The Boy Who Invented the Bubble Gun (12 page)

Even though distorted by electronics the fear and tension could be heard raising the pitch of the driver’s voice. “Oh, my God, listen, will you. He’s letting me get through to tell you to keep the cops off and he ain’t kidding. I got a .45 in my ear and a bomb at the back of my neck. And, listen, he says the half a million in small bills. It’s to be waiting at the U.S. Immigration Station at West El Paso.”

The chief spoke into his microphone and said, “This is Olson, chief dispatcher. Look here . . .”

The driver’s voice rose to a near hysterical pitch. “I don’t care who it is. He’s saying a cop comes within twenty yards of the bus and the thing he’s got goes bang. He says it’s one of them new grenades that’ll kill everybody on board. I got twenty-one adults and three kids.”

The chief said, “Okay, okay, we believe you. Keep your cool. We’ll do all we can to help you. Do the passengers know yet?”

Three nine six said, “They will now,” and clicked off.

Standing on the top step at the head of the second level of the bus, the .45 in one hand, the grenade in the other, facing half to the rear but angled so that he could threaten the driver as well as the passengers below him, Wilks was in complete control. He could watch the sides and the rear should pursuit develop and too, he had a glimpse of the driver’s mirrors. He said to the driver, “Okay, bud, speak your piece.”

One by one, in unbelieving horror, the passengers were becoming aware of the man with the gun and the grenade. The driver picked up his interior microphone. “Okay, folks, everybody please keep calm. Our friend here says he’d like to jump the border at Juarez and if you’ll just kindly keep your seats he says how nobody ought to get hurt. We should be there in about an hour. Is that right, Jack?”

Wilks laughed and said, “Like you learned your little piece in school.” And then, “You told them other fellows about the money, didn’t you?”

The driver said, “You heard me.”

Speaking loudly so as to be heard over the bus noises and the roar of the big wheels on the tarmac, Wilks said, “That’s about the straight of it, folks. I don’t aim to hurt nobody if you all stay where you are in you seats, but I wouldn’t like this here thing to go off ’cause they sure make a powerful mess. And don’t nobody try to get brave neither. See this here little pin?” He held up the grenade so that they could all see the clip pin at the side partly withdrawn from the ring holding it. “If this comes out the rest of the way, we all go.” He laughed. “That’s okay with me too, so don’t get any ideas that I ain’t got the guts to do it.”

The bus erupted into fragmented sentences, little cries of alarm, notes of sheer incredulity.

“What’s that? What’d he say?”

“Oh my God, he’s got a gun and a bomb.”

“What is it? A hijack?”

Wilks laughed, “You might call it that. First one on a bus. So, let’s just keep nice and quiet on account of these here things are kind of nervous like,” and he flipped the grenade in his hand.

A male passenger yelled, “Man, are you crazy? Whoever heard of hijacking a bus?”

And another, “It don’t make no sense, feller. Why didn’t you hijack an airplane?”

Wilks laughed again. “They don’t buzz you for hardware at bus stations yet. Maybe I’m scared of airyplanes.”

A woman came out with, “For land’s sakes, ain’t a body safe nowhere no more? I had half a mind to fly, only my daughter says to me ‘Don’t you do it, Mom, with all them hijackers. You just go along on the bus and you’ll get there safe and sound.’ ”

Wilks’s sarcastic, irritating voice suddenly turned oily with exaggerated politeness. “Now, don’t you worry for one minute, ma’am, and I’m mighty sorry to be disturbin’ of you. After we part company, maybe in an hour or so, you’ll git where yer goin’ to sure enough.”

One of the male passengers had half risen from his seat. “But, listen to reason, man, you can’t get away with—”

Wilks levelled the .45. “Sit down and shut up.” And his admonishment was unexpectedly followed up by one from Marshall not far away who cried sharply to the passenger, “Sir, sit down!”

The man turned and looked at him saying, “Say, are you one of the gang?”

Marshall said, “No, I’m not, but you don’t argue with a hand grenade when there’s a bus full of lives. Can’t you see he’s got the pin half out?”

Wilks looked over the heads of the passengers to catch Marshall’s eye and called out sarcastically, “Well, now, Mister, ain’t you smart. I’ll bet yer one of them
he-
roes. Tell the folks what happens when one of these things goes off.”

