He heard the siren and saw the car roaring down the street. Them, he thought. He began to raise the gun and then remembered: they were gunslingers. Gunslingers doing their duty. He turned and went back into the alchemist’s shop.

“Hold it, motherfucker!” Delevan screamed. Roland’s eyes flew to the convex mirror in time to see one of the gunslingers—the one whose ear had bled—leaning out of the window with a scatter-rifle. As his partner pulled their carriage to a screaming halt that made its rubber wheels smoke on the pavement he jacked a shell into its chamber.

Roland hit the floor.

4

Katz didn’t need any mirror to see what was about to happen. First the crazy man, now the crazy cops. Oy vay.

“Drop!” he screamed to his assistant and to Ralph, the security guard, and then fell to his knees behind the counter without waiting to see if they were doing the same or not.

Then, a split-second before Delevan triggered the shotgun, his assistant dropped on top of him like an eager tackle sacking the quarterback in a football game, driving Katz’s head against the floor and breaking his jaw in two places.

Through the sudden pain which went roaring through his head, he heard the shotgun’s blast, heard the remaining glass in the windows shatter—along with bottles of aftershave, cologne, perfume, mouthwash, cough syrup, God knew what else. A thousand conflicting smells rose, creating one hell-stench, and before he passed out, Katz again called upon God to rot his father for chaining this curse of a drug store to his ankle in the first place.

5

Roland saw bottles and boxes fly back in a hurricane of shot. A glass case containing time-pieces disintegrated. Most of the watches inside also disintegrated. The pieces flew backwards in a sparkling cloud.

They can’t know if there are still innocent people in here or not, he thought. They can’t know and yet they used a scatter-rifle just the same!

It was unforgivable. He felt anger and suppressed it. They were gunslingers. Better to believe their brains had been addled by the head-knocking they’d taken than to believe they’d done such a thing knowingly, without a care for whom they might hurt or kill.

They would expect him to either run or shoot.

Instead, he crept forward, keeping low. He lacerated both hands and knees on shards of broken glass. The pain brought Jack Mort back to consciousness. He was glad Mort was back. He would need him. As for Mort’s hands and knees, he didn’t care. He could stand the pain easily, and the wounds were being inflicted on the body of a monster who deserved no better.

He reached the area just under what remained of the plate-glass window. He was to the right of the door. He crouched there, body coiled. He holstered the gun which had been in his right hand. He would not need it.

6

“What are you doing, Carl?” O’Mearah screamed. In his head he suddenly saw a Daily News headline: COP KILLS 4 IN WEST SIDE DRUGSTORE SNAFU.