"Christ." Koocher sighed.
"Hey, I'm sorry," Winder said. He hadn't meant to come off as such a coldhearted prick. "I know what these little critters meant to you."
Will Koocher smiled ruefully. He folded the habitat map and put it away. He looked tired and sad, and Winder felt bad for him. "It's all right," the young scientist said. "They were doomed, no matter what."
"We're all doomed," said Joe Winder, "if you really think about it." Which he tried not to.
Bud Schwartz parked the pickup truck under an immense ficus tree. He told Danny Pogue not to open the doors right away, because of all the mosquitoes. The insects had descended in a sibilant cloud, bouncing off the windows and the hood and the headlights.
"I bet we don't have no bug spray," said Danny Pogue.
Bud Schwartz pointed at the house. "On the count of three, make a run for it."
Danny Pogue remarked that the old place was dark. "She saving on the electricity, or what? I bet she's not even home. I bet she was hoping we got caught, so she wouldn't have to pay us."
"You got no faith," said Bud Schwartz. "You're the most negative fucking person I ever met. That's why your skin's broke out all the time all those negative thoughts is like a poison in your bloodstream."
"Wait a minute, now. Everybody gets pimples."
Bud Schwartz said, "You're thirty-one years old. Tell me that's normal."
"Do we got bug spray or not?"
"No." Bud Schwartz unlocked his door. "Now let's go one, two, three!"
They burst out of the pickup and bolted for the house, flailing at mosquitoes as they ran. When they got inside the screened porch, the two men took turns swatting the insects off each other. A light came on, and Molly McNamara poked out of the door. Her white hair was up in curlers, her cheeks were slathered in oily yellow cream and her broad, pointy-shouldered frame was draped in a blue terry-cloth bathrobe.
"Get inside," she said to the two men.
Immediately Bud Schwartz noticed how grim the woman looked. The curlers, cream and bathrobe didn't help.
The house was all mustiness and shadows, made darker and damper by the ubiquitous wood paneling. The living room smelled of jasmine, or some other old-woman scent. It reminded Bud Schwartz of his grandmother's sewing room.
Molly McNamara sat down in a rocker. Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue just stood there like the hired help they were.
"Where are they?" Molly demanded. "Where's the box?"
Danny Pogue looked at Bud Schwartz, who said, "They got away."
Molly folded her hands across her lap. She said, "You're lying to me."
"No, ma'am."
"Then tell me what happened."
Before Bud Schwartz could stop him, Danny Pogue said, "There was holes in the box. That's how they got out."
Molly McNamara's right hand slipped beneath her bathrobe and came out holding a small black pistol. Without saying a word she shot Danny Pogue twice in the left foot. He fell down, screaming, on the smooth pine floor. Bud Schwartz couldn't believe it; he tried to speak, but there was no air in his lungs.
"You boys are lying," Molly said. She got up from the rocker and left the room. She came back with a towel, chipped ice, bandages and a roll of medical adhesive tape. She told Bud Schwartz to patch up his partner before the blood got all over everything. Bud Schwartz knelt on the floor next to Danny Pogue and tried to calm him. Molly sat down and started rocking.
"The towel is for his mouth," she said, "so I don't have to listen to all that yammering."
And it was true, Danny Pogue's wailing was unbearable, even allowing for the pain. It reminded Bud Schwartz of the way his first wife had sounded during the thrashings of childbirth.
Molly said, "It's been all over the news, so at least I know that you went ahead and did it. I suppose I'm obliged to pay up."
Bud Schwartz was greatly relieved; she wouldn't pay somebody she was about to kill. The thought of being murdered by a seventy-year-old woman in pink curlers was harrowing on many levels.
"Tell me if I'm wrong," Molly said. "Curiosity got the best of you, right? You opened the box, the animals escaped."
