Rougher hands grabbed me and the reverend broke free. Two guys wearing aprons wrangled me into the aisle, where we did some wrestling and grunting and swearing. A swung purse the size of a satchel knocked one guy off me. I clocked the other with a gut punch that cured him of upright and put him on his knees kissing the carpet like a devout Arab. Shouting people choked the aisle, a few wanting to get at me, the rest trying to get away. I heard Leeli cry, “Maceo!” but I couldn’t find her in the crowd, so I beelined for the exit, shoving aside Christian and heathen alike. The manager loomed ahead of me. A porky fellow in a maroon shirt and a black tie, his skin, that spoiled pumpkin color, comes either from a tanning booth or somewheres in India. A wedge of old ladies blocked him off to the left, clearing a path, and I went toward the door. That’s when Carl shouted the magic words.
“Hands up!” he said with sincere ferocity. “Who wants to die?”
The manager had retreated behind the cash register and Carl, beaming like a lottery winner, was pointing a blue steel automatic in his general direction, swinging the muzzle to cover the counter and a portion of window. People started hitting the ground, hiding in the booths, and wasn’t more than a couple of seconds before the only ones standing were the five in our party and the manager. You could hear whispering and sobbing and the wheedle of some old pop song turned into a symphony, but it was stone quiet compared to how it had been. Ava slapped at her tote bag, gave it a squeeze, and that told me where Carl had got his shiny new toy.
“Give it to me, Carl,” I said, easing toward him a step.
“Okay.” He kept on swinging the gun back and forth kind of aimlessly, like it had a momentum that was carrying his arms through an arc.
“Give me the gun,” Ava said. “You don’t need that gun now.”
Squire was at her shoulder, nodding as if he firmly supported this idea, and Leeli, smart girl, was halfway out the door.
The manager made a move for something under the register. Ava and I both shouted a warning to Carl. I said, “Watch it, man!” and Ava spoke what sounded like a word in a foreign language—I couldn’t tell for sure because our shouts mixed together. Carl whipped the gun around and fired just before the manager fired, the explosions overlapping. Carl’s head jerked, blood sprayed. His bullet kicked the manager into a buffet cart. He fell behind the counter. A few screams speared the quiet. Smoke lazied in the air. Somebody’s lunch treat sizzled and blackened on the griddle. I stepped forward and snatched the gun from Carl. There was blood all over his face, but he was still smiling. Ava wrapped him in a hug and hustled him to the door. I had a quick look back of the counter. The manager was staring off into someplace I never want to see. Frightened eyes were locked on me from every direction, like forest animals peeping at a mangy tiger that had interrupted their play. I fired a shot into the ceiling and told them not to twitch forever and ran like hell.
In the truck everybody talked at once, except for Squire. He was gazing out the passenger side window, having himself a fine vacation. Ava and Leeli fussed over Carl in the back seat, and I drove fast toward Ocala. I hadn’t put a face on the wrongness of what happened, but it nibbled at the edges of a fucked-up angry fear that raised a red shadow in my brain and jammed spikes into my bone-holes, making all my limbs want to stiffen and wiggle like a bug with a pin through its guts. Leeli urged me to drive faster and Ava said, “Take us back to the motel!” This all stirred in with Oh Gods and Carl repeating over and over in a sunny voice, “Hands up who wants to die,” shaping a child’s song of the line. I told them to shut the fuck up, then I yelled it. For half a minute it was quiet. A big shopping mall come floating up on our left. I slowed and swung the car into it. Ava screeched, “What’re you doing?” as I swerved into a parking slot away from the buildings, hidden by other cars from the highway. I switched off the engine. She clawed at my shoulder, cursing and giving orders.
I turned to her and saw that the manager’s bullet had dug a furrow along Carl’s jawline. The wound was oozing blood, yet he didn’t seem to mind. “I’m gonna find us another car,” I said. “But we ain’t going back to no motel.”
Ava objected to this and I said, “Here’s your keys. Go where the fuck you want. I’m getting the hell gone.”
I climbed out and told Leeli to come along with me.
Ava caught Leeli’s arm. “I need her here!”
“Well, I need a look-out, so fuck what you need!”
“Take Squire,” she said.
“Yeah, that’ll help. Come on, Leeli.”
Leeli hesitated.
A cop car whipped past on the highway, howling like a devil with a hotfoot.
“Goddamn it! Now!” I said. “You wanna wait around ’til he comes back for us?”
Leeli hopped out and glanced uncertainly between me and Ava. She blinked and shivered as if the sun was killing her.
For the first time ever I saw a distinct lack of confidence in Ava’s face. “You better not leave us here!” she said. “I swear to God!”
“I wasn’t thinking on it,” I said.
There was some sort of promotion going on within the mall. The lot was more crowded than you’d expect. Jolly old farts wearing gaudy sport coats and blue Shriner-type hats were holding bunches of balloons on strings, handing them out to children and mommies, collecting money to cure some great evil that would never die, and two lanes of parking were used up by a carnival with a little ferris wheel, kiddie rides, game and snack stalls. Some high school girls strolled in a small pod, twelve tits in a row, those belonging to a hefty redhead nosing out a close race. They were eyed by a pack of high school boys whose thoughts of rape had likely gotten sly and civilized during hygiene class. Senior citizens dressed in peppy colors gazed soberly at the wheel. I reckon they were recalling greater wheels from the big glorious world that had died out from under them. Treacly music played—the same, it seemed, that played everywhere I traveled.
Ava’s gun was stuck in my belt, under my shirt. Its weight made me walk taller than I should have felt. I held hands with Leeli, hoping to persuade folks we were a young couple hot for some corn dogs or whatever hell meat they were pushing at the carnival. We skirted the more populated area of the lot. I spotted a newish Ford van with smoked windows. We snuck up on it from the rear. Just as I was ready to pounce, Leeli warned me off. Standing a few cars over was a huddle of men in blue hats. These old fellows had ridded themselves of balloons. They were laughing, the nudge-nudge laughing men do when they hear a real good smutty joke. The fattest of them had a two-handed grip on his belly, like he was about to lift up a slab of fat and show them something even funnier. Of a sudden the men rested hands on each other’s shoulders, forming a circle, and bowed their heads, praying, I supposed, for more balloons or for Jesus to cover the point spread against Satan or that one of the high school girls would lose her mind and fuck them.
Out front of the Home Depot was an old Chevy panel van. I busted the driver’s window with the gun butt and hotwired it. The engine shook like the mounts were loose and made a tired, trebly noise until I got it idling. Leeli brushed glass off her seat and jumped in. I headed the van toward the nearest exit and she dug her fingers into my thigh and asked where I was going.