Fat Boy looked over his shoulder and waved at the cops. They waved back and kept?back and coming. Fat Boy returned his attention to Virgil, said, “Yeah, they were gonna be out here anyway, or I wouldn’t have bothered. Why a guy buying kiddie fuck would want cops around makes me wonder some. That’s funny.”
“Wasn’t a necessity,” Virgil said. “But you can understand how I might be a bit worried, doing something like this. Got some cops around here think it’s okay, gives me some security.”
“I’ll introduce you,” Fat Boy said. “You deal with me, you got nothing to fear from anybody. There ain’t a man-jack in this county whose dick ain’t hanging limp in my grinder. You about ready to take a little peek at the goods?”
“Sure,” Virgil said.
The wire’s sound went funny. I touched the headset and tried to adjust it, but it still crackled. I put my eye back to the scope and moved it around until I found Poot. Christ, the little bastard was scratching. Virgil’s voice came to me through a load of static. “Hey, boy, take it easy.”
“Stop it,” Doc yelled at the dog. “Stop it, goddamn it!”
The scratching stopped.
Fat Boy said, “Your dog?”
“Yeah,” Virgil said.
“You ought to have him dipped.”
“I’ll do that.”
A long pause.
“You are nervous, Doc,” Fat Boy said. “You boys wouldn’t be fucking me, would you? You don’t fuck Fat Boy, fellas. I’ll do the fucking, but I won’t take any I don’t want.”
“No. No.” Doc said. “I wouldn’t fuck you.”
“What’re you talking about?” Virgil said.
Doc had been standing at the front of the car, beside Virgil, but now he walked in front of him, trying to show Fat Boy how friendly he was by using exaggerated arm gestures and repeating over and over that he wouldn’t fuck him. The dumb bastard was panicking, and now he was between me and Fat Boy.
“What the fuck’s that?” Fat Boy asked.
“What’s what?” Virgil said.
“That,” Fat Boy said. “The mutt… That’s a wire… You fucks!”
I realized what had happened. Poot’s scratching had revealed his wire and Fat Boy had put it together. I could see Fat Boy’s shoulder, I could see him move, but Doc was backpedaling directly into my view, continuing to block my shot. I could tell Fat Boy was drawing his gun from under his coat. There was a pop and I saw Virgil go halfway up on the hood of the car and roll off and hit the ground on his side and not move. Poot darted across the pasture, running low, making for the woods.
The trunk popped up, and Price came out on my side, hitting the ground with one foot and throwing himself out of the trunk. He rolled across the ground and swung his. 45 up with both hands and fired from a prone position. The shot hit Fat Boy and spun him around like a b?ound likallet movement, spun him away from Doc, spun him so that he was facing me. The. 45 slug had punched Fat Boy on the high right side of his yellow jacket. The jacket bloomed a stain; it looked as if someone had hit him with a rotten tomato. Fat Boy stagger-stepped in my direction. I cross-haired him and put one in his face. Part of his jaw leaped away on a red wet wave. He spun again and hit the ground face first.
I lowered the rifle to take in a quick overview. I saw Arnold on the left, coming wide of the cops, almost directly behind them. The cops weren’t looking in his direction. They had their handguns drawn and were blazing at Price, who was barely visible. He had practically melted into the earth. Turf exploded all around him. I saw his leg jerk once as a slug skidded across the ground and burned into him. He lifted up the. 45 and snapped off a round, not hitting anything, then got tight with the dirt again.
Doc was lying on the ground nearby, his hands over his head. He was screaming repeatedly, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
Not a single shot had come near him.
I worked the bolt of the rifle, tossed a casing. I threw the stock to my shoulder, scoped one of the cops and fired. The cop’s mouth became bigger and his legs went into a split. His legs slowly folded together, supporting him on his knees. His ruined head dangled. His gun was pointing at the ground. I couldn’t figure what was holding him up.
Arnold’s shotgun boomed and the other cop lost his head in a red white spray that bathed the cop I’d shot. Arnold’s cop hit the ground faster than a box of lead, and now mine began to melt off his knees.
All of this had occurred in a matter of seconds.
I pushed the listening apparatus off my head, climbed over the fallen tree, and moved out into the open. Price got up and hopped on one leg over to where Fat Boy was. Fat Boy wasn’t dead. He had started crawling, worming toward the woods. Fat Boy lifted his head and looked up at me. His face wasn’t a face. His piggy eyes were surrounded by splashes of blood. A tooth fell out of the ragged, red gap the Marlin had made, or maybe it was a chunk of bone. His tongue flicked about in the open wound like a snake on a steam iron; Price leaned down and put the. 45 to the back of Fat Boy’s head and pulled the trigger. Fat Boy’s head hit the dirt. Price fired again for good measure. The second time Fat Boy took the load he didn’t twitch.
Arnold came to my side. Doc eased to his feet and turned his back to me and faced Price. From the way Doc’s shoulders were wobbling, I could tell he was breathing hard enough to blow his lungs out. I was breathing pretty hard myself.
“I’m okay,” Doc managed. “Goddamnit, I didn’t get hit at all.”
Price looked at him, said, “Well, just once you did.”
He shot Doc in the forehead. The blast blew Doc past me, sent him skidding onto his back.
I jerked the rifle in Price’s direction, “Price, you idiot!”
“He had to go,” Price said, opening his free hand, lowering the. 45 to his side with the other. “Him eating it was part of the plan all along. He was shit, and I just flushed him.”
“He’s right,” Arnold said. “Let it be, Bubba. We still got Snake to deal with.”
Price limped over to the front of the car and looked down at Virgil. He bent and felt for a pulse in Virgil’s neck. He straightened up and leaned on the car. His face was pale and sweat beaded. He said, “That sonofabitch has written his last brief.”
“Don’t be so broken up about it,” I said.
“World won’t miss one less lawyer,” Price said.
Price slid down the car suddenly and sat on the ground next to Virgil’s body, his back to the bumper. He put his. 45 on his thigh and let it rest there. “I think I’m through for a while,” he said. He patted Virgil on the head. “Me and him will hold things here.”
Arnold pumped the twelve gauge, tossing a casing. He said, “Bubba, it’s time to rehabilitate Snake.”
34
You go wide right,” Arnold said, “I’ll go left.”
It had grown dimmer and cooler in the last few minutes. I had just now become aware of it, and I had become aware of a tingling sensation in my hands from firing the rifle.
There were clapboard shutters all around the sawmill, and I found myself watching those as I ran, expecting Snake to pop one open and take a shot.
I wondered what he had been doing when all this had started. Had he not been aware? Or had he realized it was a hit, and that it was foolish to go out into the open? Or was he here at all? Did stinky child pornographers with cobras tattooed on their heads take vacations?
I made the right side of the mill and didn’t get the side of my head blown off, and I tried not to think about the possibility. I thought only of doing what I had to do, and being cautious about it. I eased along with my back against the clapboard wall and came to where a large sliding wood door was pushed back and there was a dark opening.
On this side of the mill, if I entered, the last of the sunlight would be at my back, and I’d be outlined against the light like a moth on a hundred-and-twenty watt bulb. I decided to cross in front of the opening instead. I darted quickly to the other side, put my back against the wall and took a deep breath. Then the wall to the right of my cheek exploded and a barrage of splinters went into my face and I dove for the ground and rolled as far from the opening as I could and lay still.