He swept me out of his way and pasted MacMan in the mouth. MacMan fell back till the taxi stopped him, spit out a tooth, and came back for more.
I was trying to climb up McCloor’s left side.
MacMan came in on his right, failed to dodge a chop of the gun, caught it square on the top of the noodle, and went down hard. He stayed down.
I kicked McCloor’s ankle, but couldn’t get his foot from under him. I rammed my right fist into the small of his back and got a left-handful of his wet hair, swinging on it. He shook his head, dragging me off my feet.
He punched me in the side and I could feel my ribs and guts flattening together like leaves in a book.
I swung my fist against the back of his neck. That bothered him. He made a rumbling noise down in his chest, crunched my shoulder in his left hand, and chopped at me with the gun in his right.
I kicked him somewhere and punched his neck again.
Down the street, at the Embarcadero, a police whistle was blowing. Men were running up First Street toward us.
McCloor snorted like a locomotive and threw me away from him. I didn’t want to go. I tried to hang on. He threw me away from him and ran up the street.
I scrambled up and ran after him, dragging my gun out.
At the first corner he stopped to squirt metal at me—three shots. I squirted one at him. None of the four connected.