Chapter 32

         

                The wind swirled around the castle, whistling sharply through the stone eve -- like an echo of the sirens that cried across the valley below as police cars rushed towards the mountain top. Yet for all the commotion that went on inside and the rumors of the shootings on the roof, a uncomfortable calm pressed down on the darkness as Maxwell emerged from the castle's door. He saw no sign of Puck's fleeing army, nor flashes of gun fire that had dominated the lawn only moments before. A few less cars stood in the parking lot, but he saw no tail lights nor heard no screeching tires.

                On the ground near the door and then again along the concrete sidewalk around the back, Maxwell found brass bullet casings, which his hurried step stirred, adding their sharp ping to the harmony of wind and sirens. In his head, an Beatles song stirred, full of painful harmonies of their own: "You're going to lose that girl..." the lyric said, causing a panic in him and his step to hurry.

                The trail of casings continued into the parking lot of the other side of the building, two or three calibers mingled together along the ground, their sharp brass color stained with what in the dark looked like pools of oil, but close up, took up the color of blood.

                "Psst!" someone hissed from the shadow of the rear door pillars.

                Maxwell turned sharply to face the sound, his hands rising in front of him -- as if he actually believed he could ward off a spray of bullets.

                But no bullets came, just the pain-strangled voice saying: "Yet down!"

                Maxwell darted into the shadow of the tall pillars that framed the castle's rear door, and found Jack crouched behind the stone, his face looking like a bludgeoned lion's from the beatings he had taken, but his eyes were alive with electric agitation.

                "Are you the one who shot Wilson?" Maxwell asked.

                "I had to, he saw me on the roof. I was trying to get to the skylight to get a shot at the Boss."

                "Puck got out."

                "I know, he came this way. I didn't expected him. He started shooting. I started shooting back until I realized he was using your girlfriend as a shield."

                "Is she all right?"

                "I don't know. I hit something, and there's a trail of blood leading across the lot from where they were."

                "Damn," Maxwell said, then stared out into the darkness to towards the parking lot where his car was parked among several others including the black Trans Am. A light glinted off the windshields, but he could make out no human figures in any of the cars. "This is insane. If I wanted High Noon I would have rented the video."

                "I'm for skipping town, myself," Jack said. "This seems like a good time as any."

                "We can't stop now," Maxwell said. "If we don't finish him, he'll come back at us later -- in his own time and when we least expect."

                "If he could find us," Jack said.

                "I won't leave Patty in his hands," Maxwell said. "If we're leaving, she's got to come with us."

                Suddenly black Trans Am's rectangular head lights went on, and the motor roared to life, and as quickly as Maxwell could bolt out of hiding the car leaped out of his parking space and flew down the drive, leaving a trail of spitting gravel and billowing smoke.

                "He's heading back to town!" Maxwell yelled.

                "He won't get far. Graves has his army all over this side of town. They'll be waiting for him."

                "And they'll kill Patty at the same time," Maxwell said. "Come on. I don't mind doing Graves' dirty work as long as he doesn't hurt people I care about."

                Jack sighed and hobbled after Maxwell towards the car. Maxwell had the passenger door open and the engine running by the time Jack arrived.

                "Get in," Maxwell said.

                Jack stared down into the valley where the swirling blue and red lights swept along every street. Flashes of sharper reddish light -- followed a moment later -- by the sound of shots said the fight had already started.

                The Trans Am barreled ahead as two police cars rushed from two different directions along Valley Road to head it off. The Trans Am did not stop, shoving its way through the narrow space left between the police cars, parting in a crash of metal and sparks. The crippled car -- amid a flurry of more gunfire -- roared on.

                "Get in!" Maxwell snapped, Jack fell into the passenger seat, and Maxwell had the car roaring down the hill before Jack could even close the door.

                ************

 

 

 

                No cop tried to stop Maxwell as he steered his car through the wreckage of twisted metal and broken glass. Pools of spilled oil glistened under the frustrated flashing police lights. Although other cops had rushed after Puck, many picked through the ruins of the cars, looking lost -- recalling images of men Maxwell had seen portrayed in newscasts of Vietnam.

