The first shot hit the same region as the bullet Jack had taken before bailing out to Melbourne, tearing through trouser material and then the gracilis muscle in the inner thigh of his left leg. The second round passed through his shoulder pad, hitting no flesh, but the next one clipped the bone in his upper right arm and took out the brachialis anticus, rendering the limb useless from the elbow down.
Not that the Equalizer was aware of any of these details at that very moment. If he screamed, yelped or stoically stayed mum, Jack had no idea.
Having been thrown backward a good two to three feet by the impact of both shots, he tottered, and then slumped onto his backside on the marble before the bank-teller windows.
Everything was spinning in slow motion inside his head, but there was no mistaking the unyielding pain from arm and leg. Warm blood streamed down inside the shirt and pants, collecting together on the floor in a dark pool, and his vision began to randomly whiteout the edges.
Donald Wright stalked the area around the fallen man, taking care not to stain immaculate red boots.
“Any other facile quip you feel the need to toss my way?” The only response was Jack’s panicked, erratic panting. “Go on, then. Lay it on me. No? Funny, that.”
“Give me…time,” the other man managed to say as he battled for breath.
“Good boy — you’re a son of a gun.”
While he greased bystanders cowering nearby, possibly fishing for applause for his witty use of an idiom, the publisher showed off and spun the revolver, Wild West-style.
“Any of you cringing, craven cowards moves — bang, bang! You get it? Call me gun crazy — I’ve flipped my wig! Comprende?” Wright roved the tiles, keeping one eye on his victim, even as he continued to wind-up the others. “You’re all pathetic. What a waste of electrons.”
Jack wasn’t sure if this was theatrical pontificating on Wright’s behalf — making him a poor-man’s ham actor — or whether he’d misplaced his marbles. Either way, the old guy was tossing that gun about and, pain or no pain, the Equalizer had to intervene. Didn’t care if these surrounding people were made out of shrimps and snails and puppy dog tails.
“Stop,” he simply said.
The older man paused to look down at the Equalizer, who was also struggling (none-too-successfully) to get to his feet. “Did you utter something meaningful, Jack?”
“I said…stop.”
“Ahh, the people’s champion awakes. Why don’t you make me? What a gas — we could indulge in a classic, rousing slugfest of superhero derring-do. You think you’re up for playing big man on campus?”
“Tricky.”
“Why?”
“Are you forgetting you used me for target practice?…I can’t exactly stand.”
“There is that, yes.”
“You’re also hardly a hero.”
“Mootable.”
“And these are innocent people.”
“Innocent? You mean insignificant.”
“They’ve done nothing wrong.”
“How honourable you sound, yet how mistaken.” Wright let out a great sigh. “Nothing wrong? You do know this bank owes me a great deal of money, lent at a discounted rate of twenty-one-point-two percent? Late on debt repayments — I ought to shoot the lot of them. Bang, bang, bang.”
“Oh, come on…And you lecture me on insignificance?”
“Easy with the tongue, tiger.”
“You know what I mean. Let them go.”
“Eh?”
“Let them…go,” Jack repeated. He stopped trying to rise and simply sat there on the ground, peering up, face pushing pale to the limit. “Your beef — it isn’t with this crowd. It’s with me. I’m the one that polished off your pug-ugly twins.”
“Right on, baby. I’ll say the beef’s with you.”
Wright pushed the barrel of his gun into Jack’s forehead, almost knocking him off balance.
“Does this hurt? I have four bullets to go — three for play and one to finish the job. Thought you would’ve packed your toys and gone home,” the man was saying, “after what my men did to poor little Mitzi. Remember her?”
“I remember.”
“Course you do. You should. Aren’t you racked with guilt? Ahh, golden silence.”
“I’m thinking,” Jack mumbled.
“How wet! Oh, and I do believe your phony got her feet wet also. What’s the matter? Can’t raise your arm to fire off one of your magical lightning bolts? What a dying shame!”
In response, the Equalizer started laughing. It began as a low, cough-like whisper, but in seconds, Jack had his head back and he was chortling aloud.