COCO WATCHED fragments of plastic toys spraying into the air along the path of his bullet. He was trembling. In his hand was an old Colt revolver, solid, crude, and with a tendency to shoot to the right. For a split second he caught sight of Julie and Peter down an aisle and he fired again, winging a carton of laundry detergent.
Coco was expecting people to tackle him. Instead, they got away from him as fast as they could, squawking and falling over one another. A granny lay three meters from him, her arms cradling her head and her legs beating a hysterical tattoo. She had varicose veins. Coco turned away and looked behind him towards the glass doors that gave on to the esplanade. People were going out, some of them on all fours. Others were running in. Coco fired twice into the doors and large segments of glass tumbled down and shattered. The crowd drew back and dispersed in an uproar.
“Thompson!” cried the thug. “Let’s blow.”
No reply could be heard above the hubbub. The Muzak stopped abruptly with a horrible screech. Someone had seriously jolted the turntable. Then a tremulous voice resounded from one end of the store to the other.
“Nobody move! Everyone lay on the floor! We are being robbed!”
Coco looked up in irritation and saw the rattled announcer, wearing a white overshirt, perched in a glassed-in compartment above the food section. He directed a round to the top of the man’s cubicle. The hero of the hour, cursing, dropped swiftly from his chair and disappeared from view.
“Moron,” observed Coco.
It is amazing how much can happen in twenty-five seconds. Coco heard Thompson firing, once, twice, three times. The screaming continued. The blond giant, now quite furious, circumvented Sports Gear and slipped down through Wines and Spirits.
“Thompson!” he called.
Julie popped into his line of sight, just by Cleaning Products. Her right arm was covered in blood. It looked as if she was wearing a high glove. With her left hand she lobbed a flaming bottle of denatured alcohol at Coco. The thug pressed the trigger of his big Colt and the round buried itself in the ceiling. Coco fell over backwards, uttering a shocked exclamation when his skull struck the floor. Close by him there was a sound like a lightbulb giving up the ghost and he found himself in the middle of a slick of blazing liquid. Little blue flames licked at his pants. Coco felt the hairs on his legs igniting. He put his Colt down on the floor and swatted his thighs in desperation. Julie had vanished. Bottles came whirling over from behind the liquor shelves, shattering around Coco and unleashing a veritable sea of fire. The hired man wrenched off his pants, jumped about frenziedly in the blaze, and burned himself as he retrieved his Colt. In his underwear he ran towards the exit. His legs were frying and he caught the smell of bacon emanating from his burnt skin.
“Run ahead! Run ahead!” cried Julie to Peter.
She was holding another liter bottle of alcohol, its neck flaming like a soldering iron. As she followed Peter, she doused a display of sweaters with fire. Eventually she turned and tossed the half-empty bottle randomly, as far away from her as she could, into the swirling smoke. It exploded. Screaming redoubled. Pushing Peter ahead of her, the young woman leapt over a patch of blue flames. A housewife crossed their path. Her skirt was on fire, as was the grocery cart she was pushing. The woman rammed into a stand with books and fell down along with it. The books caught fire. Weeping, the woman rolled into a ball.
On every side the cries grew hoarser. People were coughing. Indistinct figures stumbled over the wreckage or bent double amid the swirling smoke. Far behind her, Julie heard the doors through which she had entered shatter under the pressure of people in flight. A great gust of wind blew through the store from one end to the other. The flames shot up to the ceiling. The girl passed a squad of heroic department managers manning fire extinguishers. Another, ax in hand, was desperately hewing at a display rack.
All of a sudden Julie and Peter were outside, treading on broken glass. A crowd was gathering at a respectful distance. Escapees were streaming out of the store on either side of the girl. Women were breaking down. Some were being carried out in men’s arms, screaming and wriggling. The sidewalk was strewn with shoes and commodities. Julie and Peter dashed into the crowd, only to be greeted by helping hands.
“Are you hurt? And the lad?”
“It’s okay, we’re all right, thank you . . .”
Julie strove to extricate them. Fortunately other victims came tumbling out, bemoaning their singed perms, and the pair pushed their way even deeper into the human maelstrom. They were out of the spotlight now. Concealing her bleeding arm as best she could, the girl threaded their way forward. The firehouse alarm wailed in the distance.
“Make way! Clear the road!”
“It’s arsonists!”
“They’re Maoists! They fired machine guns at cars over on the avenue.”
Sirens blaring, red fire trucks swept past Julie as she emerged from the crowd. Firefighters were already leaping to the ground.
The girl and the little boy followed the street for fifty meters or so until they came back to the circular avenue. Julie turned, staggering slightly, took her raincoat off, and wrapped it round her bloody arm. Then she took Peter’s hand once more. Over the heads of the people she saw a thick cloud of white smoke emerging from the store and cloaking the base of the building. On the upper floors the windows were open and heads, open mouths, and waving arms could be seen.
At the turnoff to the Prisunic cars on the circular road were slowing down and the drivers were craning their necks to see what was happening. Two firemen came up at a trot and, turning their backs to the fire, took it upon themselves to keep the traffic moving.
Other cars had already pulled up any old how. Some drivers were standing beside their vehicles, staring; others had run towards the disaster. Julie opened the door of a Renault 2CV whose engine was still running. Nobody took any notice.
“Get in,” she told Peter.
“In the car?”
“Come on, get in.”
“But it’s not ours.”
“Get in, for Christ’s sake!”
She grabbed Peter, shoved him in, slammed the door behind him, walked round, and got behind the wheel. Her teeth were chattering again.
“But you’re stealing the car!” exclaimed the little boy.
Julie shifted into first and grimaced. She felt as though the prong of a pitchfork had been driven into her arm.
“We’ll go to jail,” said Peter.
One of the firemen signaled to Julie to hurry up. The girl accelerated down the circular road. At the first intersection she turned the 2CV down a narrow winding road. Above the last houses of the town, the horizon was filled by rounded green mountains. Good, thought Julie. Good . . .