tired eyes, he looks terrible!

He did. He looked beaten, blasted, worn down, worn out. He looked like a man who had just decided to commit suicide.

It wasn't until she had taken his glass and walked back to refill it that she realized that that was exactly what had happened when he had decided to join Team Crow and she knew suddenly what he was thinking about and why he looked the way he did and her butterflies went away and something else, warmer, more solid, replaced them.

But she didn't speak. She just gave him his full glass and sat down at the tiny little built-in breakfast table and sipped her cold coffee and for several moments that's all that happened in the room - the two of them sitting and sipping in silence.

And there's nothing I can say to change it, she kept thinking.

Adam, wearing full priestly regalia, appeared at the connecting door to the next room.

He always looks ten years older dressed like that, she thought.

"Felix?" he called quietly. "Would you like to take confession?"

The gunman looked up, a quizzical expression on his face, and replied, to the others' total surprise, "Yeah. I would."

Felix put his cigarette out in the ashtray and stood up. "How does it work?"

Adam smiled, held out a beckoning, robed arm. "It's easy."

Less than five minutes later, Felix came strolling briskly back into the room alone. He stopped, looked around the room, at Davette, at his chair, at his guns. Then he walked over and picked up his glass of ice water and drained it down.

Adam appeared behind him in the doorway looking mournful.

"I'm sorry, Adam," said Felix when he saw him.

But Adam just shook his head to say it was all right. And when Felix turned away from him to light a cigarette, the young priest made the sign of the cross to his back. Then, with a sad smile for Davette, Adam left.

Felix surprised her by sitting across from her at the tiny breakfast table. He seemed to feel the need to explain to her and she could see him start to speak several times before he finally shrugged, laughed a rueful silent laugh, and said, "I wasn't having any fun."

She smiled at him and blushed to the roots of her light-blond hair. And so they sat there for several more moments, she feeling foolish and excited and infinitely sad and he feeling... what? Numb, she supposed. He certainly looked numb the few times she braved a glance.

After the dozenth dry sip, she realized she must look pretty odd drinking from an empty cup. She got up and went over to the kitchenette for another refill. When she turned back around, he was gone.

Two hours and forty minutes later, they hit the Johnson County Jail.

Jack's Plan was based on Felix's flares. Or rather, what they had done to that woman wearing the ZZ Top sweatshirt.

"Of course it didn't kill her," he explained patiently to a doubtful Cat. "But it sure as hell got her attention. And remember, while she was frantically brushing those sparks off, she wasn't attacking anyone."

Carl had frowned. "So?"

Jack smiled slyly. "So what else - for just a few seconds, mind you - takes their minds off feeding?"

Of course, no one knew. Not for sure. But everyone - even Felix - had an idea or three. But it was Carl Joplin who really brought it home.

"I read somewhere," he offered calmly, "that a pig's blood is a lot like a man's."

Thirty minutes later, they had a serious list of goodies.

But Jack wanted something else; he wanted some form of official sanction. He was willing to go without it - the job had to be done and done right now - but he wanted the effort made.

He and the deputy went to the telephone and started tracing down the sheriff. It took several minutes, several calls, and some patching through by radio before the deputy put his hand over the mouthpiece to whisper, "I've got him."

Jack reached for the phone. Deputy Thompson pulled it out of his reach.

"Mr. Crow, I don't wanna insult you. But I think you'd better let me handle this."

Jack thought a moment, nodded. "I'll be right outside when he wants to talk to me."

The deputy barely smiled. "I'll keep that in mind."

Fifteen anxious minutes later the deputy came out of the room smiling. He'd gotten everything the Team needed for the job - except the sheriff.

"Sorry, Mr. Crow," offered Deputy Thompson. "But there's just no way he can get there before four P.M."

Crow lit a cigarette. "It'll have to do." He turned to the rest of the Team, gathered in chairs around the crowded sitting room. "Okay, sports fans, we're on. Rock and roll."

"Rock and roll!" echoed back at him.

