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Travis still didn’t know what Palantine’s policies were. He was going to die without ever finding out what Palantine’s policies were.
From the moment he felt the bullet tear through the side of his neck, he knew he was going to die. That didn’t bother him any; it was the way he planned it. It was just too bad that it had to happen in front of Iris. He would have liked to have taken care of everything out in the hall or even on the sidewalk where she wouldn’t have to watch. He had thought he was prepared for the pain of getting shot, but it surprised him just how much it hurt, like someone swinging one of those big fairground hammers into his neck and then his arm. After the initial shock subsided there was a moment where the wounds tingled, almost numb, and then they started to burn.
The other thing that was too bad was that he wasn’t quicker on the draw at the Palantine rally. Of course Iris was more important, but he figured getting Palantine was his last chance to really be somebody, do something. The funny thing was that Palantine himself was the only person who might actually get it; everyone else would condemn him, but Palantine at least knew what it was like to want to be somebody.
Now he probably wouldn’t even rate more than a brief mention on the evening news. Another pimp killed in a shootout in New York? Not exactly rare. No one cared what the guy was doing to a young girl. Hell, there were still hundreds like him doing the same thing and nobody cared. People were sick. (And, okay, maybe he wanted to get back at Betsy, too, just a little.)
But it was all right. Sport—and what kind of a name for a pimp was that anyway?—wasn’t going to hurt any more girls. None of these men were. Travis was redeemed: one great good deed to balance out the rest of his sad, lonely life and the dark thoughts filling his head. Everything wiped out in a righteous annihilating rain of gunfire. He raised the gun to his chin and found that he was out of bullets. Not a single one left in any of the guns. Maybe he could retrieve the knife and cut his throat, but it was getting harder to stand and he couldn’t make his right arm work quite right. Nothing to do but sit down and wait for the end to come on its own time.
It surprised him a little how much Iris was crying. He had fixed her problems as well as his. Maybe it’s just because he had never been much of a crier himself that he didn’t get it. Sure seeing them shot wasn’t ideal, but she couldn’t be that torn up about the men he killed. They were scum.
Maybe she’s crying over me, he thought, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up.
Iris. Sweet Iris. He thought of her almost like a little sister, or at least the way he imagined he would think about a little sister, since he never had any siblings. Someone with broken pieces rattling around inside her skull the same way he had. Someone it was his job to protect.
He wanted to apologize to her, but he couldn’t make his voice work either, and he wasn’t even sure what he’d say if he could. Blood soaked his jacket and the front of his shirt, his skin wet and tacky with it. He swore he could smell it on his body, hear it trickling out of him. He could feel the life pulsing out of him in time with his heartbeat. And it hurt. It hurt like hell, actually. It burned and throbbed and it got worse the longer he thought about it. Physical conditioning and holding his hand over a lit burner and even wanting to get shot could only do so much to prepare him for the real thing.
It was too bad Iris was only a kid. She was only twelve and a half and he was dying. She’d already seen too much, and who was going to protect her now? The parents she ran away from? Clearly they hadn’t exactly done a bang-up job, or she wouldn’t be here. He hoped those communes were cleaner than they looked and the people were nice. If she made it to her commune, maybe she still had a chance at some kind of life. He’d never been much good at that kind of thing, but he thought if things had been different, maybe they could have been real friends. They were both weird, like she said; neither of them was probably ever going to be like other people. Maybe there was something wrong in both their heads. The thing that made him do this. But he could save her. She was free and she had money; she still had a chance.
His vision was doing funny things. The cops bursting into the room were blurry, slow-motion, and they seemed farther from him than they should. And they weren’t shooting him. Why weren’t they shooting him? He pointed a finger at his head and made a pow! gesture to remind them, but no luck. In fact they were lowering their guns. There were people in the hall—more cops, reporters, some paramedics trying to fight their way through the crowd with a stretcher. Too late. People were talking, a lot of people all at once, but it was all distant and garbled.
He wished he could make his voice work to tell them all, but especially Iris, that this was meant to happen, it’s okay, it’s why she got into his cab that night and why he kept seeing her on the street. And that he was grateful to her for giving him a glimpse at what it was like to have a friend. He just wanted her to know. If she knew maybe she could stop crying. One of the cops was walking over to talk to her now, skirting the mess on the floor. No, Travis thought, it’s all wrong, she should get away, get to her commune before she gets trapped in another hell. But he couldn’t talk, could barely even think clearly.
Everything was quieter, fuzzier, farther away, like he was looking at it down a long tunnel. The pain where he had been shot peaked and then seemed to recede, or maybe he had just gotten used to it so that it didn’t bother him so much anymore. Iris was safe, at least, and free for now. He was still conscious as they loaded him onto the stretcher, and tried to protest that his legs were fine, he could walk, though he knew it probably wasn’t true. This had all looked much better in his head. When he imagined the scene, he was a hero, the big man with the gun mowing down his enemies, the cowboy riding in to save the day. Now he felt small, even embarrassed, a lonely little boy again and caught taking potshots at the neighbour kids with his toy pistol.
The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was Iris’s tear-streaked face, and that pained him, but slipping into the coma itself was no worse than falling asleep.