The Night Crew

mess with the wires, and the phones still don’t work, we’ll have lost the time—and we don’t have any time.’’ She touched Pam, looking across her at Harper.
    Harper broke his eyes away for a moment, then shook his head, grinned, put his hand on top of her head and mussed her hair. ‘‘Don’t worry about wrecking the car,’’ he said. ‘‘Fuck the car. Put it right on the porch.’’
    ‘‘Okay.’’
    ‘‘Let me get my back against the wall with Pam. If he tries to come in, I’ll light the motherfucker up.’’
    Anna nodded, grinned back at him, squeezed his good leg: ‘‘It’s the only way. Let’s see if we can get him talking.’’ Anna started, crawling to a window on the back of the house, knocking it out with a chair. The shattering of the glass should attract his attention, if he was still out there. She sat on her heels like a dog baying at the moon, and shouted: ‘‘Steve. What do you want? What do you want?’’
    Nothing.
    Jake had moved to the hallway between the back room and the office. He called softly, ‘‘Nothing here.’’
    ‘‘Steve,’’ Anna shouted. ‘‘Where are you? What do you want? Are you still there?’’
    The voice, not far away: ‘‘I’m still here.’’
    And a second later, a shot: not the pistol any more, a loud, crack, and plaster flew from the wall overhead.
    ‘‘Shit,’’ Harper yelped. ‘‘He’s got a rifle. A big one.’’
    ‘‘Always gotta be killing something around here, putting them out of their misery,’’ the voice shouted.
    He was over toward the garage, or maybe the barn, Anna thought.
    ‘‘What do you want?’’
    ‘‘I want you dead,’’ the voice answered. ‘‘But I want to mess with you for a while.’’
    Another shot, this time into the office.
    Anna crawled past Harper, who said, ‘‘We’ve gotta get better protection. Sooner or later, he’ll think about shooting lower, onto the floor, and then we’re in trouble. Those goddamn slugs are going halfway through the house. Maybe all the way.’’
    Anna said, ‘‘Okay,’’ and crawled into the office. The desks were wooden. Not much help. There was another door off to the left, and she went that way.
    ‘‘What do you think now, about messing with my head? What do you think now?’’ Judge screamed, still from the direction of the garage.
    ‘‘We weren’t messing with you,’’ Harper shouted back. ‘‘How were we messing with you?’’
    ‘‘You’re always messing with me, all of you,’’ Judge screamed back.
    Anna crawled through the door and found herself in the bathroom—and in the corner was a cast-iron bathtub, just what you might hope for in an old ranch house. She crawled back through the office.
    ‘‘Jake—there’s a big old iron tub in the bathroom.’’
    ‘‘That’d help,’’ Harper said. ‘‘Let’s see if we can move her.’’
    Judge was still screaming at them: ‘‘All the time, all my life, you fuckers. Let’s see what you think about it now, I’ve got the big gun.’’
    ‘‘What the hell is he talking about?’’ Harper panted. He trailed his leg behind him as they moved Glass across the office floor and into the bathroom, wincing every time he had to pull his leg forward.
    ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Anna said. ‘‘He’s nuts.’’
    ‘‘Let me do this,’’ Harper said. He was on one knee beside Glass, and picked her up, gently, and lifted her over the side of the tub. She opened one eye and said, ‘‘Car?’’
    ‘‘She’s awake,’’ Harper grunted.
    ‘‘We’re trying to get you out of here,’’ Anna said.
    She crawled to the door and shouted at Judge: ‘‘The cops are coming. If you get out of here now, maybe you’ve got a chance.’’
    ‘‘If the cops were coming, they would have been here,’’ Judge screamed back. ‘‘If I take you down, I walk. I’ll drag you out in the desert somewhere, with a shovel.’’
    Anna turned away, said to Harper, ‘‘I’m going, out the side of the back room,’’ and Harper said, ‘‘Goddamn, Anna . . .’’
    Anna: ‘‘Yell something at him.’’
    Harper pushed himself up from behind the bathtub and as Anna crawled down the hall to the back room, shouted, ‘‘Shut the fuck up, you fuckin’ moron.’’
    Crack. A slug pounded through the side wall of the back room, but much lower this time. Anna was sprayed with splinters of lath and plaster. The bullet missed by three feet.
    ‘‘Anna?’’
    ‘‘Yeah, I’m