“Yeah, sure. I just appreciate you givin’ me a ride.”
“There’s a road up here to the right,” Carl said to Sandy.
“How far?” Sandy asked.
“Maybe a mile.”
Arvin leaned over just a little, looked past Carl’s head out the windshield. He didn’t see any indication of a road, and he thought it a bit odd that the man knew there was one up ahead if he wasn’t from around here. Maybe he’s got a map, the boy told himself. He sat back in his seat again and watched the scenery going by. Except for the hills being smaller and more rounded off, it looked a lot like West Virginia. He wondered if anyone had found Teagardin’s body yet.
Sandy turned off Route 35 onto a dirt and gravel road. She drove past a big farm that sat on the corner. After another mile or so, she slowed and asked Carl, “Here?”
“No, keep going,” he said.
Arvin straightened up and looked around. They hadn’t passed another house since the farm. The Luger was pressing against his groin, and he adjusted it a little.
“This looks like a good spot,” Carl finally said, pointing at the vague remains of a driveway that led to a run-down house. It was obvious that the place had been empty for years. The few windows were busted out and the porch was caving in on one end. The front door was standing open, hanging crooked from one hinge. Across the road was a cornfield, the stalks withered and yellow from the hot, droughty weather. As soon as Sandy shut the engine off, Carl opened the glove compartment. He pulled out a fancy-looking camera, held it up for Arvin to see. “Bet you never would have guessed I’m a photographer, would you?” he said.
Arvin shrugged. “Probably not.” He could hear the hum of insects outside the car in the dry weeds. Thousands of them.
“But look, I’m not one of them jackasses that shoot dumb pictures like you see in the newspaper, am I, Sandy?”
“No,” she said, looking back at Arvin, “he’s not. He’s really good.”
“You ever hear of Michelangelo or Leonardo …? Oh, hell, I’ve done forgot his name. You know who I mean?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Arvin said. He thought about the time Lenora showed him a painting called Mona Lisa in a book. She had asked him if he thought she looked anything like the pale woman in the picture, and he was glad he’d told her that she was prettier than that.
“Well, I like to think that someday people are gonna look at my photographs and think they’re just as good as anything them guys ever made. The pictures I take, Billy, they’re like art, like you see in a museum. You ever been to a museum?”
“No,” Arvin said. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Well, maybe you will someday. So how about it?”
“How about what?” Arvin said.
“Why don’t we get out here and you let me take some pictures of you with Sandy?”
“No, mister, I better not. It’s been a long day for me, and I’d just as soon keep moving. I just want to get to Meade.”
“Oh, come on, son, won’t take but a few minutes. How about this? What if she got naked for you?”
Arvin reached for the door handle. “That’s all right,” he said. “I’m just gonna walk back up to the highway. You stay back here and take all the pictures you want.”
“Now wait up, goddamn it,” Carl said. “I didn’t mean to get you all upset. But shit, wasn’t no harm in me asking, was there?” He laid the camera down on the seat and sighed. “All right, just let me take my piss and we’ll get on out of here.”
Carl heaved his big body out of the car, walked around to the back. Sandy took a cigarette from her pack. Looking over, Arvin watched her hands tremble as she tried several times to strike a match. A feeling, one that he couldn’t quite put a name on, suddenly twisted in his gut like a knife. He was already pulling the Luger from the waistband of his overalls when he heard Carl say, “Get out of the car, boy.” The fat man was standing five feet away from the back door pointing a long-barreled pistol at him.
“If it’s money you want,” Arvin said, “I got a little bit.” He eased the safety off the gun. “You can have it.”
“Being nice now, huh?” Carl said. He spat in the grass. “I’ll tell you what, you little cocksucker, you just hang on to that money for right now. Sandy and me will sort it out after we take my goddamn pictures.”
“Better go ahead and do what he says, Billy,” Sandy said. “He can get pretty excited if things don’t go his way.” When she glanced back at him and smiled with all her rotten teeth, Arvin nodded to himself and shoved his door open. Before it registered in Carl’s mind what the boy held in his hand, the first blast had torn through his stomach. The force of the bullet started to spin him around. He staggered back three or four feet and caught himself. He tried to raise his gun and aim at the boy, but then another round hit him in the chest. He landed on his back in the weeds with a heavy thump. Though he could still feel the.38 in his hand, his fingers wouldn’t work. Somewhere far off, he could hear Sandy’s voice. It sounded like she was saying his name over and over again: Carl, Carl, Carl. He wanted to answer her, thought that if he just rested a minute, he could still straighten this mess out. Something cold began to crawl over him. He felt his body start to sink into a hole that seemed to be opening up beneath him in the ground, and it scared him, that feeling, the way it sucked the breath right out of him. Gritting his teeth, he fought to climb out before he sank in too deep. He felt himself rising. Yes, by God, he could still fix things, and then they would quit. He saw those two little boys on their bicycles riding by waving at him. No more pictures, he wanted to tell Sandy, but he was having trouble finding the air. Then something with huge black wings settled on top of him, pushing him down again, and even though he grabbed frantically at the grass and dirt with his left hand to keep from slipping, he couldn’t stop himself this time.
When the woman started screaming the man’s name, Arvin turned and saw her in the front seat digging something out of her purse. “Don’t do that,” he said, shaking his head. He stepped back from the car and pointed the Luger at her. “I’m begging you.” Black streaks of mascara were running down her face. She cried the man’s name one more time, and then stopped. Taking several deep breaths, she stared at the soles of Carl’s shoes while she quieted down. One of them, she noticed, had a hole in it as big around as a fifty-cent piece. He hadn’t mentioned it the whole trip. “Please, lady,” Arvin said when he saw her smile.
“Fuck it,” she said quietly, just before she drew a pistol up over the seat and fired. Though she aimed directly at the middle of the boy’s body, he just stood there. Frantically, she pulled the hammer back again with her thumbs, but before she could get off the second round, Arvin shot her in the neck. The.22 dropped to the floorboards as the bullet knocked her against the driver’s-side door. Pressing her hands against her throat, she tried to stop the red stream that was spurting from the wound. She began to choke, and coughed a gush of blood out on the seat. Her eyes settled on his face. They grew big for a few seconds and then slowly closed. Arvin listened to her take a few ragged breaths and then one last sticky heave. He couldn’t believe that the woman had missed him. Jesus Christ, she was so close.
He sat down on the edge of the backseat and puked a little in the grass between his feet. A numbing despair began to settle over him, and he tried to shake it off. He stepped out into the dirt road and paced around in a circle. He put the Luger back in his pants and knelt down beside the man. He reached underneath him and pulled the wallet out of his back pocket and glanced through it quickly. He didn’t see any driver’s license, but he found a photograph behind some paper money. Suddenly he felt sick all over again. It was a picture of the woman cradling a dead man in her arms like a baby. She was wearing only a black bra and panties. There was what appeared to be a bullet hole above the man’s right eye. She was looking down at him with a hint of sorrow on her face.