The Night Crew

might push Judge back, might confuse him, get him running. They wouldn’t have long . . .
    She swung through the gate, and started up the dark lane, scanning the sides of the road. Had to keep moving fast: if he was planning to ambush her along the way, he might be only five feet from the car when she passed.
    She kept her foot down and the car bounded up the ruts, throwing her around in the seat: no seat belt, she might not have time to get it off. At the top of the rise, she hit the high beams, caught the ranch house full in her headlights. No sign of Judge, nothing moving except herself in the car. And the car was moving fast—too fast. She skidded around the side of the ranch, straightened it out, spotted the back porch . . . hammered the car right to the edge of the porch, flicked open the door . . .
    ‘‘JAKE!’’ she screamed. ‘‘JAKE!’’
    Nobody there. She leaned out the door to scream again, and saved herself:
    Crack . . .
    And the passenger side window exploded, showering her with splinters of glass.
    Crack . . .
    The back window went out. The gunfire was coming from out in the darkness, back toward the buildings she thought might have been chicken houses.
    She jammed the car into park and threw herself across the porch, through the door into the house.
    Crawled frantically to the bathroom.
    Harper was there, groaning, bleeding: ‘‘Hit me,’’ he moaned. ‘‘Got me from the side.’’ And he looked at her: ‘‘Ah, Jesus, what happened to you, you’re bleeding . . .’’
    Anna half-rose to look in the mirror: she had several small cuts on her face, apparently from the window glass. As soon as she saw them, they started to burn. But they weren’t bad, she thought. She dropped back down to Harper.
    ‘‘Let me see where you’re hit, let me see.’’
    He rolled to show her; the slug had hit him in the pelvic bone, and angled down to come out the inside of his thigh. A purple stream of blood flowed from the lower part of the wound, which he’d partially stopped with a sock.
    ‘‘Lord . . .’’ Anna dug into her coat, found the Herme`s scarf she kept stuffed in the inside pocket, flipped it into a coil and bound the sock to the wound.
    ‘‘Fuckin’ killin’ me,’’ Harper said.
    Crack . . .
    Apparent miss.
    ‘‘We got to find some way out,’’ Anna said frantically.
    ‘‘The car is right outside the door, but he’s shooting it to pieces.’’
    ‘‘I don’t know if I could make it out anyway,’’ Harper moaned. ‘‘Do you think you could run for it? I can probably hold him off a while longer, he just got me with a lucky shot. If you could run to someplace where the phone would work . . .’’
    ‘‘God!’’ Anna, trying to think. She looked over the rim of the tub at Glass, who now had both eyes open. Glass recognized her, tried to speak, her broken lips working, but nothing came out.
    Crack. Another miss. How do you miss a house?
    ‘‘Let me go look at the car,’’ she said to Harper, and she scrambled back out into the hallway, through the back room. The car was still there, engine running.
    Crack . . .
    Missed again; she frowned, wondering what he was doing. He wasn’t shooting at the car. She looked back toward the room where Harper was hidden, decided. She’d have to go. If he could hold them off for ten minutes, like he said, she might be able to get back.
    She decided, and scrambled back to tell Harper.
    Crack —and the house lights went, all at once.
    ‘‘Coming for ya now, Anna,’’ the voice screamed.
    ‘‘Come on in,’’ Anna shouted back. ‘‘The cops will be here in five minutes, and then we’re gonna kill you. You hear that? In five minutes, you’re gonna die. Think about it, Stevie—five minutes, no more Steve. Just a piece of trash they’re gonna throw in a hole, and nobody’ll care. Not even your parents . . . Your parents’ll be embarrassed to be related to you . . .’’
    Crack . . .
    ‘‘That’s right, piss him off,’’ Harper said, and she could hear the grin in his voice.
    And that pissed her off. She was bleeding herself, she had the blood of two people drying on her hands, and one of those persons was trying to laugh.
    ‘‘Goddamn you, Jake,’’ she hissed.
    ‘‘What?’’
    ‘‘Keep your mouth shut. No matter what you hear, keep your mouth shut, and stay here. Don’t move. Don’t come to help me. Okay? Number two: You shoot the next thing that comes through the bathroom door. If I decide to