And then everybody went shopping.

Cat, ever bold, directed the driver of the limo to downtown Cleburne, only four blocks off the main square, to Prather's Feed & Seed. He escorted Annabelle and Davette inside and commenced to buy poison for rats, mice, fleas, ticks, fire ants, and coyotes - all together some five pounds of the stuff. Then he chose, from an impressive display of pet supplies, a thirty-gallon aquarium. He declined the offers of gravel, plants, starter guppies, and angelfish. He did buy, for reasons only another Cat would understand, an aerator in the form of a happy-faced salvage diver with bright red boots.

"I always wanted one," was his only response to the women's puzzled looks.

Kirk drove Jack and Felix to Wal-mart. There they bought two five-gallon gasoline cans and two funnels, three of the largest fire extinguishers available, and two packets of balloons in various colors.

They filled up both gas cans at the next-door Exxon station.

Carl and Adam drove the Blazer to a local slaughterhouse that specialized in preparing game meats but agreed to the killing and draining of the six pigs in the back pen. When the owner found out they weren't interested in the carcasses - just the blood - he assumed they were Satan worshippers. A devout Baptist, he then doubled the price as a matter of principle. The technician and the Catholic priest exchanged tired looks between them. Then they paid up without a word and drove away with the blood.

The three groups met, an hour and a half later, in the empty driveway of the sheriff's empty home, where Jack lost no time cutting the women loose.

"Get out of here, Annie," Jack told her firmly. "Get out of this county. You still have your gun?"

Annabelle nodded nervously and clutched her purse more tightly.

"Okay," said Crow. He looked over at the uniformed limo driver, looking out-of-place and worried.

"Fire that guy," Jack ordered her. "Have him take you to a car-rental place... Or better, have him take you to the airport. Then take a taxi to the car-rental place. Make him think you're leaving town."

Annabelle frowned. "I don't think he knows anything that's going on. Or cares, for that matter."

Jack smiled grimly. "I don't either. But do it, anyway. Right?"

She nodded. "Right."

"Okay. Move."

She started to go, stopped. She put a hand to his cheek.

"Be careful, dear," she said softly.

Jack stared a second. Annabelle had never done that before.

But then he shook it off and the smile be chose was wry and he replied, "First chance I get."

And Annabelle smiled back and herded in the silent Davette with a look and then, without another word, the ladies and the limo drove away.

There was a moment - not a long one - when the men simply stood there and watched the car drive off.

"Okay, people," said Jack quietly, "let's saddle up."

And he walked over to the Blazer and pulled out his own chain mail and started putting it on. The other inside warriors - Cat, Adam, and Felix - did the same. Carl and Deputy Thompson stood and watched them. No one spoke.

Jack did a quick check to see that the four were buttoned up right, then nodded to Deputy Thompson, who produced a key from a hiding place deep in his holster. Then he went over to what looked to the others like a garden storage shed beside the sheriffs garage.

Except that it took two dead bolts and a combination to open its four-inch-thick fire door. From inside, the deputy produced one case, twenty-count, CS (Military) Type tear-gas grenades and seven gas masks. Carl, Jack, and the deputy showed Cat and Felix how to adjust the masks and how to pull the pins on the grenades. When everybody seemed to have a mask strapped to fit, they got in the vehicles, with the patrol car in the lead, and headed back for downtown Clebume, Texas.

When they got to the Johnson County Jail, there were three police cars and six uniformed officers, complete with shotguns, flak jackets, and riot gear, waiting for them.

"Dammit!" hissed Jack Crow when he saw them. "How the hell did they know?"

"They didn't," offered the deputy from beside him. "I had to tell them."

At first Crow couldn't speak. When at last be tried, the deputy wouldn't let him.

"Hold it, Mr. Crow!" Kirk snapped. And then, more calmly: "Before you say anything, let me talk. There's nothing wrong with the Cleburne Police. They aren't corrupt. They aren't cowards. And they aren't stupid. People being killed by monsters in their town square and they can't do anything to stop it - and then the mayor hires somebody who can and then their chief tells them not to help out. Don't you think they know there's something strange going on?"

