How long had it been?
Maybe thirty seconds?
Where was goddamn Ruta Beth?
He slid back to the door, edging out. He could see nothing.
The guy was somewhere in the back of the shop, amid the destroyed counters that had just exploded as O’Dell's buckshot had blasted them.
But where? Had he found cover? Was he dead himself already? Lamar couldn't see a thing, and he could hear nothing over O’Dell's labored breathing.
Lamar tried to clear his head. The main thing was to get out. Fuck this boy, let him live or die, but get out, go back to the farm and regroup. He wondered if the sounds had carried. All that gunfire in the little room in so short a time, the stink of gunpowder in the air.
Oh, who are you, you motherfucker.
“Who are you, goddammit?” Lamar bellowed to silence.
Smart boy, wasn't making a move.
“Wharr?” came O’Dell's wet voice. Then: "MAMA!”
See mama? Yes, he'd promised he'd take Baby O’Dell to his mother's grave and he'd never made good on it. How could he, with all the goddamned cops in the world on his ass?
Then, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, Lamar noticed something. There, just ahead of his eyes, light switches.
Turn on the lights, Lamar. Put this motherfucker in the lights, and kill him.
“Marrrrr,” whispered Baby O’Dell.
Bud was squashed so low to the floor he could hardly move. The darkness was absolute. He could hear O’Dell moaning and breathing harshly, but since Lamar had turned out the lights, nothing from him.
He tried to gauge where the door back to the tattooing room had been.
That's where Lamar would be right now, waiting for him to make a sound.
Or would he? Maybe Lamar was creeping toward him even now, to get close and cut open his windpipe.
No! He'd make noise moving across all that glass on the floor. There's no noise, only the wheezing and moaning of O’Dell. Maybe they're just waiting for their pals.
Suddenly the lights came on.
Bud blinked as his eyes filled with dazzle. A shot cracked out from the now-visible Lamar, but it hit a shard of wood blown loose from the counter, and danced away.
All Bud could see was that big gun in Lamar's hands, not part of Lamar but only the gun, the long-slide .45 gripped tightly. Time seemed to slow down, as if it were an accordion slowly being stretched.
Bud thought. Front sight, and fired.
Lamar's hand exploded in a burst of pink mist and the45 fell away.
Lamar slipped and fell, unarmed, fear on his face.
Front sight, Bud thought.
He tried to take his time, that is, to shoot in two-tenths of a second rather than one-tenth, placing the front sight on Lamar's face, now distended and swollen with fear as Lamar lay helpless before Bud's gun sights Baby Dell hurt so.
Red juicy wet mushy everywhere! HURTY! Clicky BOOM go arm, BOOM go chest, BOOM go tummy, BOOM BOOM BOOM.
Marrrrr?
Mar cry?
No Mar!
Bad man hurt Mar.
No, bad man. No hurt Mar. Mar Baby's friend.
No, man!
Bad man, HURT bad man!
As Bud fired, the world around him suddenly lost its stability as a cloud of dust showered down upon him.
He ducked, feeling a terrible sting in his leg, and turned.
O’Dell stood behind the counter. Part of his jaw had been blown away; Bud could see tiny teeth, the tongue squirming like a mouse. His eyes were wild and insane. He held the shotgun that he'd just fired at Bud in one hand, as the other was useless, soaked in blood that ran in torrents from a high chest hit.^ O’Dell pulled the trigger again but nothing happened.
He started to walk toward Bud, raising the shotgun like a club.
Bud fired six times, aiming at center mass. Each shot tore a hole in O’Dell, and more blood spurted wetly down his shirt, but still he came.
Bud fired seven more times, the 9-mm hollowpoints punching at O’Dell, who halted, went to his knees, and with a look of utter agony climbed back to his feet.
“ODEEEEEEL,” he could hear Lamar shout.
Bud aimed at the forehead and blew a big chunk of it out.
He aimed at the eye and blew a blue hole just beneath it. He aimed at the throat and tore it open.
The Beretta locked dry.
O’Dell was on him, that huge weight, the rancid breath, blood spraying from the ruined mouth, the sound of breathing labored and wet and desperate like an animal's. O’Dell's big hands were on Bud's neck, but the medium of their grappling was liquid. Blood was everywhere, slippery and almost comical, as Bud squirmed for purchase under the huge man. Then he remembered his belly gun.
Bud got the .380 out from his shirt, not even remembering pulling it, and stuck it under O’Dell's armpit and squeezed the trigger. He fired and fired, until at last O’Dell slumped against him, slack.
Bud pulled himself out and stood.
Lamar had climbed to his feet. He held his left hand in his right, another bouquet of roses that was blood.
“You,” said Lamar.
“You goddamned Bud Pewtie. You done killed a baby.”
Bud aimed at Lamar's head—amazed and impressed that Lamar didn't flinch or cower, so intense was his hate—and pulled the trigger.
The gun didn't fire.
He looked at it. He'd shot it empty against O’Dell's bulk.
In the next instant, a huge billow of dust flew into the room, and the thunder of collision mixed with the roar of an automobile engine. A car literally stove through the front of the shop, blasting glass and wood everywhere.
In the driver's seat, a figure in a black hood leveled a shotgun at Bud, who dropped just a fraction of a second before the gun fired. He felt the sting of another pellet, this one lodging in his scalp. Bud thrust himself backward down the stairwell, felt himself float in darkness, and then hit the steps with the sensation of a beating delivered by six cons, which took the breath out of him and filled his eyes with stars.
He rolled over and slithered deep into the darkness, totally animal now, intent only on escape.
But no one followed him down the steps.
Instead he heard the roar of the car as it backed out, presumably with Lamar now aboard, and then howled away.
Bud listened to the sudden silence.
He felt chilled, and missed his sons. He wasn't sure if he'd done right or wrong. He yearned to call Jen or Holly or have his old life back.
He began to shiver.
Richard had never heard anyone howl in such pure animal pain before.
“AAAAAAAH!” Lamar cried, bucking and sobbing in the back seat, holding his crippled and bloody hand. There was blood everywhere, all over the seats, on the sideboards, everywhere.
Meanwhile, curled in total concentration, her face grim and unyielding, Ruta Beth drove mindlessly onward.
“Slow down, goddammit,” yelled Lamar once through his pain, when he thought she was going too fast.
But if they expected squad cars rushing their way, the howl of sirens, ambulances, helicopters, whatever, it didn't happen. They drove on through darkness.
“We've got to find him help,” said Richard.
“He'll bleed to death.”
Again, through his pain, Lamar screamed out.
“You shut up, Richard, goddammit. It ain't bleeding no more. It's only pain. I kin git through pain. Ruta Beth, you git us home, you hear?”
“He'll bleed to death,” shrieked Richard.
“It is bleeding.”
“Shut up, Richard,” said Ruta Beth, "let Daddy decide.”
Lamar tried to lie still but the pain was intense.
“Should we dump the car, Lamar?” asked Richard.
“Maybe they have a description.”
“And what then, you moron. They'll find it and trace it and beat us to the farm. I don't think that sonofabitch got a good lookiesee, he was so goddamned busy jumping down those goddamned stairs. He didn't have no time to get no read on the license plate, tell you that. Oh—” A sudden spurt of pain seemed to jack through him; he tensed and wailed.