“Before Harkner left the Piewacket, he smeared in blood the words ‘All Right’ across the floor with the toe of his sneaker, while holding a gun on the rest of the terrified customers. And when he was gone, there were four corpses on the bloody floorboards, and three more people seriously injured—one of those, the bartender Raymond W. Arnold, as I said, has just died. Franklin Hargus, whose shotgun was used, drove the Danattos home. They were unhurt. But we have been unable to reach them for comment beyond Mrs. Danatto’s first statement.…”

“Come on, goddamn it!” the policeman shouted over.

Mr. Jonas raised his head, fell back. A piece of glass broke under his cheek.

I turned around and walked back toward the motorcycle.

A second police car was pulling up by the first.

The nigger half-sat against the back of the bike, arms folded across his unbuttoned shirt, one foot by the kickstand, one foot rubbing his ankle.

A breeze shook out Hawk’s curly hair, tugged at the nigger’s torn shirttails and frayed pants cuffs.

“Aw shit, man!” Hawk knuckled at his belly. His denim vest flapped. “I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ to him! Look at the goddamn tread marks! The bastard jumped all the way across the fuckin’ divider!”

“Hey, Bill?” Another policeman stuck his head out the second car window. “Come on, Bill. Whatcha doin’?”

“Monty?” The first policeman turned, his grin getting a little less funny. “I got one of these hotshot bikey cocksuckers. And I got his ass, man, too! Run a fuckin’ limousine off the road and probably killed everybody in it—”

“Man, look!” Hawk protested. “I’m tellin’ you, he run me—”

“You better let the ambulance mop it up, Bill,” Monty said. “You an’ me got to get to work … didn’t you get the call? This is something big.”

“What call?” Bill pushed up his visor with his forefinger. “What you talkin’ about, Monty?”

“You sayin’ you didn’t get no call ’bout that Harkner shit?”

“What shit?”

“It just come down a few minutes ago. There’s this fuckin’ seventeen-year-old kid gone berserk, runnin’ around murderin’ people! Chief wants everyone from here to Fairhaven to get their navy-blue ass back down to Frontwater.”

“Huh? Some kid—?”