The Regulators Read Online Free PDF Page B

powerful, who would be delighted to hear that Collier Entragian had discharged a weapon on a suburban Wentworth street . . . a weapon he had been required by law to turn in, actually.
    That’s no excuse and you know it, he thought, turning as the van rolled, pivoting with it. Fire your weapon! Fire your goddam weapon!
    But he didn’t, and as the van turned left onto Hyacinth, he saw there was no license plate on the back . . . and what about the silver gadget on the roof? What in God’s name had that been?
    On the other side of the street, Mr. and Mrs. Carver were sprinting into the parking lot of the E-Z Stop. Josephson was behind them. The black man glanced to the left and saw the red van was gone—it had just disappeared behind the trees which screened the part of Hyacinth Street which ran east of Poplar—and then bent over, hands on knees, gasping for breath.
    Collie walked across the street, tucking the barrel of the .38 into the back of his pants, and put his hand on Josephson’s shoulder. “You okay, man?”
    Brad looked up at him and smiled painfully. His face was running with sweat. “Maybe,” he said.
    Collie walked over to the yellow rental truck, noting the red wagon nearby. There were a couple of unopened sodas lying inside it. A 3 Musketeers candybar lay beside one of the rear wheels. Someone had stepped on it and squashed it.
    Screams from behind him. He turned and saw the Reed twins, their faces very pale beneath their summer tans, looking past their dog to the boy crumpled on his lawn. The twin with the blond hair—Jim, he thought—began to cry. The other one took a step backward, grimaced, then bent forward and vomited onto his own bare feet.
    Crying loudly, Mrs. Carver lifted her son back out of the truck. The boy, also bawling at maximum volume, threw his arms around her neck and clung like a limpet.
    â€œHush,” the woman in the jeans and the misbuttoned shirt said. “Hush, lovey, it’s over. The bad man’s gone.”
    David Carver took his daughter from the arms of the man lying awkwardly over the seat and enfolded her.
    â€œ Dad-dy, you’re getting me all soapy!” the girl protested.
    Carver kissed her brow between the eyes. “Never mind,” he said. “Are you all right, Ellie?”
    â€œYes,” she said. “What happened?”
    She tried to look toward the street, and her father shielded her eyes.
    Collie went to the woman and the little boy. “Is he okay, Mrs. Carver?”
    She looked at him, not seeming to recognize him, and then turned her attention back to the squalling kid again, caressing his hair with one hand, seeming to devour him with her eyes. “Yes, I think so,” she said. “ Are you okay, Ralphie? Are you?”
    The kid drew in a deep, hitching breath and bellowed: “Margrit’s spozed to pull me up the hill! That was the deal!”
    The little snot sounded okay to Collie. He turned back toward the crime-scene, noted the dog lying in a spreading pool of blood, noted that the blond Reed twin was tentatively approaching the body of the unfortunate paperboy.
    â€œStay away!” Collie called sharply across the street.
    Jim Reed turned toward him. “But what if he’s still alive?”
    â€œWhat if he is? Have you got any healing fairy-dust to sprinkle on him? No? Then stand back!”
    The boy stepped toward his brother, then winced. “Oh man, Davey, look at your feet, ” he said, then turned aside and threw up himself.
    Collie Entragian suddenly felt tumbled back into the job he thought he had left behind for good the previous October, when he had been bounced from the Columbus Police Department after a positive drug test. Cocaine and heroin. A good trick, since he had never taken either drug in his life.
    First priority: protect the citizenry. Second priority: aid the wounded. Third priority: secure the crime-scene. Fourth