                Maxwell accelerated slowly, attempting not to appear in a hurry, his ear locked to the more distant sound of sirens for a clue as to the direction Puck had taken after the crash. He turned the car right at the foot of the hill, onto Valley Road itself, and here, where the road ran straight for miles along the midriff of the mountain, he gunned the engine. The car responded with the passion of a beast, its speedometer climbing from 25 to 30 then to 35, rising by fives as fast as another car might single digits until the car rushed down the road at 80 -- the world of trees on one side, houses on the other, blurring into a dream as if this was the boundary of civilization with middle America clinging to this one stretch as their old world of Paterson turned sour before their eyes.

                "You'd better slow down," Jack said.

                Just ahead six police cars swerved along the road, clinging to rear bumpers of Puck's crimpled car, their lights forming a red and blue tail.

                "He's headed for the highway," Maxwell said.

                "Why?"

                "He can open the car up there. No traffic lights. No curves."

                "Can he get away?" Jack asked. "I thought cop cars were supposed to be fast."

                "They are fast, to a point," Maxwell said. "But they can't go as crazy as he can. I'm sure his car is pumped up in ways theirs aren't."

                "Then how the hell do you expect to catch him if the cops can't?"

                "I don't need to catch him, I just have to keep up," Maxwell said, waving off Jack's complaint as they arrived at the highway on ramp.

                As Maxwell predicted, the Trans Am leaped ahead the moment the roadway widened, and like a thoroughbred race horse, Puck took control in the stretch, pulling sharply ahead of the pack, one police car falling back after another -- still pursuing, but not with the reckless abandoned Puck displayed, their faces -- as Maxwell passed them -- bearing the hopelessness of jockeys aware of their inability to win this race. Maxwell had to weave around them, the cops staring at his wreck as it moved ahead, each seemingly confused as to his place in the pursuit and whether or not they should pursue him. But a moment later, Maxwell put an end to their speculation as he pressed harder on the gas and bolted ahead of them, just as Puck had earlier.

                His speedometer was pinned.

                Even then, closing in in Puck was a chore, as the Trans Am kept its pace, speeding up the hill out of Paterson, trailing a sense of panic. Maxwell gained, his car still the more powerful of the two vehicles, but Puck pushed the Trans Am in a way Maxwell would not, threatening to have the engine rip out from under him as he rode. Maxwell had another motive for not catching the man. He did not want to scare Puck into additional violence or into an even more extreme act of driving.          Patty was in that car. Whatever wreck killed Puck would kill her also.

                "Look at that son of a bitch," Jack said. "He's starting to weave like a drunk."

                "He must have lost a lot of blood," Maxwell said. "He could pass out."

                "He must be thinking the same thing," Jack said. "He looks like he wants to get off the highway."

                "He probably wants to find a place to hide. He knows he can't keep running, even if he could stay ahead of us."

                "Where can he go? All his friends are dead or busted or against him now."

                "Where would you go if you were in trouble?"

                Jack shrugged. "Back home, where I grew up, I guess. I'd seek out family."

                "Exactly," Maxwell said.

                "Are you saying he's going off to find the old man?"

                "Creeley's his father."

                "But the old man hates Puck."

                "I agree," Maxwell said. "Puck knows he's going down. I don't think he wants Creeley left out of it."

                Maxwell remembered the dripping boy on Creeley's doorstep so many years earlier, and that desperate look of need that quickly evolved into hatred when Creeley refused him.

                "I don't think he's going to make it that far," Jack said. "The car's reeling hard now."

                Indeed, the car weaved so acutely it nearly hit the concrete center divide.

                "I think he's stopping," Jack said.

                "No," Maxwell said. "He knows he can't make the whole drive out to Creeley's. He's turning around."

                The Trans Am scattered sparks as it roared off the exit, scraping along the guard rail -- the screeching filling the silent landscape with its sudden attack. The car roared through the stop sign, skidded along the stretch of road under the highway, then repeated its performance to regain the highway going back towards Paterson.

