Malone had his revolver out. He fired the first shot without even realizing fully that he'd done so, and he heard a piercing scream from Barbara in the back seat. He had no time to look back.
A .44 Magnum is not, by any means, a small gun. As hand guns go—revolvers and automatics—it is about as large as a gun can get to be. An ordinary car has absolutely no chance against it.
Much less the glass in an ordinary car.
The first slug drilled its way through the window glass as though it were not there, and slammed its way through an even more unprotected obstacle, the frontal bones of the triggerman's skull. The second slug from Malone's gun missed the hole the first slug had made by something less than an inch.
The big, apelike thug who was holding the shotgun had a chance to pull the trigger once more, but he wasn't aiming very well. The blast merely scored the paint off the top of the Lincoln.
The rear window of the Buick was open, and Malone caught sight of another glint of blued steel from the corner of his eye. There was no time to shift aim—not with bullets flying like swallows on the way to Capistrano. Malone thought faster than he had ever imagined himself capable of doing, and decided to aim for the driver.
Evidently the man in the rear seat of the Buick had had the same inspiration. Malone blasted two more high-velocity lead slugs at the driver of the big Buick, and at the same time the man in the Buick's rear seat fired at Boyd.
But Boyd had shifted tactics. He'd hit the brakes. Now he came down hard on the accelerator instead.
The chorus of shrieks from the Lincoln's back seat increased slightly in volume. Barbara, Malone knew, wasn't badly hurt; she hadn't even stopped for breath since the first shot had been fired. Anybody who could scream like that, he told himself, had to be healthy.