Brown freaked out. Snapped. I don't know.
He lunged out of the shadows with his head down and knocked Baldy to one side, grabbing him in a clumsy bear hug and trying to push him off his feet. That was easier said than done, though. Baldy outweighed him by a ton of gristled muscle.
"Help me!" Brown yelled. "Help!"
We just gaped at them, too stunned to react. Brown had guts for a writer geek, but he was a heavy smoker and a scrawny drunk and he never had a chance. They struggled for a minute in the light from the doors, then Baldy broke his hold, got him in a headlock, kneed him in the face and shoved him into a stack of crates that toppled with a crash, spilling bolts, pipes and faucets across the metal floor. Plumbing crap. It made a racket.
Brown folded, grabbing his face.
"Over against the wall!" Baldy yelled. "Now! Get away from the doors!"
He stepped back, swinging his gun from me to Arn to Brown, but he couldn't cover us all at once. I was on his left, Brown at his feet, Arn by the other door.
"The briefcase!" Baldy edged to one side, trying to keep us all in view. "Put it on the floor!"
Arn set it down and started to back away, his hands raised at his sides. Rain flurried through the boxcar.
"Freeze!" Baldy shouted. "Don't move!"
He could've shot us, but he didn't. Then it hit me: we were about to pass the warehouse. He didn't want to draw attention.
"Martin!" The gun centered on me. "The suitcase!"
I set it down and Arn dodged to his left. When Baldy turned to cover him, I slid along the wall.
"Don't move, dumbass!" Baldy turned back to me, checked Arn again, grabbed a crate for support. That's when Brown staggered to his feet and whacked him across the head with a pipe, swinging it with both hands as hard as he could, losing his balance and falling down.
Baldy stumbled, dropping the gun.
Arn jumped him from the left, wrapping an arm around his throat and punching him in the face with his other hand. I leaped on Baldy's back, screaming and scratching at his eyes, then Brown got up and tackled him from the front, head down, grabbing him around the waist while the four of us shuffled back and forth on the edge of the door.
Baldy was laughing.
He lurched across the boxcar, twisting around and dragging us with him. It was like trying to fight a mechanical bull after a dozen shots of whiskey. Hammers banged on my neck and head, then I caught a knee in the gut and hit the floor on my back, gasping to catch my breath. Baldy ran backwards and smacked Brown against the wall, shaking him loose like an old coat, then he turned on Arn, working on his ribs and face – right, left, right – snapping his head back and knocking him into a corner.
Two blasts shattered my ears, white-hot blobs lighting up the boxcar.
Baldy staggered, clutching at his chest.
Brown shot him again with his own revolver, blowing him out the door.
#
The engine whistled up ahead.
"Jesus Christ!" Arn got to his feet and limped over to the door, doubled over and gripping his stomach, his face a livid bruise. "Goddammit! Motherfucker!"
"Get back from the door!" Brown yelled, dragging the briefcase and suitcase behind a crate, then ducking into the shadows. "Don't let them see you!"
"What?" Arn looked outside, then jumped back and flattened against the wall. "Shit!"
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"They're all over the place!"
The engine moaned again and crossing bells started to chime up ahead. Arn crouched down next to the door and peeked outside, the wind splattering rain in his face.
"We're going by the warehouse," Brown called.
"What's the deal? Are we stopping?"
"Take a look." He waved me over. "Just keep back from the door."
I crawled out of the light, then stood up and reeled over to the door, grabbing struts to keep my balance. Brown followed and we squatted beside Arn, peering around the edge of the door.
"Look at that," Arn whispered.
The tracks ran past the warehouse a couple blocks from the main gate leading to the dock. The whole building was on fire, a mass of flames twisting over the rooftops in the rain, completely out of control. Streams of water fell through a cloud of boiling smoke and the spotlights of a fire truck glared in the alley where we had wrecked the Lexus. Then a crossing signal went by – lights flashing, bells clanging – and we got a clear view of the street in front of the warehouse.
There were cops everywhere. They'd set up barricades and the road was jammed with squad cars, paddy wagons and ambulances, a lake of Mars lights that pulsed and glittered in the rain. More lights flashed around the loading dock and flickered in the yards, and I could hear this confused buzz of radio static and shouting in the distance. The cops were guarding a line of prisoners by the gate – locos and suits standing in a row with their hands clasped on their heads. A couple of fire trucks pulled up, their sirens screaming.
"Down there," I said. "Look at that guy."
A fed or a police detective wearing a trench coat stood in the middle of the road about a block away, watching the train go by and yelling into a walkie-talkie. Then a factory with shattered windows blocked our view and the train clattered through a switch, following a long curve into downtown Oakland.
We got to our feet, shivering in the draft.
"They heard the shots," I said.
"No kidding." Arn spit on the floor.
"What about the bomb? Can the fire set it off?"
Brown shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Can they still blow it up with that radio deal?"
"If they could, they would've done it already." Brown was a wreck, his face bruised and bloody from Baldy's knee. He gave me this weird look, then glanced over at Arn like he was trying to make up his mind about something. "The police will stop the train. They're calling Dispatch right now."
"So what do we do?" Arn asked.
"Jump," I said, turning to Brown. "Where's the money?"
"I'm keeping the money." He backed away and pulled out the revolver. The suitcase and briefcase were lying on the floor behind him.
"What're you doing?" I yelled.
"Don't move!" Brown looked around frantically, twitching up a storm. "I don't want to hurt you!"
"Son of a bitch." Arn edged over to Brown's left, then froze when he waved the gun at him. "You got to be kidding."
"Don't move!" Brown came off scared, uncertain, his eyes jumping from me to Arn, then back to me again. "The fire must've damaged the trigger or they would've set it off already. They've got to cover themselves now – don't you get it? Their operation failed. They don't care about a couple of low-life car thieves, but they know I'm a reporter. I need the money to get out of the country. The files are my insurance."
"No way," I said, moving a couple steps to my right. "After all that big talk, you're just going to screw us over?"
"Stay there!" He was in a total panic. "Don't make me shoot you!"
"You said they'd back off if you broke the story."
"After what happened tonight? They'll kill me if I try to run it. They'll kill me anyway."
"You telling me the papers won't print this stuff?"
"They'll spike it," he said. "The media's complicit."
"I should've known you were full of it."
He never fired a shot when Arn jumped him, but he put up a lame struggle, thrashing around until I hit him with a pipe I grabbed off the floor. The gun clattered across the boxcar, but I was too busy to see where it landed. Arn pounded on Brown's head and face while I bashed on his legs with the pipe, then Arn twisted his arm behind his back and slammed him against the wall. It was like mugging a baby after the death match with Baldy. We wailed on him for a couple minutes and lost it completely, breaking his nose, blacking his eyes, knocking him down and kicking him back and forth while he rolled around, trying to cover his head. The stupid little weasel. He was one of those whistleblowers who always got screwed and took everybody down in the end – if he didn't panic and turn on them first. We worked hard on him, gasping and panting, then dragged him to the other side of the boxcar and tossed him out the door.
"Good riddance," Arn said, dusting off his hands.
"Goddamn traitor. I can't believe I trusted him."
"Yeah." Arn gave me this weird grin. "I know just what you mean."
And he pushed me off the train.