âMaybe theyâre looking for you.â
âEither way, call the police.â I said.
I felt a firm hand on my right forearm. âGive me the gun.â
âJust make you a target, Father Rhinehardt,â I said. The van driverâs lips curled to reveal a line of clenched teeth. Rhinehardt let go of my arm. âAnd standing next to me is not an idea with a long or happy future.â
âI think you should leave,â he said.
âIf I stand relatively still, Reverend,â I said, âwe all have time to think. If I make a significant move, the thinking will stop, and the doing will start.â
âDoing what?â
âThey shot up a house over on Montebello. We ran. The neighbors must have called the police.â
âYou have the rifle,â said Rhinehardt.
âOne of their guys dropped it. I took it so they couldnât use it.â
âWhy did they come here?â he asked.
âMay have wanted to hide in the crowd,â I said. âI donât think they knew this was a church. From the look on the driverâs face, I donât think they expected to find us here either.â
Rhinehardt stepped around me and said, âRichard, Carla,â beckoning to an elderly couple. Rhinehardt stood about five feet, ten inches tallâall black suit and silver hair from behind. âHurry inside,â he said, his voice now cheerful. âRalph. Yes, you too. I need some help.â
A light mist filtered from a mostly cloudless skyâMichigan weather. The cold ground would turn the mist into a coat of ice.
I waited for the padre to work his way to my left so I had a clear background behind the van. The van driver spoke slowly, his single eyebrow bent into a chevron. I pulled my coat aside to reveal a clear view of the rifle.
Manny took his hands from his face to make frantic gestures while he spoke rapidly to the driver. The right side of Mannyâs face radiated bright red from the hairline to the neck.
The driver wagged a single digit at me and jerked the shift lever down, and the van lurched into reverse. Backing up earned him some polite horn toots from entering traffic. A fifteen-foot church van, white with black lettersââSt. Michaelâsââstopped cold behind Manny and his crew. If they decided to start a war, I wouldnât be able to return fire without hosing the church van.
I sidestepped to my right, trying for a workable angle of fire. The green van cut a hard U-turn, driving over the curb to get to the street. I hustled through a gap in the parking lot fence and ran along the side of the church toward Division Avenue. The van roared by before I got to the street.
At the corner of Forty-fourth and Division, the signal blinked red. No fewer than three dark-colored minivans idled in the gaggle of traffic at the light. I focused on the minivan in the left turn lane because the expressway on-ramp veered off Forty-fourth Street in less than a quarter mile. Mist collecting on my glasses turned the vanâs taillights into big, red, four-pointed stars. I couldnât read the license plate.
The green arrow blinked on, and the minivan rocketed left around the corner. I dodged through the stopped traffic in the northbound lanes anddashed into the vacantâand now slickâsouthbound side of the highway. When the main signal went green, the bumpers of the cars stopped at the light rose in unison like an offensive line coming out of a crouch after the snap.
A white Oldsmobile sedan cranked a tire-spinning right into the southbound lane before I could get to the curb, nailed the brakes, and came at me sideways. The driver, a blond lady with her hair in large rollers, screamed, âHoly shit!â loud enough for me to hear it through the closed window. I pegged a hand onto the left front fender above the headlight and, with a small hop, leapt onto the curb as the Olds slid into a one-eighty.
The on-ramp traffic
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