His hands hit the ignition and headlight switches and extinguished them both and then he let himself fall out of the seat. When he hit belly-flat he kicked the car door shut to cut off the interior dome light. He edged under the side of the car fumbling inside the back of his shirt to get at the automatic. A long time passed before he got it into his hands and worked the slide to jack a cartridge into the breech. Ahead of him the Rambler squatted motionless; the headlights still burned, lighting up the front of the house and one side of it where the porch light didn’t reach. He couldn’t see Angelina’s head in the car but he saw the slight lurch of the car when the girl inside it moved, probably getting herself down as low as she could. “Stay put,” he called to her, and searched the starlit hillside. The ripping echo of the gunshot hung in his ears and adrenaline pumped a tremor into all his fibers. He’d been shot at before in his life and knew the sound. It was not a whiz or a zip or a whisper or a fanning sound; it was a sharp loud crack like a small thunderclap and it was caused by the sonic boom of the passing bullet.