                Maxwell followed, but now more slowly, easing off the exit, under the highway, then onto the highway again, coming back into the lane far behind the Trans Am. He did not need to race to keep up. Puck seemed unable to keep up the speed he had maintained thus far, like a drunk finally running out of steam, his wound putting him into a haze as his blood drained. It was all he could do to keep the car moving forward. He could not maintain the reckless pace. While he still generated speed, his and Maxwell's speedometers had both fallen beneath the hundred mile and hour mark.

                On the other side of the highway, still traveling west, the parade of police cars passed, a line of red and blue lights flashing across the highway as their sirens formed a wall of sound: Paterson cops, Wayne cops, cops from Towota, Passaic, Clifton, Elmwood Park and numerous other municipalities, along with a few state police cars thrown in.

                "It's lucky Puck turned around," Jack said, eyeing the cars as they passed. "There's bound to be a serious road block further west."

                "It's lucky for Patty," Maxwell said. "The question is: where does Puck go now?"

                "He has one other friend we forgot about," Jack said.

                "Who?"

                "The owner of that bar you used to hang out in."

                "Wolfman?" Maxwell said, a sharp note of surprise in his voice.

                "He's an ex-cop," Jack said. "He did some favors for the Boss years ago. He also kept an eye on your girlfriend for Puck."

                "But Wolfman can't protect Puck. Nobody can. Not in Paterson."

                "No," Jack admitted. "But he might be able to get the boss a ticket out of Paterson -- for a price."

                Maxwell didn't have to ask what the price would be. He just stepped harder on the gas.

                ************

                The night seemed later than it was, startling Maxwell when he pulled the car up to the curb. The red bar sign in the window glowed in the same friendly fashion as other more normal nights. The bar and the neighborhood seemed oblivious to the violence that had taken place all around it, as if existing in a bubble. A few grey-haired workmen stood out front, cigarette smoke curling around their heads as they jostled each other. Neither side of the street showed signs of the black Trans Am, or its occupants.

                "So you think they're inside?" Maxwell asked.

                "Undoubtedly," Jack mumbled.

                "Well, we can't go barging in there and demand to see Puck," Maxwell said finally.

                "No," Jack agreed. "But if we're going to corner the Boss, one of us should have a look around to find his car and disable it, so that if he gets wind of it, he can't just blow."

                "That sounds like a plan," Maxwell agreed. "I'd like to keep him in the bar if I could. Is there a back door, I wonder?"

                "There would have to be," Jack said. "I suppose I'll be the one to go find the car, and then cover the back."

                "Why you?"

                "They know you here," Maxwell said. "You're coming would see a bit more natural."

                "We fucking chased the asshole through Paterson, there's nothing natural about it."

                "But you're a regular here. They might not toss you out right away. Not if you just go in, sit down and order yourself a drink."

                "All right, we'll do it your way," Maxwell mumbled. "But this whole thing makes me nervous. Wolfman can be a mean mother fucker when riled."

                "Then don't rile him," Jack said, and eased out of the car, hobbling a little. He had hurt his knee dropping off the castle roof earlier, and his herky-jerky movement reminded Maxwell of the Toad's. Maxwell watched until Jack had vanished around the corner then eased out of the car himself. A group of young men appeared out of a van half way down the block and made their way towards the bar as well, their puffy young faces straight off the college campus -- each bearing the glint of innocence Maxwell saw years earlier in Suzanne's eyes. They had come for a few cheap thrills and perhaps -- if lucky -- a piece of ass.

                Maxwell paused, waited for them to enter, then made his way in behind them, their bulky shoulders lending him cover, at least, long enough for him to get seated.

                Nothing had changed. Except someone had played a Beatles record on the jukebox -- a golden oldie that spoke of love and "never, ever feeling blue." Its cheerful tune mocked Maxwell's mood as he let the door close behind him -- the smell of the place bringing back more innocent days when he had come here to make notes on its population: sweat and cheap cologne covering the more insidious smell of fear he exuded.

