Pandemonium

possible. Most were heading toward the large door at the rear of the court, but many were also moving forward, toward the bench, to the three doors that led to the judge’s chamber, the jury room, and the hallway. The camera swung from the pile of officers wrestling with Janusek and focused on Simpson. Fiore and another officer were pulling and pushing the defendant toward the judge’s chambers. Simpson stayed hunched as he moved, his hands on the back of Fiore. Cochran, Shapiro, and Simpson attorney Robert Kardashian were just behind. Fiore suddenly stopped, and Simpson stumbled into the officer’s side.

Fiore turned, reached over Simpson, and grabbed the other bailiff by the front of his shirt. Fiore lifted the bailiff off his feet and tossed him sideways. He hit the floor and skidded into the prosecutor’s table. Cochran seemed to be the first to realize that the demon had jumped. Cochran grabbed Simpson by the arm and pulled him backward. Officer Fiore stepped forward and punched Cochran in the face, breaking his glasses and sending him to the ground. Simpson stared at Cochran, then looked up at Fiore. There was a long moment in which neither man moved. Then Fiore smiled, opened his mouth, and laughed: a deep, rolling laugh that seemed to go on and on, filling the room. Only a few yards away, Janusek had gone still, and at least one of the officers holding him down seemed to understand what had happened. The camera showed one of them abruptly stand and move toward Fiore, his arms out.

It was impossible to determine how many bodies the demon occupied in the next thirty seconds. Suddenly, officers were turning on each other. Faces collapsed under vicious punches, leg and foot bones snapped from kicks delivered near the mechanical maximum of human force, disabling both attacker and target. As soon as one man struck, he would abruptly lose concentration, his hands would drop—and another man would take him down. Within half a minute, every police officer but one was unconscious. The middle of the courtroom was empty except for Simpson and Fiore. Both men seemed frozen in place. Then Fiore knelt down, and calmly smashed his forehead into the floor.

Fiore would survive, as would all of the officers, including the two who were shot, Steve Mercer and Tanya Brandt.

Janusek, motionless since being tackled by the police, got to his feet. His face was bloody, his nose smashed flat. He straightened the trench coat and recinched the belt. Then he stooped to pick up the fedora from where it had been pushed under a chair. He placed the hat firmly on his head, and then, facing Simpson, tilted the brim down in a kind of salute. Then he lifted both hands, the silver pistols plainly visible. O. J. Simpson, forty-eight years old and one of the greatest rushers in collegiate and NFL history, did not run.

7

Lew swung onto the shoulder and hit the brakes, sliding on loose gravel. We came to a stop under the dark rectangle of an unlit billboard, the road walled on both sides by forest. Lew slapped on the dome light. “Give me the directions,” he said.

“These directions?” Lew hadn’t wanted me to print them out. We didn’t need any fucking MapQuest directions, he’d said. The Audi had GPS.

“Shut up and give me the fucking printouts.”

“It says the same thing it did the last twenty times I read it to you,”

I said. “Highway Twelve, then thirty-five point two miles to Branch Road, then—”

“There is no fucking Branch Road!”

“Maybe not on your little blue screen there—”

“Jesus Christ, would you shut the fuck up about the GPS?” For the past two hours our little yellow arrow had glided across a blank blue screen. The satellite connection still seemed to be working, but the DVD of map data had nothing to say about this patch of Appalachia. I said, “You spent what, fifty thousand dollars on this car? How much would it cost to get one of those that showed actual roads?”

He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and stared out through the windshield. “Give—me—the fucking—”

“Take ’em.” I slapped the pages onto his lap, then got out and slammed the door behind me.

It was 1:30 a.m., forty degrees, and dark, no light but the fingernail moon slicing in and out of high, opaque clouds. I felt like I had the flu: nausea, headache, aching joints. My hands still burned in their bandages.

We’d left Gurnee just after 5 a.m., ahead of the morning rush, zipping down the skyway through the heart of Chicago and riding a cresting wave of traffic onto I-80, heading east into the rising sun. Lew barely slowed through the toll plaza; thanks to the I-Pass on the Audi’s dash, each toll automatically deducted from his credit card. The female voice of the Audi’s GPS prompted us before every turn. So twenty-first century. If I weren’t so nervous about being pulled over by the cops, I might have enjoyed it.

Ten miles past Gary, Indiana, we drove into a wall of lake-effect snow and lost WXRT just as the angels were coveting Elvis Costello’s red shoes. We emerged twenty minutes later to sun and sweet driving. Ohio had been colonized at forty-mile intervals by glass-and-concrete flying saucers—the nicest oases I’d ever seen. Spacious and clean, appointed with shiny restaurants, arcades, and gleaming restrooms that clairvoyantly flushed, rinsed, and blow dried—everything but wiped your ass. We assembled a multivendor breakfast of Burger King hashbrowns, Panera’s asiago bagels, and Starbucks venti lattés. Then while Lew revisited the auto-john, I stopped into the gift shop for ibuprofen and other medical supplies, and also picked up a newspaper. There was a short article on the Hyatt shooting.

“Did they catch the shooter?” Lew said.

“No arrests, no suspects, but they’re interviewing ‘persons of interest.’ ”

“It’s not too late to call the cops,” Lew said.

“No. No way.”

“Fine then,” Lew said, and handed me the keys. “You drive.”

“Really?”