The Don's Runaway Substitute novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Fire Extinguisher

Mara chooses to go with Vincenzo as two armed men open fire in the terminal. She fights one with a fire extinguisher, and Vincenzo slumps, shot, in the restaurant van she is driving.

I did not get on the bus.

I stood up from the bench and said, "I'm coming with you."

I said it plainly, because I had no time to say it any other way.

Vincenzo rose beside me, and his hand went under his jacket.

The glass doors at the far end opened.

Two men walked in, both in black coats, both with their right hands hidden.

They were not looking at the ticket windows.

They were looking at me.

"Behind the benches," Vincenzo said.

The first shot hit the board over gate nine and the glass came down in sheets.

I dropped flat on the tile.

The janitor screamed and ran, dragging her mop bucket behind her.

Vincenzo came down on one knee and fired twice, and one of the men spun against a pillar.

The other kept coming.

He was young, with a gold chain over his collar and a face that looked bored.

Vincenzo's gun clicked empty.

"Mara," he said, very low. "Stay down."

I stayed down for about two seconds.

Then I saw the red fire extinguisher on the wall above my head.

I do not remember deciding.

I pulled the pin, stood up, and squeezed the handle with both hands.

White powder blew across the room and hit the young man full in the face.

He yelled and fired blind at the ceiling.

I ran at him and swung the heavy red can into his wrist.

His gun skidded across the tile.

Vincenzo was on him before it stopped sliding.

It was over in a few ugly seconds.

The man lay on the floor with powder in his hair, and Vincenzo's boot sat on his throat.

"Who sent you?" Vincenzo said.

The man coughed and spat white.

"Nobody sent me."

"Wrong answer."

Behind us, the first man was crawling toward the doors with a hand pressed to his leg.

I looked at him, and then at my hands.

They were shaking, and they were still gripping the extinguisher.

"Mara." Vincenzo did not take his eyes off the man under his boot. "Go to the loading dock behind the ticket office. A white van, restaurant lettering on the side. The keys are in the passenger door pocket."

"I'm not leaving you."

"Then bring it to the dock door and wait."

I ran.

Behind the ticket counter there was a steel door with a push bar and a sign that said employees only.

I shoved through it into a concrete corridor that smelled of floor cleaner.

At the end of it a metal roll-up door stood open to the cold.

The van was exactly where he had said, with Fio's restaurant name painted along the side in green.

The keys were in the door pocket.

He had planned this before I ever came down the stairs.

I climbed into the driver's seat and my legs would not stop shaking.

I started the engine and backed it up to the dock door.

Then I sat there with the motor running.

I waited far longer than I should have.

I had my hand on the gear shift to go in after him when the door banged open.

Vincenzo came out of the corridor with his left arm held tight against his ribs.

His shirt was dark down one side.

He walked to the van without hurrying, opened the passenger door, and got in.

He pulled the door shut and leaned his head against the window.

"Go," he said.

"You're bleeding."

"Go, Mara."

I pulled out of the dock and onto the empty street, and the terminal shrank in the mirror.

Two black cars came around the corner behind us with their lights off.

"Left," Vincenzo said. "Then the next right. Don't brake at the yellow."

I took the left so hard that a milk crate slid across the floor.

Vincenzo's breath caught.

"How bad is it?" I said.

"It's fine."

"Don't tell me it's fine. I can see it."

He looked at his hand, which was black and shining.

"It went in under the ribs," he said. "I don't think it hit anything."

"You think?"

"I need you to take the third right and then drive until I say stop."

The cars behind us turned onto our street.

My foot went to the floor.

I heard him laugh once, a short, rough sound, and then I heard him go quiet.

I looked over.

He was sitting very still, with his eyes closed and his hand sliding off his side.

"Vincenzo."

He did not answer.

"Vincenzo, wake up."

His head rolled toward me on the seat.

I did not know where the safe places were.

I did not know who was behind us, or why a photograph mattered.

All I knew was that the man I had been trying to leave was bleeding on the seat beside me, and I could not make myself let him go.

"Okay," I whispered. "Okay. I've got you."

I took the third right.

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