The Devils Teardrop

Museums are fun, he thinks. Tye would like museums. Maybe when they’re in California they can go to a museum together.
    More shouting. People are running. There are men and women and children all over the place. Police and agents. They have Uzis or Mac-10s or, click, pistols like the Digger’s pistols and like the pistol of the fat man who just tried to shoot him. But these men and women aren’t shooting because they don’t know who to shoot at. The Digger is just one of the crowd.
    Click, click.
    How far does he have to go to get to more people?
    A few hundred feet, he guesses.
    He’s trotting toward them. But his path is taking him away from Tye—from the car parked on Twenty-second Street. He doesn’t like that thought. He wants to get the shooting over with and get back to the boy. When he gets to the crowd he’ll spin like a whirligig, watch the people fall like leaves in a Connecticut forest then go back to the boy.
    When I travel on the road,
    I love you all the more.
    Spin, spin, spin . . .
    They’ll fall like Pamela fell with the rose on her chest and the yellow flashing flower in her hand.
    Fall, fall, fall . . .
    More people with guns are running over the grass.
    Suddenly, nearby, he hears explosions, cracks and bangs and pops.
    Are people shooting at him?
    No, no . . . Ah, look!
    Above him flowers are blossoming in the air. There’s smoke and brilliant flowers, red and yellow. Also blue and white.
    Fireworks.
    His watch beeps.
    It’s midnight.
    Time to shoot.
    But the Digger can’t shoot just yet. There aren’t enough people.
    The Digger keeps moving toward the crowd. He can shoot some, but not enough to make the man who tells him things happy.
    Crack . . .
    A bullet streaks past him.
    Now someone is shooting at him.
    Shouting.
    Two men in FBI jackets in the middle of the field to the Digger’s right have seen him. They’re standing in front of a wooden platform, decorated with beautiful red and blue and white banners, like the ones the fat New Year’s babies wear.
    He turns toward them and fires the Uzi through his coat. He doesn’t want to do this—to put more holes in the beautiful black or blue coat Pamela gave him but he has to. He can’t let anyone see the gun.
    The men clutch at their faces and necks as if bees are stinging them and fall down.
    The Digger turns and continues moving after the crowds.
    Nobody has seen him shoot the men.
    He only has to walk a couple of hundred feet further and he’ll be surrounded by lots of people, looking around like everybody else, looking for the killer, looking for salvation. And then he can shoot and shoot and shoot.
    Spinning like a whirligig in a Connecticut forest.

28
    When the first bullets crashed into the wood around him Jerry Kennedy shoved Claire off the platform and onto the cold ground.
    He jumped after her and lay on his side, shielding her from the bullets. “Claire!” Kennedy shouted.
    “I’m all right!” Her voice was edgy with panic. “What’s going on?”
    “Somebody’s shooting. It must be him! The killer—he must be here!”
    They lay side by side, huddling, smelling dirt and grass and spilled beer.
    One person on the platform had been hit—the young aide, who’d been shot in the arm as Congressman Lanier leapt behind him for cover. But no one else seemed to be injured. Most of the shots had been wild. The killer had been aiming at the two agents in front of the viewing stand, not at anyone on the platform.
    Kennedy could see the agents were dead.
    The mayor glanced up and saw C. P. Ardell, holdinghis black pistol in front of him, looking over the field. He stood tall, wasn’t even crouching.
    “Agent Ardell!” Kennedy shouted. “There he is! There!”
    But the agent didn’t shoot. Kennedy climbed halfway up the stairs, tugged at the man’s cuff, pointing. “He’s getting away. Shoot!”
    The huge agent held his automatic out in front of him like a sharpshooter.
    “Ardell!”
    “Ahnnnn,” the agent was saying.
    “What’re you waiting for?” Kennedy cried.
    But C. P. Ardell just kept saying, “Ahnnnnn, ahnnnn,” gazing out over the field.
    Then Ardell started to turn, slowly revolving, looking north, then east, then south . . . Looking toward the wall of the Vietnam Memorial, then at the trees, then at the Washington Monument, then at the flag that decorated the backdrop of the viewing platform.
    “Ahnnnn.”
    The agent turned once more, a complete circle, and fell onto his back,