"That's about the size of it," said Bud Schwartz, wrapping a bandage around Danny Pogue's foot. He had removed the sneaker and the sock, and examined the wounds. Miraculously (or maybe by design) both bullets had missed the bones, so Danny Pogue was able to wiggle all his toes. When he stopped whimpering, Bud Schwartz removed the towel from his mouth.
"So you think they're still alive," Molly said.
"Why not? Who'd be mean enough to hurt 'em?"
"This is important," said Molly. The pistol lay loose on her lap, looking as harmless as a macrame.
Danny Pogue said, "We didn't kill them things, I swear to God. They just scooted out of the damn truck."
"They're awful fast," added Bud Schwartz.
"Oh, please," said Molly McNamara, shaking her head. Even Danny Pogue picked up on the sarcasm.
"We didn't know there was only two," he said. "We thought there must be a whole bunch in a box that size. That's how come we wasn't so worried when they got away see, we thought there was more."
Molly started rocking a little faster. The rocking chair didn't squeak a bit on the varnished pine. She said, "I'm very disappointed in the both of you."
Bud Schwartz helped his partner limp to an ottoman.
All he wanted was to get the money and get the hell out of this spooky old house, away from this crazy witch.
"Here's the really bad news," said Molly McNamara. "It's your truck only about a thousand people saw you drive away. Now, I don't know if they got the license tag, but they sure as hell got a good description. It's all over the TV."
"Shit," said Bud Schwartz.
"So you're going to have to keep a low profile for a while."
Still breathing heavily, Danny Pogue said, "What's that mean?"
Molly stopped rocking and sat forward. "For starters, say goodbye to the pickup truck. Also, you can forget about going home. If the police got your tag, they'll be waiting."
"I'll take my chances," said Bud Schwartz.
"No, you won't," said Molly. "I'll give you a thousand dollars each. You'll get the rest in two weeks, if things die down. Meanwhile, I've arranged a place for you boys to stay."
"Here?" asked Danny Pogue in a fretful, pain-racked voice.
"No, not here," Molly said. "Not on your life."
She stood up from the rocker. The pistol disappeared again into a fuzzy pocket of the blue robe. "Your foot's going to be fine," she announced to Danny Pogue. "I hope I made my point."
The bafflement on the two men's faces suggested otherwise.
Molly McNamara said, "I chose you for a reason."
"Come on," said Bud Schwartz, "we're just burglars."
"And don't you ever forget it," Molly said.
Danny Pogue couldn't believe she was talking to them this way. He couldn't believe he was being terrorized by an old lady in a rocking chair.
"There's something else you should know," said Molly McNamara. "There are others."
Momentarily Bud Schwartz's mind had stuck on that thousand dollars she'd mentioned. He had been thinking: Screw the other nine, just grab the grand and get lost. Now she was saying something about others what others?
"Anything happens to me," Molly said, "there's others that know who you are. Where you live. Where you hang out. Everything."
"I don't get it," muttered Danny Pogue.
"Burglars get shot sometimes," Molly McNamara said. "Nobody says boo about it, either. Nobody gets arrested or investigated or anything else. In this country, you kill a burglar and the Kiwanis gives you a plaque. That's the point I was trying to make."
Danny Pogue turned to Bud Schwartz, who was staring down at his partner's swollen foot and wondering if it was too late to make a run for it. Finally he said, "Lady, we're very sorry about your animals."
"They're not my animals," said Molly, "any more than you are."
THREE
At half past ten Joe Winder went down to The Catacombs, the underground network of service roads that ran beneath the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills. It was along these winding cart paths, discreetly out of view from visitors, that the food, merchandise, money and garbage were moved throughout the sprawling amusement park. It was also along these secret subterranean passageways that the kiddie characters traveled, popping up suddenly at strategic locations throughout the Amazing Kingdom and imploring tourists to snap their picture. No customers ("guests" was the designated term) ever were allowed to venture into The Catacombs, lest they catch a glimpse of something that might tarnish their image of the Amazing Kingdom a dog rooting through a dumpster, for example. Or one of Uncle Ely's Elves smoking a joint.