Marshall arose and said placatingly, “Listen, fella, you got a gun on us. Nobody’s gonna start anything. What about getting rid of that grenade. There are women and children on this . . .”

Marshall’s voice trailed off for a bitter, sour expression had come to Wilks’s mouth and the big .45 was now levelled directly at Marshall’s head.

The hijacker said, “Shut up and sit down. Don’t try no
he-
ro stuff with me. You been in my hair already a coupla times and I’m figurin’ on putting a bullet through your skull before I get off this bus. Maybe I’ll do it right now.”

Marshall went white and large beads of sweat appeared upon his brow. He remained standing, but Julian, looking at him with surprise, saw that he was holding to the sides of the seat in front of him.

Wilks laughed loudly, “Yer scared, ain’t you?”

Marshall did not reply and Julian regarded him with sudden misery and a sense of overwhelming disappointment. There was no question about it. Marshall was indeed badly frightened but then Julian had no way of knowing that his friend was within a few seconds of being killed. Marshall had divined the hijacker as a psychopath, as dangerous and unstable as his bomb when the pin would be wholly removed.

As Wilks’s trigger finger began to tighten the bus flashed by a small crossroads from which two state troopers on motor-cycles roared out and turned on to the main highway in pursuit, momentarily distracting Wilks who, relinquishing the bead he had drawn on the centre of Marshall’s forehead, now concentrated on the discharge mechanism of the grenade and ordered the driver, “Tell them cops if they come any closer this thing goes off.”

Somehow the antennae of a four-year-old girl picked up the sense of horror and danger permeating the interior of the bus and she began to cry, “Mommy, mommy.” Her mother hugged the child to her and called out aloud, “Oh, you beast!”

At once Wilks became transformed again and he replied with exaggerated courtesy, “Why no, ma’am, don’t talk like that. I ain’t no beast. Why, I got kiddies of my own at home I wouldn’t want to see no harm come to any more’n you would yours. I like kiddies and kiddies like me. That’s a fact. You got nuthin’ to be afraid of as long as nobody don’t try nuthin’ funny.”

If the two chess players were aware of what was going on about them they gave no sign. The first offered one of his remaining pawns with an evil grin, the other with an equally wicked grin took it with a bishop which he immediately lost to a lurking knight he had overlooked. The bus had gone silent inside and at the rear one passenger whispered to another, “Keep quiet. I know the type. He’s psychopathic. They’re the worst. Oh, God, don’t let him do it.”

Marshall was still pale and tightlipped and staring straight in front of him and, during the momentary distraction of the two police, had sat down. The appearance of the law he knew could make matters worse. One could smell the fear in him. Julian threw him another anguished look. That wasn’t the way they behaved on TV.

Back in the dispatcher’s office, the bus driver’s circuit had been switched on to a loudspeaker. The chief dispatcher was connected with the police by telephone.

The bus driver’s voice now booming from the speaker said, “Listen, will you. There are cops following us. Tell ’em to lay off. And no roadblocks. He says if there’s a roadblock, he’ll . . .”

The chief dispatcher repeated rapidly into his telephone, “. . . and he says not to try any roadblocks. Just tell your men to keep away from them.”

The driver’s voice boomed again, “He was gonna kill a passenger a minute ago because he didn’t like his face.”

“The driver says he’s a killer,” the chief relayed into the mouthpiece. “We’ve got women and kids on that bus.”

Again the bus driver: “He’s asking what about the money.”

The dispatcher quickly picked up the mike and said, “Tell him we’re rounding it up.”

Number 396 was approaching the crossroads. The west-east highway showed a sign:
DEMING
1
MILE, EL PASO
60
MILES.
The road leading off to the right was marked:
HEAVY TRUCKS. MORELLOS
30
MILES. EL PASO
63
MILES. JUAREZ OESTE
65
MILES
.

As the driver slowed for cross traffic, two more motor-cycle policemen, a sheriff’s car and two state troopers’ vehicles could be seen at the side of the road, but they made no move. Wilks tapped the driver on the shoulder with his gun barrel and with his hand waved him to the right. Reluctantly the driver tugged at his heavy wheel and, picking up speed, he headed south. The troopers and police joined the cortège.