He paused a moment, took a breath. Crow sat silent. Waiting.

"Now," the deputy continued, "I know these six men well. And they know me and..."

"Are you saying they're on our side?" piped Cat from the back seat.

"Nossir!" hissed the deputy, eyeing Jack Crow. "They don't know you. As far as they could tell, you might be the cause of all this!"

"Then whose side," asked Jack quietly, "are they on?"

The deputy smiled. "Mine."

Jack grinned. "Good enough. They'll watch our backs while we go inside?"

"They will."

"Do they know what we're about to try?"

"Yes."

"Do they know what has to be done if we can't cut it?"

"They know."

"Okay, deputy. Let's do it."

The Team piled warily out of the three vehicles at Jack's signal and stood on the sidewalk in front of the jail assembling their equipment. The police said nothing to anyone except the deputy and that was so low no one else heard what was said.

But they didn't try to arrest anyone. Or even slow them down. And they did appear to be on guard.

"Looks like we got a break," whispered Cat to Crow.

Crow nodded. "Looks like," he whispered back. "Quite a kid, that deputy.

"You're not thinking about recruiting him, are you bwana?" Cat asked wickedly.

Jack's face was blank. "Don't need to. He'll volunteer. If... you know."

"Yeah," growled Cat sourly. "I know. If we live long enough to be volunteered to."

"Right. Now, Kirk and I will go inside and get the rest of the stuff we need."

"You want us to start pouring the blood?"

"Wait till we get back. Deputy?"

The deputy stepped away from the two policemen he had spoken to.

"Ready?" asked Jack.

"Ready," said the deputy. And with a nod to the policemen, went inside and arrested everyone in sight.

There were only four. Two at the booking counter, one in the back sitting behind a desk staring dully at a typewriter, and the last drinking thirstily from the water fountain.

All were pale, dead eyed, weak...

And owned.

It was there in their faces, in their posture, in the resigned, almost relieved, manner in which they stood there and allowed themselves to be handcuffed. The only thing that could be thought of as some form of resistance came from one of the two standing at the booking desk, a pale fair-haired man of about thirty named Dan, who made a frantic lunge for a jury-rigged red button stuck to the wall with masking tape.

Jack snatched the other man's wrist away from the alarm in midair and felt the bones in Dan's arm bend under the pressure of his grip. Dan yelped and groaned so sharply, Jack instinctively let loose of him and saw a deep purple bruise in the shape of his gloved fingers already forming on the wrist.

"Good Lord!" whispered Kirk.

Jack looked at him over Dan, who had crumpled to the floor holding his arm. "You see it, too?"

"Hell, yeah, I see it!" cried Kirk. "What the hell's the matter with him?"

"Offhand, I'd say it was loss of blood."

It was about then that Dan began to sob.

Soon the other two were also crying, deep tortured heaves that shook their shoulders painfully.

It hurt to watch it. Jack had been planning to get whoever was inside outdoors and into the squad car and out of the way as soon as possible, but this was just too good a chance to let by.

The fact was that Jack had never, in all his battles, actually met someone he knew to be under the influence of vampires. He knew there were always two or three suicides in the places where the Team had done its job. And he figured those were the ones who couldn't bear to live with the shame of what they'd been made to do.

But he'd never actually seen it. He looked down at the four, now huddled together and weeping. He could feel their shame. They reeked of it. And how they wept! It was the totally unleashed, uninhibited weeping of children, red-eyed, runny-nosed, and moaning.

No. It was too good a chance to pass up. He hated to do it. But he had to question them.

He paused, took a deep breath, and knelt down beside the one he'd grabbed away from the alarm button, Dan. The bruise on his wrist was now multicolored and swelling. He cradled it tenderly on his other forearm.

"I'm sorry about that," he said tenderly.

