The joy of it was that he could watch Bud without risking himself, or even leaving.
Lamar lay in the gully with a pair of binoculars, just down the road from the red dirt turnoff that led to Ruta Beth's house. He looked at his watch. If Bud had left the Exxon station twenty, twenty-five minutes ago on the way to Toleens, the only road he could take was this one and he'd be heaving into sight in a few minutes. And then what? A chopper overhead, a SWAT bus and convoy ten minutes behind? Would his truck have an aerial, suggesting he was in radio contact?
It was all very interesting to Lamar.
But of course the hard part was not shooting.
Bud would roll by; it would be so easy to nail him with four or five 12-gauge blasts, take him down and do him here, on the spot. Lamar saw it: the crashed truck, the holes in the door, the smell of gasoline, broken glass everywhere.
The lawman in pain, begging for mercy. Lamar putting the shotgun muzzle up close to him, feeling him squirm a bit, and then the blast, the blood spatters, pieces everywhere.
Oh so nice it seemed. I-magi-nation. Big word: Pictures in your head.
But Lamar knew they could have done him at the ball game or at any of the pay phones. Lamar forced himself into the hunter's patience. Check it out, he told himself.
Use the edge you got yourself. Don't rush things. Do it right. Make him pay. Make him pay real bad. Imagination.
Far off, he saw headlights. Their swift approach indicated reckless speed. Lamar was able to tell quickly enough it was a Ford F250, blue and white, and as it approached, he dialed Bud's tense face into focus.
Square-headed man, eyes hooded under the Stetson, dark clothes, driving fast but well, steady as a rock. There was a set to his face that Lamar remembered from the Stepford farm, as poor Bud walked up toward the house and he and O’Dell prepared to take them down. He looked so body proud so full of his own self, and he still had that bullnecked swagger to him, though now cut through with so much tension that he hardly seemed human. He flashed by Lamar toward his destination still a good twenty miles down the road, not knowing how close he was to being reeled in.
Next Lamar looked at how the truck rode, which appeared to be normal; it didn't ride low on its tires, which meant he wasn't carrying a big load, which meant a Trooper SWAT team or gaggle of Texas Ranger snipers wasn't hunkered down in the truck-bed. It had no extra aerial.
Lamar watched the taillights grow tiny, then fade, and listened till the whine of tires on asphalt died away. He put the glasses down and listened hard. No sound. He waited and watched. Only the low night wind pushing across the wide plains, now and then the squawk of some night creature.
No choppers followed Bud a thousand feet up, and the road itself remained empty for the longest time, a flat blank ribbon glowing ever so slightly in starlight. No convoy appeared, nothing.
Satisfied, Lamar rose and headed back toward the farmhouse, enjoying the power he felt under the wide night sky.
It was like being invisible, like being a god. He felt a stirring in his crotch at the promise of action.
He hardly ever thought about such things, for they were so much a part of the way he was. But now he felt it, pure and blood deep: He was the Lion, he was the king. And he was about to feed.
Bud hit Toleens, which was exactly one decrepit old general store, windblown and nearly barren of paint, with two gas pumps out front and a pay phone next to the front door.
He pulled over and waited, checking his watch. Nearly four.
He'd just made it.
He waited until ten after. Now what was wrong? Goddammit!
He began to grow nervous. This was the perfect setup. At any moment gunshots might explode out of the dark, taking him down. Lamar might be just across the road, watching him twit nervously on the porch before blowing him away at leisure.
But the phone rang finally.
“Yes.”
“Well, old Bud, how are you?”
“Cut the shit, Lamar. You haven't hurt her?”
“Not yet, anyway.”
“Prove it.”
“Now don't you go using that attitude on me, Lawman. I don't have to prove nothing. You want your woman, you better do what I say or the hell with her. And then I will hurt her.”
“Where are you?”
“Oh, not yet, Pewtie. We ain't done playing tag. You got a bit more running around to do. I want to be real sure.”
“Tell me.”
“No sir. I want you headed east now, toward Chickasha.
Town called Anadarko. That's your next stop. Another gas station. On 62, a Phillips. You got a hour.”
“I'll never make it in an hour.”
“Sure you will. Then we'll talk some more and maybe you can come git me and maybe you can't.”
He hung up.
Quickly Bud dialed the annex.
He got a busy signal.
Goddamn!
He felt like throwing the phone. That old goat, what the hell was he up to?
Now what? Leave and drive like hell to Anadarko, which was just barely makable in an hour? Or give goddamned C. D. Henderson another few minutes, stretching it out even further?
He raced to the truck, started the engine.
But then he turned it off.
He ran back to the phone, dialed again.
The phone rang once, and C.D. picked it up.
“Bud?”
Who else would it be?
“Yes.”
“Just got a call from a newspaper reporter. In 1983 a fifteen-year-old gal shot and killed her mama and her papa and served seven years before being released from the Kingsville Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
I called there and talked to a night nurse who knew her well. She continually wrote to people who had killed or assaulted their parents.”
“Richard!”
“Richard. She wrote to Richard, and no one never bothered to check on what letters came his way in prison, as he was the passive partner and only there a few months. But there's your connection. Bud, I checked her out against the list of car owners: She's registered in a ninety-one Toyota Tercel.”
“Holy Christ.”
“She lives on a place right off 54, in Kiowa County, way out where it's empty and barren, just the far side of the Wichitas. Her name is Ruta Beth lull.”
“I just drove by it. He ran me by it to check me out! Now he's going to bounce me around for a bit, just to get me completely tired. It's half an hour away.”
“You better get there. Bud. You got work to do.”
“Thank you, old man. You are one hell of a detective.”
“I believe I am, son. I believe I am. Now I'm going to give you ten minutes, that's all. That's what I owe you.
Then the cavalry is coming.”
“Fair enough.”
“And Bud, remember: front sight. Center mass. Put ’em in the ground.
Bud. All of ’em.”
CHAPTER 30
Holly tried to clear her head, but it buzzed with fright.
She couldn't stop staring at them. Lamar was big and oily and somehow engorged with testosterone. He couldn't stop grinning. He was like a movie star.
On the other hand, that poor pitiful Sally who was his girl Ruta something, some old-fashioned farm name was nervous as a cat. She was really the scary one; a tight, grim, scrawny little mouse, with the small-featured face she associated with the inbred.
But the prize was the one they called Richard. God, she'd laugh if she wasn't so scared. Richard had dreamy, puffy, tussled hair, and though he was big, he was soft. He had creamy hands, like a piano player's, and a little dance in his walk; when he moved, all these rhythms were unleashed.