Thinner(75)

Some of them - how many of the total number, Ginelli had no way of telling - were spilling out of the backs of campers, most in pajamas and nightgowns, all looking confused and scared, all trying to stare in five different directions at the same time. And then Ginelli saw Taduz Lemke for the first time. The old man looked almost comic in his billowing nightshirt. Straggles of hair were escaping from beneath his tasseled nightcap. He came around the front of the unicorn van, took one look at the flattened, twisted tires, and then looked directly up toward where Ginelli was lying. He told Billy that there was nothing comic in that burning glance.

'I knew he couldn't see me,' he said. 'The moon wasn't up, I had lampblack on my face and hands, I was just another shadow in a whole field of them. But ... I think he did see, me, William, and it cooled off my heart.'

The old man turned toward his people, who were beginning to drift in his direction, still babbling and waving their hands. He shouted at them in Rom and swept an arm at the caravan. Ginelli didn't understand the language, but the gesture was clear enough: Get under cover, you fools.

'Too late, William,' Ginelli said smugly.

He had loosed the second burst directly into the air over their heads. Now a lot of people were screaming - men as well as women. Some hit the ground and began to crawl, most of them with their heads down and their butts waving in the air. The rest ran, breaking in all directions but the one from which the fire had come.

Lemke stood his ground, bellowing at them, bullthroated. His nightcap fell off. The runners went on running, the crawlers crawling. Lemke might ordinarily rule them with an iron hand, but Ginelli had panicked them.

The Pontiac station wagon from which he had taken the coat and sneakers the night before was parked next to the van, nose out. Ginelli slammed a third clip into the AK-47 and opened fire again.

'There wasn't anyone in it last night, and the way it smelled, I guessed no one would be in it tonight, either. I killed that station wagon - I mean, I annihilated that motherf*cker.

'An AK-47 is a very mean gun, William. People who have only seen war movies think that when you use a machine gun or an automatic rifle you end up with this neat little line of holes, but it ain't like that. It's messy, it's hard, and it happens fast. The windshield of that old Bonneville blew in. The hood popped up a little. Then the bullets caught it and tore it right off. The headlights blew. The tires blew. The grille fell off. I couldn't see the water spraying out of the radiator, it was too dark for that, but when the clip ran out I could sure hear it. When the clip ran out that son of a bitch looked like it had run into a brick wall. And during all of it, while the glass and chrome were flying, that old man never moved. Just looked for the muzzle flash so he could send the troops after me if I was stupid and waited for him to get his troops together. I decided to split before he could.'

Ginelli ran for the road, bent over low like a World War II soldier advancing under fire. Once there, he straightened up and sprinted. He passed the inner-perimeter sentry the one he had used the gun butt on - with hardly a glance. But when he reached the spot where he had taken Mr Walkman, he stopped, catching his breath.

'Finding him wasn't hard, even in the dark,' Ginelli said. 'I could hear the underbrush shaking and crackling. When I got a little closer I could hear him, too - unth, unth, oooth, oooth, galump, galump.'

Lemke had actually worked his way a quarter of the way around the tree he had been taped to - the net result being that he was more tightly bound than ever. The earphones had fallen off and were dangling around his neck by their wires. When he saw Ginelli he stopped struggling and just looked.

'I saw in his eyes that he thought I was going to kill him, and that he was good and f**king scared,' Ginelli said. 'That suited me just fine. The old dude wasn't scared, but I'll tell you, that kid wishes sincerely that they had never f**ked with you, William. Unfortunately, I couldn't really make him sweat - there wasn't time.'

He knelt down by Lemke and held up the AK-47 so Lemke could see what it was. Lemke's eyes showed that he knew perfectly well.

'I don't have much time, ass**le, so listen good,' Ginelli said. 'You tell the old man that next time I won't be shooting high or low or at empty cars. Tell him William Halleck says to take it off. You got that?'

Lemke nodded as much as the tape would allow. Ginelli tore it off his mouth and pulled the ball of shirting free.

'It's going to get busy around here,' Ginelli said. 'You yell, they'll find you. Remember the message.'

He turned to go.

'You don't understand,' Lemke said hoarsely. 'He'll never take it off. He's the last of the great Magyar chiefs - his heart is a brick. Please, mister, I'll remember, but he'll never take it off.'

On the road a pickup truck went bucketing by toward the Gypsy camp. Ginelli glanced in that direction and then back at Lemke.

'Bricks can be crushed,' he said. 'Tell him that, too.'

Ginelli broke out to the road again, crossed it, and jogged back toward the gravel pit. Another pickup truck passed him, then three cars in a line. These people, understandably curious about who had been firing an automatic weapon in their little town in the dead of night, presented no real problem for Ginelli. The glow of the approaching headlights allowed him plenty of time to fade back into the woods each time. He heard an approaching siren just as he ducked into the gravel pit.