Chapter 25 Chapter 25 Whiskey Town

At one-thirty, Leno got tired of answering the phone and said, "Go for a ride!" He went upstairs and came down with a black suitcase.By this time most people had gone out through the kitchen door. Raynor handed me the box and said, "Don't shake it too much." The box is heavy. The remaining seven people in the house left the house, walked out the front door, and got into an RV that O'Mara had just pulled into the street with the curtains drawn.Leno sat next to O'Mara, and I squeezed into the backseat with my suitcase between my legs. At the first intersection, a car got out and ran in front of us, and another car followed us.We were going around forty miles an hour, which was fast enough to get us where we wanted to go, but not fast enough to be noticeable.

As soon as we arrived we ran into trouble. It all started in a humble bungalow at the southern end of the city.A man poked his head out of the door, put his fingers in his mouth, and blew a piercing whistle. A guy in the car behind us knocked him out with a single shot. On the next corner, we walked through a hail of bullets. Raynor turned to me and said, "If they hit the box, we'd all be blown to the moon. Open it up. Be quick when you get there." As soon as the car was parked on the side of the road in front of a dark three-story brick building, I had already opened the hasp of the box.

The men scrambled over, opened the suitcases, and took out their contents—bombs made of several two-inch pipes wrapped in sawdust.Gunshots rang out outside the curtained windows. Raynor swung to the back and picked up another bomb, got out of the car and walked onto the sidewalk, not paying attention to a bloodstain that suddenly appeared in the middle of his left cheek, and threw the filler charge towards the door of the brick building. The deafening explosion was followed by flames.A bunch of big objects flew towards us, and we scrambled to avoid being hit.In an instant, the door that prevented us from entering the red brick building was gone.

A man lunged forward, throwing a bag of hellfire into the porch, swinging his arms.The shutters on the downstairs windows shattered, and flames and shards of glass flew. The car behind us parked on the street, dealing with the bullets around it.The car that had been walking in front of us had turned into the alley.There was also gunfire from behind the red brick building, among the explosions we made, indicating that the car in front was tackling the rear door. O'Mara walked to the middle of the street, leaned back, and dropped a bomb on the roof of the red-brick building.No explosion.O'Mara raised one foot high, grabbed her throat with her hand, and then fell back heavily.

Another team member also fell after being hit by bullets fired at us from the wooden hut next to the red brick building. Renault cursed without emotion: "Fat boy, blow them out." Fat Boy spat on a bomb, ran to the back of our car, and waved his arms. We hurried off the sidewalk, dodging flying objects, and watched the flames crawl to every corner, transforming the entire brick building. "Is there any more?" Renault asked, and we looked around, enjoying the fresh feeling of being shot without bullets. "This is the last one." Fat Boy took out a bomb. The fire was dancing by the windows above the brick building.Raynor looked at the fire, took the bomb from Fat Boy, and said, "Stand back! They're coming out."

So we left the door of the house. A voice from inside the door shouted, "Reynolds!" Renault hid in the shadow of the car before answering: "What's wrong?" "We're not playing," a gruff voice yelled. "We're coming out. Don't shoot." Renault asked: "Who are 'we'?" "I'm Pete," said the gruff voice, "and there are four of us left." "You come out first," Renault ordered, "put your hands on your head. The others will follow behind you, following your example, come out one by one, with at least half a minute between them. Come out!"

We waited a while, and then Finn Pete appeared on the bombed-out porch, hands on top of his bare head.In the light of the burning house next door, you can see that his face was bruised and his clothes were almost completely torn. Stepping over various debris, the bootlegger trudged down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. Raynor called him a nasty fisherman and shot him four times in the face and body. Pete fell.Someone behind me laughed. Raynor dropped the last bomb into the porch. We squeeze into the car.Renault drives.The engine won't start because it ate a bullet. Renault honked hard and we got out of the car again.

The car parked on the corner came to pick us up.As I waited, I looked up and down the street, lit by two burning buildings.A few faces appeared at the windows, but everyone in the street hid themselves except us.The siren of a fire engine was heard not far away. Another car slowly drove up to let us in, but it was already full.We had to lie down so the rest of us stood directly on the door pedals. The car hit the leg of the dead Hank O'Mara and drove back.We drove across a street that was uncomfortable but safe.After that, these two points no longer exist. A limo ahead sprinted into the street, drove half a block toward us, shoulder to shoulder with us, and then stopped.shootout.

Another car bypassed the limo and rushed towards us.shootout. We did our best, but the car was too crowded to get a good shot.There's really no way to aim and shoot when someone's lying on your lap, and someone's grabbing your shoulder, and someone's shooting you an inch behind your ear. Our other car - the one that circled behind the brick building - caught up to support.But at this time, the other party had two more cars joining.Obviously, the attack on the prison by Thaler's men is over, and then for some reason, Pete's SWAT arrived just in time to sabotage our escape.It's as bad as it gets.

I leaned over a gun that kept firing and yelled into Raynor's ear, "This is not going to work. Get the extra guys out of the car and shoot them in the street." He thought it was a good idea and ordered, "Get out of the car, you guys, and hit them on the sidewalk." I was the first to get out of the car, and I saw the entrance of a dark alley at a glance. Fatty followed me.When I found the hiding place, I snarled at him, "Don't follow me all the time. Go find your own hole. There's a cellar mouth over there that looks good." He trotted obediently, and was shot down when he reached the third step.

I started venturing down the alley.The alley was only twenty feet long, ending in a high wooden fence with a locked gate. A trash can helped me climb through the door and into a red-brick courtyard.There's another yard beyond the wall that flanks the yard, and then I roll over into a third yard, and there's a spitz barking at me. I kicked the bastard out of the way and walked over to the opposite wall, untied my clothesline, and walked across two more yards.Someone yelled at me from the window and threw a wine bottle at me, which ended up in the cobbled back street. The gunshot rang out behind me, but not far enough away, I tried to throw it as far away as possible.The streets I walked must have been as long as the streets I walked in my dream the night Dinah was killed. By the time I stood on the front steps of Elihu Wilson's house, my watch pointed to three-thirty in the morning.