                The dull amber lights that illuminated the bar helped keep him hidden. It was a two-dancer night, not one of Wolfman's exorbitant affairs, so the bar needed nothing brighter. The northenders sat in their usual places, smug in their conservative view of the world: nothing had changed here in a generation and nothing would. A few recognized Maxwell, however, their salt and pepper eyebrows rising with surprise at his coming.

                "Maxwell!" Ruth cried from behind the bar, her thick mane of red hair floating towards him like a sunset cloud.

                Maxwell sat on the high stool at the bar's middle, but close enough to the front door to prevent Puck's easy escape if the man made a move in that direction.

                "What are you doing here?" Ruth asked when she reached him, her voice hushed. "Don't you know you're still banned. What he hell happened to your face?"

                "A minor confrontation," Maxwell said in a voice as low as Ruth's. "Is Patty here?"

                Ruth's face paled. "Look, Max, why don't you just get out of here before Wolfman gets back."

                "Back? From where?"

                "Outside, in the back."

                Maxwell started to rise. Ruth grabbed his hand.

                "She is here then?" Maxwell said.

                "She's not the person she was, Max, and she certainly isn't worth getting yourself killed over."

                "Where is she?"

                "In back with Wolfman," Ruth said. "He's getting her ready to dance."

                "Dance? But she was in a comma when I saw her earlier."

                "Maybe he likes her better that way," Ruth said sourly and cast a glance around the bar, where the pink faced boys from the college had fit themselves into the vacant seats along the other side, making rude remarks about the musical choices on the jukebox and the lack of dancer on the stage.

                That's when Wolfman reappeared, his thick black beard swallowing all of his lower face except for the glowing point of his cigar.

                "Hold the racket down," he growled at the pink faced boys, who continued their ruckus, demanding to have a show.

                Behind him, Puck appeared, his whole right side thick with a stream of red, as that arm dangled uselessly at his side. His still competent hand propelled the drugged Patty into the light.

                "You'll get your show," Wolfman told the crowd. "Now just calm down."

                Then he saw Maxwell -- and so did Puck.

                "Son of a bitch!" Puck yelled, releasing Patty to make a play for a pistol stuffed in his belt.

                "Don't!" Wolfman yelled. "I won't have any shooting in here. We've made our deal. You have money and the keys to my car. Get out of here."

                "Not until I settle things with him," Puck said, his face so contorted with pain and fury, he seemed like a different, more pathetic man.

                "Why don't you go see a doctor and leave your vengeance for another time."

                "Don't tell me what to do," Puck said. "If I want to kill him, I will. Here or anyplace else. That mother fucker ruined my life."

                "Him? He's nothing but a fucking poet?"

                "He's the one, I tell you. He's haunted me my whole life and stolen everything from me."

                Wolfman puffed heavily on his cigar so that the point grew bright for a moment as he dark gaze studied Maxwell from down the bar.

                "Fine, deal with him, but do it outside," Wolfman said.

                "No, I don't want to be alone with him. I need for people to see me kill him!" Puck yelled and fired, missed, then fired again, his bullets tearing up the surface of the bar as patrons dove for cover -- the roar of the shots ricocheting through the room longer than the bullets did.

                Puck stared in disbelief at his missing, but he did not fire again. Panic filled his face and he turned and ran, and Maxwell leaped after him.

                "Here, poet!" Wolfman shouted and shoved a shotgun into his hands. "Use that."

                "I thought you were his friend?" Maxwell said, hefting the weapon.

                "The bastard has no friends."

                "But you made a deal for Patty?"

                "To save her from him. I've tried before to get her away from him, but he had too heavy a grip on her. She always goes for assholes -- that is until you came along. Finish him. Put this town out of its misery."

                "I don't think I'll be able to catch him if he has your car."

                "He has a car and the keys, but no gas," Wolfman said, grinning. "If he's fleeing here, it'll be on foot."

                Gun shots sounded from outside the rear of the building, a low caliber series followed by the rat-tat-tat of Puck's machine pistol.

