(Gerda, who had been asked on a date by a high school boy—just a sophomore, but still much too old for her—had recently tried to get her father to take her on as a pro bono client to argue to her mother that she was old enough to go to the movies with the guy. This had been exceptionally clever of Gerda, but Barry had recused himself on the grounds of their familial relationship. Also because, as her father, he had no intention of letting her go anywhere with a boy who was almost fifteen and probably got hard every time the wind blew. If Cary Benson wanted to spend time with her that badly, he’d said, then Cary could buy her an ice cream sundae at the Dairy Treet right here in town. And in broad daylight.)
What Barry had chosen not to express to Gerda was the sticky provision of the utterly culpable. Sometimes you pulled on your client’s skin only to find that they—you—were astoundingly, hopelessly, no-way-to-even-pretend guilty as original sin. When this situation arose, the only sensible tactic was to distract and disrupt, litigate minutiae, gum up the wheels and delay. With luck, you might wear the opposition down until they offered you an advantageous deal just to be rid of you, or better yet, irritate or flummox them into screwing up their case altogether.
With that in mind, he improvised with the most dumbfounding question he could come up with on short notice:
“Listen, Vern. Wanted to take you aside and ask you something.”
“Okay…”
Barry leaned forward confidentially. “Are you circumcised?”
Rain sprinkles dotted the surface of Vern Rangle’s glasses, obscuring his eyes. Barry heard the engine of the RV turn over, heard the clunk as Willy put it into drive, but the cop paid no mind. The circumcision question had put him in mental vapor lock.
“Gee, Mr. Holden…” Vern absently shook out a handkerchief and began to refold it. “… kinda personal, you know.”
Behind them there was a thud and the whinge of metal grinding against metal.
Meanwhile, Reed Barrows had scooted into the driver’s side of the cruiser to take Terry’s call, but the mic slipped out of his damp hand. The seconds that elapsed while he bent to retrieve it from the footwell and untangle the cord were important because that got Willy Burke settled in driving mode.
“Roger, this is Unit Three. Barrows speaking, over,” Reed said once he had the mic again.
Out the window, he saw the RV swerving around the front of the cruiser to the gravel shoulder and grassy embankment on the southbound half of the road. This vision didn’t alarm Reed; it perplexed him. Why was Barry Holden moving his RV? Or was Vern moving it so someone else could get by? That didn’t make sense. They needed to sort out the shyster and his Fleetwood before they dealt with anyone else who wanted to drive through.
Terry Coombs’s voice blared over the radio. “Arrest Barry Holden and confiscate his vehicle! He’s got a pile of stolen guns and he’s headed for the prison! You hear me—”
The front end of the RV bumped the front end of the cruiser, the mic jumped out of Reed’s hand a second time, and his view through the windshield swung away as if on hinges.
“Hey!”
In the back of the RV, Jared lost his balance. He fell off the couch and onto the guns. “You okay?” Garth asked. The doctor had kept his feet by pressing his back against the counter of the kitchenette and grabbing the sink.
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for asking about me!” Michaela had managed to stay on the couch, but she’d fallen over onto her side.
Garth realized that he adored Mickey. She had sand, as the old timers liked to say. He wouldn’t change a thing about her. Her nose and everything else was as close to flawless as you could get. “I didn’t have to, Mickey,” he replied. “I know you’re okay because you’ll always be okay.”
The RV rolled slowly along, hugging the sloping roadside at a tilted angle and doing about fifteen miles an hour, shoving the cruiser aside. Metal squalled against metal. Vern gaped and spun to Barry. The lawyer had pissed right down his leg. Vern therefore slugged Barry in the eye and dumped him flat on his rear end.
“Stop the RV!” bellowed Reed from the open door of the shifting cruiser. “Shoot the tires!”
Vern drew his service weapon.
The RV broke loose from the cruiser and began to pick up speed. It was at a two o’clock angle as it moved off the shoulder, now headed back for the center of the road. Vern, aiming for the right rear tire, triggered too quickly. His shot went way high, puncturing a piece of the RV’s wall. The vehicle was about fifty yards distant. Once it gained the road, it would be gone. Vern took a moment to reset and aimed again, properly, focusing again on the rear right tire… and fired into the air as Barry Holden tackled him to the ground.
Jared, on the floor, his back poked in half a dozen places by gunsights and gun barrels, was deafened by the blast. He could somehow feel the screaming around him—the woman, Michaela? Flickinger?—but he couldn’t hear it. His eyes found a hole in the walclass="underline" the bullet had made an opening like a burst firecracker top. His hands, flat on the floor of the RV, felt the wheels moving below, gaining speed, thrumming on the hardtop.
Flickinger still had his feet. He was braced at the kitchen counter. Nope, it wasn’t Flickinger who was screaming.
Jared looked where the doctor was looking.
The cocooned figures lay on the couch. A bloody cavity had opened at the sternum of the third in the row, the oldest of the girls, Gerda. She stood up from the couch, and staggered forward. She was the one that was screaming. Jared saw that she was moving at Michaela, who was huddled at the end of the parallel couch. The girl’s arms were raised, torn loose from the webbing that had held them fast to her torso, and the impression of the open, howling mouth under the material was vivid. Moths spilled from the hole in her sternum.
Flickinger caught Gerda. She spun, and her hands clawed at his throat as they wobbled in a circle, and went tripping over the guns on the floor. The two bodies crashed against the rear door. The latch snapped, the door flew open, and they fell out, followed by a rush of moths, and a stream of guns and bullets.
Evie moaned.
“What?” Angel asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh,” Evie said. “Nothing.”
“Liar,” Jeanette said. She was still slumped in the shower alcove. Angel had to hand it to Jeanette: she was almost as stubborn as Angel herself.
“That’s the sound you make when people die.” Jeanette inhaled. She cocked her head and addressed an invisible person. “That’s the sound she makes when people die, Damian.”
“I guess that’s true, Jeanette,” Evie said. “I guess I do that.”
“That’s what I said. Didn’t I, Damian?”
“You’re seein shit, Jeanette,” Angel said.
Jeanette’s gaze stayed on the empty air. “Moths came from her mouth, Angel. She’s got moths in her. Now let me alone—I’m trying to have a conversation with my husband.”
Evie excused herself. “I need to make a call.”
Reed heard Vern’s shot as he hurled himself over the police cruiser’s console and jerked open the passenger door. He glimpsed the rear end of the RV as it lumbered over beyond the slope, its back door flapping back and forth.
Two bodies lay in the road. Reed unholstered his service weapon and ran toward them. Past the bodies there was a trail of three or four assault rifles and a few handfuls of ammunition scattered among them.