Yet it had saved his life, he knew: It had in some way tamed Lamar's rage and redirected it, made Lamar see there was more to life than predation. And the drawing itself: There was something wildly savage and free in it that Lamar himself had responded to but which Richard had since been unable to capture, whether he stuck with lions or moved on to tigers and eagles. When he thought about it, it went away; you just couldn't do something like that offhandedly.
It was a left-brain, right-brain thing. Lamar had understood and let Richard have a little bit of room on the issue. But now he was pressing him for results.
Fortunately, the farmer had a large selection of paper and pencils available. Working with a No. 2, Richard sat at the window, looking out dreamily, and tried to imagine some savage savannah where man and cat were the same creature, but woman was still woman. And on this plain, the strongest ruled, by tooth and claw and without mercy. And of these creatures, the most powerful and cunning was Lamar, Lamar the Lion, who wasn't merely a killer but also a shrewd and cunning king.
Richard's pencil tip flew across the page; he felt deeper into the concept of lion than ever before, as if he'd somehow entered the red zone, the mindset of the jungle, where you looked at other life-forms and one question entered your mind: What does it taste like?
He stopped. Hmmm, not bad.
Dreamily, he looked out the window. He tried to imagine a plain dotted with zebra and giraffe and cape buffalo and little wily antelopes, and the ever-present hyenas.
And he almost saw it, too, though the illusion proved difficult to sustain when he noticed a black-and-white Oklahoma Highway Patrol cruiser rolling down the road toward the house.
Even though Bud was driving, he was still in his surly mood.
“Ted, you really ought to call Holly.”
“Nah” was all Ted could say.
“She'll be worried,” he said.
“The truth is. Bud,” said Ted, "we just don't have much to talk about these days. I let her down, too. I can see in her eyes, I don't mean a thing to her. Goddamn, how I love her and there she is, and I can't reach her.”
Bud swallowed uncomfortably. Something seemed to come up into his throat. Ted was truly miserable, stewing in his own pain.
“Now you and Jen, you have a perfect marriage. You're a team. She's a part of your career. She's happy with what you got. She never puts any pressure on you.”
“Well, Ted, you know that appearances can be deceiving.”
“Not yours. Bud.”
“Ted… look, we're going to have to have a talk.”
“A talk?”
“About some things you think I am that I am not. And about some other stuff as well.”
“What?”
But they had arrived in the barnyard of the Stepford farm. The house was white clapboard, an assemblage of structures added as the farm prospered. The lawn was neat, and someone had planted a bright bed of flowers by the sidewalk. A huge oak tree towered over the house.
Bud and Ted climbed out. Bud adjusted his Ray-Bans and removed his Smokey hat from the wire rack behind his seat and pulled it on. He looked about. There was a fallow field, where the spring wheat had already been harvested and the earth turned. Copses of scrub oak showed here and there among the gentle rolls of the land, and far off, a blazing bright green field signaled the presence of alfalfa.
There was a blue-stern pasture off to the right, and a few cattle grazed amid the barrels of hay.
“Looks okay to me,” said Ted.
“The goddamned phone is probably off the hook.”
“Hello?” cried Bud. And then again.
There was no answer.
“Let's go up and knock and see what happens.”
Richard ran downstairs. He knew he shouldn't scream but he wanted to.
The panic billowed through him brightly.
He wanted to crap again. His stomach ached as he raced thumpingly along.
“Lamar,” he sobbed, "Lamar, Lamar, oh Lamar.”
He plunged down the steps.
In the darkness of the basement, O’Dell was over by the workbench, sawing with a hacksaw. Richard looked and saw three long metal poles on the floor and three wooden boots or something.
Lamar looked over at him.
“Lamar,” he gasped, "cops. State police.”
Lamar just looked at him blankly. Then he said, "How many? A goddamned team? SWAT, what? Or just a one car?”
“I only saw one,” said Richard.
“Halfway up the driveway.
Be here in a minute.”
Lamar nodded. He turned and looked at the Stepfords, who sat groggily on an old couch.
“You make a sound and you're dead. I mean that, sir, and I ain't a-fucking with you.” His voice was level but intense.
O’Dell, meanwhile, had risen from his position and was busy threading ammunition into the shotguns that Richard now saw had been sawed off so that they were short and handy.
Lamar took one, threw some sort of lever with an oily clang.
“We're going upstairs. You tie these people up and I mean tight. Then you come up. You hear shooting, you come a-running, do you get that?
And bring your gun.”
“Hootin',” said O’Dell happily.
“Yes, Lamar,” said Richard.
“Okay, O’Dell,” said Lamar.
“We goin' fry us some Smokey.”
Lamar stuffed a dozen bright red-and-blue shells into his pockets and O’Dell followed. They raced up the steps.
Lamar watched them. A guy with some miles on him, and a kid. Standing in the sun, just looking the place over.
The older one called out "Hello” and adjusted his duty belt. Then he got his Smokey hat out and set to fiddling with it. He wanted it just right, just set perfect on his head.
Show-ofiy cocksucker. The kid looked somewhat grumpy, maybe tired. He wanted to get it over with.
Lamar knew they were cherry. He could smell it on them. They had no idea what they were walking into; if they had, they'd have had their pieces out and they'd be behind cover. He watched as they exchanged a few dry words, then made up their minds to come up to the house.
He could tell also that the young one had a vest on by the unnatural smoothness of the way the cotton of his shirt clung to the Kevlar; the older one, though barrel-chested and big, was apparently without body armor, for there was more give in the material as he moved.
“O’Dell, you go out the back, around the side of the house on the left.
You ain't gonna fire until I do. You wanna do the old guy first, same as me. He may have been in a scrape or two and maybe has been shot at.
He probably won't panic so bad as the other. But main thing is, they can't reach the goddamn cruiser, because then they'll call it in, and in two minutes they got the goddamned backup in.
We gotta take ’em out clean, you got that, sweetie?”
“Kwean,” said O’Dell.
“You shoot for the head on the boy. Aim high, try and hit him in the face. The old boy, you can gut shoot him. He ain't wearing no vest.”
O’Dell darted out the back, shotgun in hand.
Lamar moved up to the left of the window. They were too far for a shotgun. If this goddamned old farmer had had an assault rifle, he could have taken them both out with one fast semiauto string. He had four shells in his cut down Browning auto, a pocketful of spares, and his goddamned long-slide .45, but he hated to shoot it out with a handgun.
Too many its or maybes with a handgun.
The excitement in him was incredible. But so was the giddiness. He almost giggled. Bliss boomed through him.
He tried to chill himself out, but goddamn, this was going to be/yn!
When to fire? Fire when they knock on the door? Fire through the goddamned wood, blow ’em back? But maybe the buckshot didn't have enough power to get through the wood and would spend itself getting through it. No, best to let ’em get within ten feet and then pull down. Knock ’em down with the shotgun, then close and finish them off with the .45.