                "You'd better hurry," Wolfman said. "Before someone else steals the show."

                "What about Patty?"

                "I'll take care of her, you get."

                *************

                Maxwell heard the whining started before he saw the car or the figure seated behind the steering wheel. Puck cursed frequently as the car's refusal to start, as if the vehicle was conspiring with the rest of the world for his doom.

                Maxwell eased around the bumper of the metallic blue Cadillac, the waxed surface reflecting the single dull bulb above the bar's read door.

                "Puck!" Maxwell yelled.

                The whining stopped. Puck's good hand felt to the seat and came up holding his weapon.

                "It's all over, Puck," Maxwell said.

                "Fuck you!" Puck shouted back. "I'll kill you if you step out into the light. Just like I did your friend."

                "My friend?"

                "That pudgy bastard that shares your apartment."

                "You shot Jack? Where is he?"

                "Back at the end of the alley, bleeding his life away. The stupid fuck thought I was out of bullets. If you don't believe me, go look for yourself."

                "I believe you," Maxwell said coldly, charging out of the shadow for a position where he could take better aim, Puck rattling off shots around him -- his shaky aim making the bullets his brick, metal and glass instead of Maxwell.

                Maxwell stopped, lifted Wolfman's sawed off shotgun and fired. The recalled flung him against the wall as the shot shattered the Cadillac’s rear window, but missed Puck.

                But the blast unnerved Puck, as he hobbled out of the passenger side and ran, his empty machine pistol clattering on the pavement as he headed up towards the end of the alley and the street beyond.

                Maxwell abandoned the shotgun and followed, catching sight of the wounded Puck as the figure reached the street and the street lights illuminated the wounded man. He turned right and out of sight. Maxwell charged after him, stumbling over the crumpled body of his former roommate. There was no life left in him. His chest was a mass of bloody pulp where a spray of bullets had entered. Around him a puddle of blood and guts testified to the near instant death the wounds had inflicted.

                Maxwell paused for a moment to study Jack's face. No pain showed, only peace.

                "Damned fool came all the way to Paterson just to die here," Maxwell thought, and then straightened and glanced up the street the way Puck had gone.

                Around him, the city was still alive with sirens, all of them seeming to contract to the very place where Maxwell stood. Puck's staggering steps provided a back beat to the odd music, the rhythm of panic, a toe jam footfall that carried him up Mill Street.

                "He's going to the falls," Maxwell thought. "That fucking ass is going up to the falls!"

                Maxwell charged after him, his own weariness countering his rage so that he could do little more than jog, a slow motion pursuit that threatened to crack his spine, each step drawing pain from some sprained muscle in his back.

                But he could hear the rasp of Puck's heavy breathing in the dark ahead, and the staggering step that stopped as frequently as Maxwell did, the two of them going nowhere.

                "Puck!" Maxwell shouted, but the sound of his voice rang through the open space between the brick buildings, reaching no one, stretching through a universe of emptiness.

                Out of the emptiness, however, Puck's flight resumed, the shuffle of his step, the rasp of his breathe, the quiet cursing aimed as much at himself as Maxwell.

                Puck was failing. The sirens were closing in. He was seeking to reach the falls, to repeat the magic he had performed there years earlier. He was crazy.

                Once clear the narrower streets, Maxwell saw Puck ahead of him, a stumbling and bumbling figure outlined by street lights in the dark, falling, and picking himself up again, only to fall again a few feet farther on, but climbing the whole time, his total attention focused ahead, though he could not help know that Maxwell was behind him, could hear Maxwell's heavy breathing even amid the rising sirens.

                The sirens converged, sounding to Maxwell like a large wail of pain emitted from the wounded city, rising and fall as police cars charged through the streets from every direction, their flashing lights like lightning flashing across the face of brick and glass.

                Puck hurried his step, even though he seemed in greater pain by doing so, and Maxwell, already very weary, increased his pace to match, each of their steps seemed locked in unison that had become their lives, as if one person in two bodies, each filled with the same sense of pain and shame, each struggling to divorce the other without success.

