I found my convertible where I had left it, both tires fixed and mounted, so it could be driven away, if necessary.
They thought of everything.
I got into it and leaned down sideways under the wheel and fumbled aside the flap of leather that covered the pocket.
I got the other gun, stuffed it up under my coat and started back.
The world was small, shut in, black. A private world for Canino and me.
Halfway there the headlights nearly caught me. They turned swiftly off the highway and I slid down the bank into the wet ditch and flopped there breathing water.
The car hummed by without slowing.
I lifted my head, heard the rasp of its tires as it left the road and took the gravel of the driveway.
The motor died, the lights died, a door slammed.
I didn't hear the house door shut, but a fringe of light trickled through the clump of trees, as though a shade had been moved aside from a window, or the light had been put on in the hall.
I came back to the soggy grass plot and sloshed across it.
The car was between me and the house, the gun was down at my side, pulled as far around as I could get it, without pulling my left arm out by the roots.
The car was dark, empty, warm.
Water gurgled pleasantly in the radiator.
I peered in at the door.
The keys hung on the dash.
Canino was very sure of himself.
I went around the car and walked carefully across the gravel to the window and listened.
I couldn't hear any voices, any sound but the swift bong-bong of the raindrops hitting the metal elbows at the bottom of the rain gutters.
I kept on listening.
No loud voices, everything quiet and refined.
He would be purring at her and she would be telling him she had let me go and I had promised to let them get away.
He wouldn't believe me, as I wouldn't believe him.
So he wouldn't be in there long.
He would be on his way and take her with him.
All I had to do was wait for him to come out.
I couldn't do it.
I shifted the gun to my left hand and leaned down to scoop up a handful of gravel. I tossed it against the screen of the window.
It was a feeble effort. Very little of it reached the glass above the screen, but the loose rattle of that little was like a dam bursting.
I ran back to the car and got on the running board behind it.
The house had already gone dark.
That was all.
I dropped quietly on the running board and waited.
No soap.
Canino was too cagey.
I straightened up and got into the car backwards, fumbled around for the ignition key and turned it.
I reached with my foot, but the starter button had to be on the dash.
I found it at last, pulled it and the starter ground.
The warm motor caught at once.
It purred softly, contentedly.
I got out of the car again and crouched down by the rear wheels.
I was shivering now but I knew Canino wouldn't like that last effect.
He needed that car badly.
A darkened window slid down inch by inch, only some shifting of light on the glass showing it moved.
Flame spouted from it abruptly, the blended roar of three swift shots.
Glass starred in the coupe.
I yelled with agony.
The yell went off into a wailing groan.
The groan became a wet gurgle, choked with blood.
I let the gurgle die sickeningly, one choked gasp.