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nose hard, listened to his heartbeat. He began to fight sleep about
three-fifteen. Taking his cheek between thumb and forefinger he pinched
hard. The pain startled him into wakefulness.
Then it was quiet. The snow had stopped. Involuntarily he gasped he
had fallen asleep. What time four-twenty. Damn, over an hour out. And across
the street, through the alley, standing in the light, were six of the ugliest,
most horrifying things he had ever seen. He didn t move a muscle, just his
eyes.
These things were big, big as timber wolves. Their coats were dusky
brown, their heads perched on necks much longer than that of a wolf. They had
large pointed ears, all cocked directly at this alley. He could practically
feel them listening to him. Somewhere his mind began to scream, Fire the
Goddamn pistol, fire the pistol! But he couldn t move, he couldn t take his
eyes off those faces. The eyes were light gray, under jutting brows.
And they were looking where the ears were pointing. The faces were& almost
serene in their deadliness. And they had lips, strange sensitive lips. The
faces were not even a little human but they were clearly intelligent. They
were worse than the faces of tigers, more totally ruthless, more intractable.
Fire the pistol!
Slowly the pistol started coming out of his pocket. It seemed to take an hour
for it to be raised, but at last the long barrel swung up and& without a sound
they were gone.
Not a trace, not even the rustle of a foot in the snow. They had moved
! Goddamn, he hadn t counted on speed like that. Then he was running too as
fast as he could out of the alley and into the middle of the snowy street,
running frantically, feeling like an old, old man as he wheezed along, running
toward a lighted window, an all-night deli, and then through the door.
Jesus, don t scare me like that, man!
Sorry-sorry. I I m cold. You got coffee?
Yeah, comin up. You runnin your ass off out there. You in trouble, man?
Just trying to keep warm is all. Trying to keep warm.
The counterman held out the coffee and held on to it. You got fifty cents,
daddy?
That s fifty cents in advance.
Oh, yeah, sure. Wilson paid him, took the hot coffee cup in his hands, moved
it to his face, and sipped.
Great God
I m alive
! I got that Goddamn gun out f-a-s-t! One second later and they would have had
me, the s.o.b. s! It was exhilarating it might have felt slow but he had drawn
that gun Goddamn fast. Fast enough to save himself from them and they were
fast beyond imagining.
He sipped again, noticing how his hand trembled. That had to stop. Long ago he
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had learned how to overcome the special fear that came with the close
proximity of death.
Now he went through the routine, a system that had been taught to
him by his first partner, back in the forties when he was a rookie cop.
There was a man shot dead by his oldest son in 52. Now wait a minute, Wilson
thought, you re digressing. You re shocked.
Come on now, policeman, snap out of it! Relax shoulders, let them fall. Let
your gut hang out. Slack your lips. Breathe deeply& one& two& and think about
nothing, just let it roll over you.
Now when he sipped the coffee he tasted it, and for the first time noticed
that it was black and unsweetened.
Hey, I said light, this coffee s black.
You need it black, man. You don t need no light coffee. You drink that, then
I ll give you a light.
Thank you, Doctor, but I m not drunk. The counterman laughed softly, then
looked straight at Wilson. I wouldn t say you were. You scared. You the
scaredest motherfucker
I ve seen in a good long while. Maybe that coffee ll help you get it back
together, man.
Well, it is back together, man. And I want a light coffee. I can t drink this
stuff.
Sure, you got money I ll fix you a carbonated coffee if you want it.
I don t give a damn. But don t say you can t drink what you got.
Why the hell not! What are you, some kind of a nut? I said I wanted light.
I can t drink this junk.
Look in the cup, man.
It was empty. He hadn t even been aware of swallowing it! He shut up, returned
to his thoughts, to how incredibly fast they had been. It was almost as if
they had vanished; but he had glimpsed flashes of running bodies. Then it
occurred to him that if they were that fast they would have gotten past
his defenses before he had even realized they were there.
Why hadn t they? For some unknown reason this particular gold shield
had been allowed to live. The M-11 still felt good in his pocket but it had
been no protection at all.
None at all. It certainly hadn t been the speed of his draw that had scared
them away.
Something, then& almost but not quite like a memory. He almost knew why they
had run, then he didn t. Shit.
You ready to go, mister?
No.
Well, you notice we ain t got no chairs in here. This is a deli, not no
coffee shop. You got to buy and go in a place like this, that s the rules.
So what if I don t go?
Nothin . Just I feel like you got trouble all around you. You gonna bring it
in here with you.
Wilson debated whether to go back outside or to flash his shield. What the
hell, outside probably wasn t the healthiest place for him to be right now.
Whatever had stopped them before might not again. So he flashed. Police, he
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