Strangers

the roar of the riot gun, then by shouting and the slap-slap-slap of running feet. It sounded like a war out there. Another blast from the riot gun. More shattering glass. Another scream, more horrible than the one that had rent the air before it. Yet another shot. Silence. Silence perfect and profound.
        The driver's door was jerked open.
        Brendan cried out in surprise and terror.
        "Stay down!" Paul Armes said from the front seat, keeping a low profile himself. "Two dead, but there might be other shitheads inside."
        "Where's Winton" Brendan asked.
        Paul did not answer. Instead, he grabbed the radio microphone up front and called Central. "Officer down. Officer down!" Armes gave his position, the address of the sandwich shop, and requested backup.
        Lying on his side on the floor of the squad car, Brendan closed his eyes and saw, with heartbreaking clarity, the pictures that Winton Tolk carried in his wallet and that he proudly displayed when queried about his family - pictures of his wife, Raynella, and his three children.
        "Those rotten fucking bastards," Paul Armes said, his voice shaking.
        Brendan heard soft clicking and scraping sounds that puzzled him until he realized Armes was reloading. He said, "Winton's been shot?"
        "Bet on it," Armes said.
        "He might need help."
        "It's on the way."
        "But he may need help now," Brendan said.
        "Can't go in there. Might be another one. Two more. Who knows? We gotta wait for backup."
        "Winton might need a tourniquet… other first aid. He might be dead by the time help gets here."
        "Don't you think I know that?" Paul Armes said bitterly, furiously. He finished reloading and slid out of the car to take up a position from which he could watch the shop.
        The more Brendan thought about Winton Tolk sprawled on the floor in there, the angrier he became. If he had still believed in God, he might have quenched his anger in prayer. But now it fed on itself and grew into a hot rage. His heart pounded even harder than when the shotgun blasts were crashing into the car inches from him. The injustice of Winton's fate - the unfairness, the wrongness - was like an acid eating at Brendan.
        He got out of the car and started across the sidewalk, through the falling snow, toward the entrance to the sandwich shop.
        "Brendan!" Paul Armes shouted from the far side of the police cruiser. Stop! For God's sake, don't!"
        Brendan kept going, driven by his rage and by the thought that Winton Tolk might need immediate first aid to survive.
        A dead man in a plaid hunting jacket was lying on his back on the sidewalk. A round from Armes's revolver had taken him in the chest, a second round in the throat. There was a stink of loosed bowels. In the snow beside the corpse lay a handgun, perhaps the very one with which Winton Tolk had been shot.
        "Cronin!" Paul Armes yelled. "Get your ass back here, you idiot!"
        Moving past the broken windows, Brendan could see into the shop, which was surprisingly dark. The lights had been shot out or a switch thrown, and the gray daylight penetrated only a couple of feet inside. He could not see anyone, but that did not mean it was safe to enter.
        "Cronin!" Paul Armes shouted.
        Brendan went to the entrance, where he found the black man in the peacoat. This one had been hit by a shotgun blast that also demolished the glass door; he was crumpled in a thousand bright fragments.
        Stepping over the body, Brendan entered the sandwich shop. He did not have his Roman collar, which might have been something of a shield if he had been wearing it. On the other hand, degenerates like these would probably kill a priest as reflexively and as happily as they blew away police officers. In his suit and tie and topcoat, he was as ordinary and vulnerable as any man, but he did not care. He was that furious. Furious that God did not exist or, existing, did not care.
        At the back of the small shop was a service counter. Behind the counter was a grill, other equipment. On this side were five very small tables and ten chairs, most of which had been toppled. On the floor were a couple of napkin dispensers, ketchup and mustard bottles, scattered one- and five-dollar bills, a lot of blood, and Winton Tolk.
        Not bothering to study the overturned tables to see if a gunman was sheltering behind