The bus driver had a try. He said, “Man, use your nut. You’re crazy. When we get to Juarez them Mexican cops’ll grab you.”

Wilks laughed and flipped the grenade again, pretending to miss it before catching it. “Haw! Not with this they won’t. You talk into that thing and tell ’em to fix it up with them greasers on the other side to lay off me, see? And the dough gets handed to me this side of the border.”

At police headquarters in Oklahoma City, a police captain was snapping orders into the telephone. “I want the road cleared through to the border. Get it? There’ll be a man there with the money . . . No, no, no! For chrissake, don’t try anything, you fools. And tell that goddamned FBI if there’s a shoot-out they’ll have the blood of these passengers and kids on their hands.”

He listened for a moment and then repeated with emphasis, “You heard me. I said no! This man is a dangerous lunatic. We’ve contacted the Mexicans at Juarez Oeste, but you better cover the main border station and El Paso as well. We’ll worry about the international end of it later. I want outriders at the front, say at fifty yards to clear the way and no one to approach closer than that. I’m holding you responsible.”

By this time 396 had picked up an escort of some thirty motor-cycles and state troopers’ cars following at the required distance. Ahead another squadron of troopers were clearing the way, waving trucks and cars to the side of the road. Above a helicopter clattered.

The size of the escort and the utter helplessness in the face of his power was obviously giving Wilks pleasure and he could not keep a half smirk of self-satisfaction from his face. The bus entered, and was about to roll down the long main street of, the fairly sizeable town of Morellos. The way had been cleared. Nothing moved in the street, local constables and sheriffs kept townspeople back and under control. The cortège roared through even more loudly as the sides of the brick and wooden buildings threw back an echo.

The smirk of self-admiration turned into one of amusement as they emerged from the other side of town. Wilks said, “Well now, wasn’t that purty? Them cops sure had that town fixed up right nice. That’s the way it’s got to be all the way. Everybody settle down now peaceable-like.” He tossed the grenade into the air again. Then, grinning, he looked over at Marshall and said, “That’s what got you scared, ain’t it? Some
he-
ro. Now, I got the guts to take the ride with this thing if I got to, but yer nuthin’ but a yellowbelly.” His satisfaction with the way things were going had made him forget that he had intended to kill Marshall, but Marshall did not know this. He was still white and visibly shaken.

With a swift sidelong glance Marshall became aware of Julian and two disappointed and reproachful eyes, magnified by the spectacle lenses, regarding him, questioning him, trusting him and waiting for him to do something, increasing the extent of Marshall’s bitterness and frustration to the point where it almost overcame his fear. He knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet. The man with the pistol would remember.
Christ, all this hero stuff and all that crap the goddamn movies and TV kept feeding people. Bang! Bang! You’re dead! A lightning hip draw, or the guy getting up after being punched, kicked, slugged, and knocking the baddies on their asses. What shit! So when it really happened you stood there shaking with the sweat pouring out from under your arms and wanting to pee in your pants.
The man with the gun and the grenade was in command. Marshall had noted that when he flipped it he always caught it so that one finger was at the loop of the pin already half pulled out. One twitch and the bomb would be armed.

C H A P T E R
9

C
uriously the fantasy that was now being entertained by Julian had no beginning, no end, but only a middle. In the fantasy the Bubble Gun became the classic long-barrelled Colt. He would beat the baddie to the draw and save Marshall and all the rest.

The thought was clouding his bewilderment over Marshall’s strange behaviour. Julian had nothing against which to compare the vast gulf between the dream world of the idiot box in which puffs of smoke issued from six shooters and rifles but somehow the good guys never seemed to get hit except one or two expendable extras and the extraordinary cruelty of reality in which live people, good, bad and indifferent, innocent and guilty, suddenly found themselves torn and shredded, dead or suffering excruciatingly. He had no measuring stick as to the speed with which a tragic situation can explode from static quiet into the most monstrous horrors. Nor had he the slightest inkling of the mind of Wilks who, ill-favoured though he seemed, spoke to the woman in the understandable language of reasonableness. “Why ma’am, I like kiddies and kiddies like me. I got kiddies of my own at home I wouldn’t want to see no harm come to any more’n you would yours.” Nobody had been hurt, there had been no violence and within that context Julian’s scenario would work. Headline:
BOY HERO SAVES HIJACKED BUS.