New Jersey Noir by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m laughing at Negron, he’s wiping his shoe on the edge of the porch. I start up the steps.”
    “How many steps?”
    “Four, maybe five.”
    “Where’s your gun at this point?”
    “Well, I have two guns on me. My Glock is in a belt holster under my coat, and a .38 revolver is in the right coat pocket.”
    “Both regulation sidearms?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Is your coat open or buttoned up?”
    “Open. You know, it was warm inside the car, so it’s open.”
    Cash glanced at the now tightly closed coat, the warmth of the room unable to reach Miles’s chill. “Go on.”
    “The old lady told us this guy didn’t have a weapon, none that she saw, anyway. We figured it for a dispute between two homeless squatters, we’d check it out and then leave. So while Negron is still scraping shit off his shoe, I go up maybe two, three steps and I hear something coming from inside the doorway.”
    “What did you hear?”
    Miles’s shoulders twitched and his right hand jerked out of his lap, fisting. “A sharp double metallic click. Like a weapon being locked and loaded. Negron heard it too. He said, Fuck! and I saw him duck in front of the porch and go for his gun. I just stood there, frozen.”
    Cash sat back in his seat, eyeing the young, trembling cop. “Go on,” he said softly.
    “All of a sudden this guy, this enormous fuckin’ guy, is right there, right in the doorway, maybe eight, nine feet away from me. A huge, crazy-looking guy, and he’s got a fuckin’ rifle in his hands. A rifle !”
    The words were pouring out now, and Cash held his questions. Let him spit it out, get it all out and over with. The details, actual or invented, could wait.
    “I almost peed myself. I mean, this guy looked like a real maniac, sweating, cursing to himself, stepping out onto the porch and swinging that rifle back and forth.” Miles spasmed slightly. He took a deep breath, held it briefly, then continued. “So I say, Hey , you know, like a fuckin’ idiot, and the guy zeroes in on me, he don’t hesitate for a second. I’m telling you he was crazy , and he starts yelling at me, something about his old lady, about his kid, something like that, and he’s pointing the rifle at me and I know he’s gonna kill me, and I’ve got my left hand on the banister, you know, I was climbing the stairs, and so I push myself backward. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, just throwing myself down the stairs. Then I hear this tremendous explosion and there’s a giant flash of light and I’m rolling down the stairs into the dirt, and Jesus Christ, I swear I did pee myself. I mean, I felt it, you know, the warm piss in my pants. I thought it was blood, I thought I was shot. Mr. Cash, I swear to God, I don’t remember taking it out, but my .38 was in my hands and I’m pointing it at the guy and he’s swinging his aim over toward Negron who’s down behind the front of the porch yellin’ something about us being cops and the guy starts screamin’ he’s gonna kill us and he swings the rifle back at me, right at my fuckin’ chest, and he jacks another round into the chamber and my gun goes off and the guy just blinks like bullets can’t hurt him, and so I figure I missed. Then he fires again and I think I’m hit again, I’m going to die, and I start firing over and over. The last shot I see his shirt, he’s wearing a T-shirt, and I swear to God I see the shirt tear. It’s like slow motion. The shirt gets pushed in, like somebody poked him with a pencil or something, and then it pops out, out of the hole in his chest, and it’s torn, you know, the shirt is torn and it’s red with blood, and it just popped in, then out of his chest. Blood sprayed out of the hole—some of it hit me. It was like slow motion. Then he falls down, sits down actually. Negron goes rushing past me. The guy drops the rifle and it slides down the steps and Negron, he’s all red and excited and he sticks his Glock in the guy’s face and says, You son of