But Dan just sobbed some more and shook his head as if to say he deserved it.

Part of Jack wanted to grab this man and shake him, this grown man crying like a baby. But the rest of him knew better. These four really couldn't help it.

Supernatural.

"How many are down there?" he asked Dan.

Dan looked at him, uncomprehending. "How many?"

"Yeah. Downstairs. In the jail. How many?"

"How many... masters?"

Jack gritted his teeth but managed to keep his tone gentle. "Yeah. How many masters?"

The oldest of the bunch, the guy who had been sitting in front of the typewriter when Jack and the deputy had come through, shook himself and leaned forward. He held up three fingers.

Like a child.

"Three!" he whined.

Damn! thought Jack. He had been prepared for more than one. But goddammit, three?

Damn!

The other slaves began nodding. One of them, the kid who had been drinking from the fountain, held up three of his fingers and nodded fiercely.

And when he did his collar was pulled away from his throat and Jack saw the bite.

The deputy saw it, too, and gasped. Jack reached over to Dan, the closest one to him, and pulled his collar out and there it was.

"Jesus!" whispered Kirk.

It looked like the bit of a spider. But one impossibly large, impossibly vicious. Impossibly thirsty.

The two puncture marks were just over an inch apart, with overlapping black and yellow rings swollen out from their centers. The bites were recent, deep, and horribly infected.

Loss of blood, Jack had said.

Now he thought: loss of soul...

"They're..." gushed Dan and his gaze was plaintive, with a terrible yearning. "They're... They're so beautiful!"

And all four of them began to weep again. Weep and nod and huddle together and Jack couldn't stand it anymore. He stood up and grabbed two of them by the upper arms and led them outside. The deputy brought out the other two.

Jack said nothing to the wary stares of the six flak-jacketed patrolmen on the sidewalk except: "These men aren't to be harmed. Just keep 'em out of the way."

The patrolman who seemed to be their leader glanced first at Deputy Thompson for his nod of confirmation before taking the prisoners in tow and depositing them in the backs of two police cars.

Carl appeared beside Jack. "You were right?" he asked, though it wasn't really a question.

Jack sighed. "Yeah. They're in there. Three of 'em, looks like."

Cat whistled. "Three? Holy shit!"

Felix was there, too. "Is that a lot?" the gunman wanted to know.

"That's the most so far," offered Adam from off to one side.

Cat looked sharply at him, then relaxed. "Yeah. I keep forgetting you're our historian."

Adam smiled. "Not anymore."

Cat smiled back. "Guess not."

"We'll be back in a second," Jack informed them, and then he and the deputy went back inside, past the front desk, down a corridor, into another corridor, and down to the end of it to a vault door with a sign on it that said: "Johnson County Sheriff Property Room." While Kirk went to work on the combination, Jack started to light a cigarette.

"I wouldn't," advised the deputy as he swung the vault open.

The chemical stench from inside the property room all but staggered Crow. He looked at the deputy.

"Ether," Kirk explained. "We get a lot of speed labs in this part of Texas."

"Oh."

Kirk was waving the air with his hat. "It usually airs out in a couple of secs," he explained. It seemed to, anyway. Though Jack wasn't sure it wasn't just his sense of smell numbing out.

In any case, they went inside and got to work. The evidence was found in thick, tightly sealed manila envelopes with names and case numbers on the outside. Kirk only read them long enough to see what was inside before tearing them open. Jack emptied one of the envelopes onto the floor and filled it with the stuff the deputy handed him.

They took one hundred and sixty tablets of "purple microdot" and thirty more hits of "Blotter" LSD. They took two and one half ounces of pure, uncut cocaine, three ounces, eighty-four grams, of PCP. They took three grams of raw brown Mexican heroin. They took six ounces, one hundred sixty-eight grams, of milk-white methamphetamine crystal. They took it all outside to where Cat and Carl had the jugs of pig's blood and the aquarium set up on a little wheeled table. On the grass alongside slumped the various sacks of poison from Prather's Feed & Seed. The balloons of various colors looked like water balloons now except for the rich smell of gasoline that wafted from them. Next to the balloons were the tear-gas grenades and the gas masks all ready to go.

