This was a man talking who’d just laid a cap on three people back there, and he was worried about this guy breathing? Man. I just laughed. Disgusted, I mean. “Like maybe we don’t want him to see us?” I said. “You think of that?” See, we weren’t wearing our ski masks anymore.
It’s scary when you have to remind people of stuff like that. I was thinking Toth knew better. But you never know.
I went to the window and saw another squad car go past. They were going slower now. They do that. After like the first shock, after the rush, they get smart and start cruising slow, really looking for what’s funny — what’s different, you know? That’s why I didn’t take the papers up from the front yard. Which would’ve been different from how the yard looked that morning. Cops really do that Columbo stuff. I could write a book about cops.
“Why’d you do it?”
It was the guy we took.
“Why?” he whispered again.
The customer. He had a low voice, and it sounded pretty calm, I mean considering. I’ll tell you, the first time I was in a shootout I was totally freaked for a day afterwards. And I had a gun.
I looked him over. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. But he wasn’t a local. I could tell because of the shoes. They were rich-boy shoes, the kind you see all the yuppies wear in TV shows about Connecticut. I couldn’t see his face because of the mask, but I pretty much remembered it. He wasn’t young. Maybe in his forties. Kind of wrinkled skin. And he was skinny, too. Skinnier’n me, and I’m one of those people can eat what I want and I don’t get fat. I don’t know why. It just works that way.
“Quiet,” I said. There was another car going by.
He laughed. Soft. Like he was saying, What? So they can hear me all the way outside?
Kind of laughing at me, you know? I didn’t like that at all. And sure, I guess you couldn’t hear anything out there, but I didn’t like him giving me any crap so I said, “Just shut up. I don’t want to hear your voice.”
He did for a minute and just sat back in the chair where Toth put him. But then he said again, “Why’d you shoot them? You didn’t have to.”
“Quiet!”
“Just tell me why.”
I took out my knife and snapped that sucker open, then threw it down so it stuck in a tabletop. Sort of a thunk sound. “You hear that? That was a eight-inch Buck knife. Carbon tempered. With a locking blade. It’d cut clean through a metal bolt. So you be quiet. Or I’ll use it on you.”
And he gave this laugh again. Maybe. Or it was just a snort of air. But I was thinking it was a laugh. I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but I didn’t.
“You got any money on you?” Toth asked, and took the wallet out of the guy’s back pocket. “Lookit,” Toth said, and pulled out what must’ve been five or six hundred. Man.
Another squad car went past, moving slow. It had a spotlight and the cop turned it on the driveway, but he just kept going. I heard a siren across town. And another one, too. It was a weird feeling, knowing those people were out there looking for us.
I took the wallet from Toth and went through it.
Randall C. Weller Jr. He lived in Boston. A weekender. Just like I thought. He had a bunch of business cards that said he was vice president of this big computer company. One that was in the news, trying to take over IBM or something. All of a sudden I had this thought. We could hold him for ransom. I mean, why not? Make a half million. Maybe more.
“My wife and kids’ll be sick worrying,” Weller said. It spooked me, hearing that. First, ‘cause you don’t expect somebody with a hood over his head to say anything. But mostly ‘cause there I was, looking right at a picture in his wallet. And what was it of? His wife and kids.
“I ain’t letting you go. Now, just shut up. I may need you.”
“Like a hostage, you mean? That’s only in the movies. They’ll shoot you when you walk out, and they’ll shoot me, too, if they have to. That’s the way they do it. Just give yourself up. At least you’ll save your life.”
“Shut up!” I shouted.
“Let me go and I’ll tell them you treated me fine. That the shooting was a mistake. It wasn’t your fault.”
I leaned forward and pushed the knife against his throat, not the blade ‘cause that’s real sharp, but the blunt edge, and I told him to be quiet.
Another car went past, no light this time but it was going slower, and all of a sudden I got to thinking what if they do a door-to-door search?
“Why did he do it? Why’d he kill them?”
And funny, the way he said he made me feel a little better ‘cause it was like he didn’t blame me for it. I mean, it was Toth’s fault. Not mine.
Weller kept going. “I don’t get it. That man by the counter? The tall one. He was just standing there. He didn’t do anything. He just shot him down.”
But neither of us said nothing. Probably Toth because he didn’t know why he’d shot them. And me because I didn’t owe this guy any answers. I had him in my hand. Completely, and I had to let him know that. I didn’t have to talk to him.
But the guy, Weller, he didn’t say anything else. And I got this weird sense. Like this pressure building up. You know, because nobody was answering his damn stupid question. I felt this urge to say something. Anything. And that was the last thing I wanted to do. So I said, “I’m gonna move the car into the garage.” And I went outside to do it.
I was a little spooked after the shootout. And I went through the garage pretty good. Just to make sure. But there wasn’t nothing inside except tools and an old Snapper lawnmower. So I drove the Buick inside and closed the door. And went back into the house.
And then I couldn’t believe what happened. I mean, Jesus …
When I walked into the living room, the first thing I heard was Toth saying, “No way, man. I’m not snitching on Jack Prescot.”
I just stood there. And you should’ve seen the look on his face. He knew he’d blown it big.
Now this Weller guy knew my name.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. Toth started talking real fast and nervous. “He said he’d pay me some big bucks to let him go.” Trying to turn it around, make it Weller’s fault. “I mean, I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t even thinking ‘bout it, man. I told him forget it.”
“I figured that,” I said. “So? What’s that got to do with tellin’ him my name?”
“I don’t know, man. He confused me. I wasn’t thinking.”
I’ll say he wasn’t. He hadn’t been thinking all night.
I sighed to let him know I wasn’t happy, but I just clapped him on the shoulder. “OK,” I said. “S’been a long night. These things happen.”
“I’m sorry, man. Really.”
“Yeah. Maybe you better go spend the night in the garage or something. Or upstairs. I don’t want to see you around for a while.”
“Sure.”
And the funny thing was, it was that Weller gave this little snicker or something. Like he knew what was coming. How’d he know that? I wondered.
Toth went to pick up a couple of magazines and the knapsack with his gun in it and extra rounds.
Normally, killing somebody with a knife is a hard thing to do. I say normally even though I’ve only done it one other time. But I remember it, and it was messy and hard work. But tonight, I don’t know, I was all filled up with this …feeling from the drugstore. Mad. I mean, really. Crazy, too, a little. And as soon as Toth turned his back, I went to work, and it wasn’t three minutes later it was over. I drug his body behind the couch and then — why not — I pulled Weller’s hood off. He already knew my name. He might as well see my face.
He was a dead man. We both knew it.
“You were thinking of holding me for ransom, right?”
I stood at the window and looked out. Another cop car went past, and there were more flashing lights bouncing off the low clouds and off the face of the Lookout, right over our heads. Weller had a thin face and short hair, cut real neat. He looked like every ass-kissing businessman I’d ever met. His eyes were dark and calm, and it made me even madder he wasn’t shook up looking at that big bloodstain on the rug and floor.