                "Just two of us traveling nowhere," Maxwell thought as the road curved and he passed the tourist bureau building on the right, the place out of which Creeley so freely operated his tours in the passed. He could see the dark crack through which the falls' water passed, and the dark shape of the power plant beside it, drawing from the water's strength like a leech. He could hear the turbines and the gush of the water, he could smell the scent of the river mingling with the trail of blood Puck left. To the right, the parking lot leading to the viewing area stood with Alexander Hamilton's statue facing the falls. Puck had avoided this area, pressing on over the bridge towards the falls themselves, pausing briefly half way between the historic offices for the Society of Useful Manufacturers and the power plant to glimpse the narrow gorge down which the water flowed away from the falls.

                Maxwell shouted for Puck to stop, Puck told him to go fuck himself.

                "You won't survive!" Maxwell shouted.

                "Like you care! Go away. You got the girl. You got Paterson. Leave me to do what I want."

                Then Puck pressed on, dragging himself over the bridge, then in through the upper gate into the park above the power plant -- headed towards the closed bridge near the falls themselves. Maxwell reached the gate as Puck reached the closed bridge. The falls and turbines vibrated the land upon which he stood. He could not stop himself from shaking.

                Police cars pulled up at the curb behind Maxwell, officers leaping out with rifles, shouting for him to stop. While on the far side of the footbridge near Hinchcliff Stadium, the police had mounted a staunch defense, car after car lined up with police officers aiming their weapons for where Puck worked his way under the fence and onto the bridge itself.

                Maxwell hurried himself, and reached the fence as Puck reached the middle of the footbridge. Puck struggled to climb up the side, his one useless arm dangling at his side as his other -- too weak because of loss of blood -- struggled to pull him up.

                Maxwell ran to him and grabbed Puck by the waist.

                "Let go of me!" Puck said, but could not strike at Maxwell and still keep his grip. "You're not going to screw this up for me, too."

                "But you can't get away," Maxwell said. "The river is too low -- even if you could swim once you got down there."

                "Nobody said anything about getting away!" Puck screamed, managing to pull himself up to the top of the rail despite Maxwell's best efforts -- the moisture making Maxwell's grip slip away from the man.

                Puck sat on the top of the rail like a Humpty Dumpty eggman, laughing hysterically at his success. Maxwell climbed to his side, below and slightly behind, a thin ribbon of water gushed through the gaps of stone, full of fury despite the lack of rain, white falling into the black pool. It was a pool surrounded by jagged stones like set of teeth around an upturned and opened mouth.

                "This is crazy!" Maxwell yelled, trying to make himself heard over the sound of the water.

                "So I'm crazy. You want me dead. I'll be dead. But I'm going to do it for myself. I won't let you or the mayor or anybody else have the satisfaction."

                Maxwell sat silent for a long moment. "No one will hurt you," he said.

                "Now who's crazy?" Puck said, mockingly.

                "I'll protect you."

                "After everything I've done to your girlfriend and your friend?"

                "Yes."

                "You are crazy," Puck shouted, although looked puzzled instead of mocking. "Why the hell would you do that for me?"

                "I don't know, but I would."

                "Go away," Puck said. "Nobody wants your pity. It's disgusting."

                "It isn't pity," Maxwell said.

                "Then let me have some dignity, for Christ's sake!" Puck said, stared hard into Maxwell's face, then fell backwards.

                It was as if Maxwell was watching a cartoon. Puck's crippled form shrank against the backdrop of the falls, growing smaller and smaller until it struck the first of the stones, then went limp -- a mere caricature striking stone after stone before vanishing into the water at the bottom.

                Maxwell stared, shaking his head, unable to believe what he saw, convinced that if he went back to the loft and waited, the dripping Puck would reappear, begging for his help, begging the way Paterson begged, to be saved from himself.

                Maxwell finally climbed down to the bridge and made his way back out to the small park, where the police had gathered, their faces turned towards the gap of the falls like shocked children staring into the face of doom.

 

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