Jack looked at his watch. Three hours and fifteen minutes to sundown.

"Okay," he said to Carl, "can you rig the elevator now?"

"Yep," Carl nodded and picked up his tool box. The two went back inside.

When Carl saw the elevator doors facing the front entrance he stopped and smiled. "My God, that deputy was right. I never would have believed it."

Jack nodded. "Lucky."

It was, in fact, incredibly lucky. Team Crow had known the cells were in the basement and they had known the only way to reach them was by a single elevator. But it wasn't until Deputy Thompson had drawn his little sketch of the jail that they had known the route to the elevator was so short and clear. Crow had cringed at the thought of trying to winch a full-fledged master vampire around corners and up stairs into the sunlight with the damn thing trying to rip the crossbow free every step of the way.

But this was a straight shot. It was less than thirty feet from the elevator door to the sunshine, and the passageway was wide and free of obstacle.

Now all they had to do was get the fiends to get in the elevator.

He joined Carl, who stood fussing over an antique electrical box on the wall beside the elevator doors. He had wires running from the maze to a black metal box with a half dozen toggle switches on top.

Carl looked up from his work. "Okay, I think I've got you all set."

Jack frowned. "You 'think' you do?"

Carl shrugged. "Jack, this elevator's older than I am. I wouldn't count on it being too responsive."

"What can I count on?"

"Well, this switch starts it up. This one down. This one stops it. Anywhere. Between floors. Whatever you want. This one opens the doors. This one closes them. Again, anywhere you want."

Jack nodded. "Okay. Label 'em."

Carl groaned. "You can't remember that much?"

Jack looked at him. "I don't want to have to remember. I want to be able to know."

Carl sighed. "Yes, bwana," he said and set about doing it.

Crow went back outside and spoke to Cat, who stood on the jailhouse sidewalk talking to the deputy. A few feet away Felix sat quietly on the curb, smoking.

"I'm off to do my bit," Jack told Cat. "Wait a few minutes, then start pouring the blood."

"Right," said Cat.

Crow looked at the deputy's patrol car, parked a few steps away.

"Mind if I borrow that a sec?" he asked.

The deputy looked surprised, then shrugged. "Okay," he offered uncertainly.

Crow nodded, climbed into the car, and pulled away without another word.

"What does he mean by doing 'his bit'?" Kirk wanted to know.

Cat smiled. "He always goes off just before we move to be alone."

"To focus his concentration," finished Kirk, nodding.

Cat's grin was wry. "Or swallow his fear," he suggested and then smiled even wider when he saw the deputy's pale look.

Felix, sitting on the curb smoking his sixty-third cigarette of the day, made no comment. Between his feet he had arranged his last five smokes in a ragged line. He had just stomped out the sixth on the asphalt and added it to the row when Jack Crow suddenly reappeared in the patrol car.

"Something wrong?" asked Cat.

Jack shook his head. He made no attempt to get out of the car, just sat there behind the wheel and stared at Felix.

Eventually, the gunman looked up and met his eyes.

"Get in," ordered Crow, gesturing toward the front passenger door.

Felix eyed him a beat, then stood up. He started toward the car, stopped, went back, and scattered his row of cigarettes. Then he got in and the two of them drove away.

Jack drove in silence for half a dozen blocks to Cleburne City Park. There was a swimming pool, some tennis courts, three baseball diamonds. Jack parked the patrol car next to a beautifully preserved antique locomotive painted jet black and surrounded by a chain-link fence. He turned off the engine and sat there for several seconds in silence.

Felix lit a cigarette and waited for Crow to speak. Now what? he thought.

At last Jack moved. He lit a smoke of his own, turned on the seat to face Felix, and with a smile said, "You know, Felix, you're going to die today."

Felix stared stone at the other man's smiling eyes. He didn't know whether to be scared or offended or...

"So am I," Crow continued. "That's the way it is. We took on this job and it's a never-ending goddamned deal and there are too many vampires and not enough of us and they're gonna get us... so we're gonna make 'em pay.

"Understand?"

Felix sure as shit did not understand. Any of it. Was this Crow's idea of some kinda joke or what?

But what it was was Jack Crow's notion of Style.

"That's the only thing that counts, Felix. We aren't gonna get rid of all the evil in the world. We're not gonna get all the assassins or crack dealers or child molesters.

"And you and I aren't gonna get all the fucking vampires. Sooner or later, they're gonna get us. We die, the earth keeps turning, and not trying just means we keep alive just a little longer and there's a lot more dead people saved from having all their blood ripped out but we still end up dying, Felix, you and me. There's no way out of that. And the earth will have plenty of turns left that we won't see no matter how long we live and so some stupid fools look at this and they don't see any point and that's because the dumbshits think it's a matter of keeping score.

"It isn't, Gunman. The secret isn't the score or the final result because there ain't no final anything!

"What there is... is Style."

There was more of the same. Jack talked some talk about samurai warriors and how they considered themselves dead when they first took up the mantle of service so that nothing could later intimidate them away from their duty.

And there were some other examples and Felix...

Felix said not a word the entire time. He simply sat there staring at Crow, not even smoking, until Jack wound down.

"... just the Style, Felix. Nothing else. So they're gonna get us. So what? It's the Style that matters. Follow me?"

And when Felix spoke his voice was a harsh rasping crackle: "Crow, don't you ever spout that kind of crap at me again! Not ever. Do you hear me?"

And Jack thought, My God, I think the sonuvabitch is gonna shoot me if I don't agree!

And he said, "Okay, Felix."

Felix turned away and stared unseeing at the huge black locomotive.

"Now can we go back?"

Jack nodded, started the car, and drove away.

Thinking: Sheeeyit! What did I turn over here?

And then thinking: God, I blew that one. He wasn't anywhere near ready for that.

A few seconds later Jack sneaked a quick glance to his right. Felix still stared stone.

God! I hope I haven't frozen up my damned gunman again. We've got to have him on this one. We go in there and they come busting up and he doesn't shoot... ?

And then he thought: Fuck it! Nothing I can do about it now. If I blew it, I blew it. Forget it. Shouldn't have brought him along. Shoulda come out here alone like I always do, so, Okay, forget he's here, Jack, oh Great Stupid Leader. Forget it. Do your bit. Deep breaths. Deep breaths and forget Felix and go through those pictures, do 'em now, paint those pictures, because if you can't see it now, if you can't visualize success now, then you sure as shit won't know what to do at the split second...

And he began to do it. He steered the car with automatic pilot, seeing not the streets of Cleburne, Texas, through the windshield, but victory.

He set the aquarium filled with pig's blood in the elevator. Laced with speed and coke and rat poison and all the rest of it. Wouldn't kill 'em but, like the flare on that goon, it just had to be a little distracting to suddenly come on to twenty or so LSD trips at once. Sure, it would smell funny. The fiends would know there was something wrong with it but they could see it! That's why he'd had Cat get an aquarium, so they could not only smell the blood, they could see it through the glass. Just too damn tempting to resist. Plunging their rotten fangs into it like bobbing for apples and then all that poison and dope starts hitting 'em and then the elevator takes them up and by the time the doors open they're gonna be so stoned and sore and weirded out...

The crossbow cable pulls 'em out too fast for 'em to stop it, stoned as they are. The cable is attached to the Blazer because the winch is too slow to take a chance and I'll just whistle to Carl on the radio and he'll hit the gas and that fiend will be out of that elevator and through the doors and burning before it knows what hit it.

Sure as hell!

Shit! We might not even need a gunman!

But they did. And right then they didn't really have one.

Felix, sitting beside the oblivious Jack Crow, had begun to rock and tremble like a molten volcano.