“About that time.”
Floyd’s eyes seemed voracious. He put his right hand in the slit pocket of his jacket — the pocket where he kept the revolver. Mitch did not stir; he only breathed again when Floyd turned with a sharp snap of his shoulders and stalked across the street toward the barn.
The Oldsmobile started up and came out of the barn slowly, crunching stones. It stopped below the porch and Floyd leaned across to the open right-hand window. “Enjoy yourself,” he said, and tossed the revolver to the ground below the porch.
Mitch glimpsed Floyd’s hot quick smile and then the Olds-mobile’s engine roared. The tires spun, spraying back salvos, then gained purchase. The big car surged away, covering Mitch with dust.
He stepped down off the porch and picked up the gun. It occurred to him then that Floyd’s own emotions were no more important to Floyd than his tonsils, which had been removed in his childhood. Nothing would distract Floyd from his logically constructed plans.
Mitch had not known what to expect; frozen with fear, he had half believed Floyd would explode against them all. Now his brain slowly clamped onto the new realization after numbly dislodging from its former suspicion. Floyd meant to go through with it all as if nothing had happened.
The weight of the gun was unfamiliar in his hand. He turned and saw Theodore and Billie Jean standing just outside the door.
Billie Jean said matter-of-factly. “I don’t think he’s gonna come back.”
Theodore sat down with his legs dangling over, gripped the edge of the porch with both hands and rocked back and forth. The milky half-closed eye caught a glint of sunlight; he said, “You got the gun, Mitch. You want to do it or do I?”
“Do what?”
Theodore shrugged and kept rocking. “Her,” he said.
“Nobody’s touching her,” Mitch said. Rage swelled his eyes, fueled and banked by the long repressed night.
Billie Jean said, “She knows what we look like.”
Mitch didn’t reply. Theodore fixed his one-eyed stare on the gun and stopped rocking; his legs became still. Billie Jean said, “When Floyd gets back we ain’t going to want to waste a lot of time. Better get done with it now.”
“You just said you thought he wasn’t coming back. Make up your mind.”
“Either way,” Billie Jean said, “we got to stop her clock, don’t we? I mean, we can’t take her with us and we can’t leave her here to talk.”
“We’ll wait for Floyd,” Mitch said.
Theodore said, “Georgie’s dead. What’s he got to come back here for?”
The edge of that thought, fast-traveling, struck them all a sharp blow. Mitch’s eyes widened; he said, “We wait,” with more confidence than he felt.
Billie Jean said crossly, “He owes us money.”
“You’re talking as if he’d already run out on us.”
“Well, he has. You know he has. Who’s going to stop him pick up the money and just keep going across the line? Was you him, would you come back?”
I would, Mitch thought. But I’m not him. He wouldn’t be afraid of the rest of us coming after him.
As if reading his thoughts Billie Jean said, “Suppose’n he picks up the money and then he stops at a phone and tells the cops where to look for us.”
Theodore scowled. “Floyd wouldn’t do that to us.”
“You wanna bet?”
Terry Conniston appeared in the door, pale and unsteady; clearly she had been listening. She fastened her gaze on Mitch. Theodore’s head twisted around on his short neck; he said in his casual abrasive voice, “We oughta use that gun on her now and get out of here, go on down the road and watch for Floyd. If Floyd comes, okay. If the cops come we fade back in the rocks and let them go by and then get the hell out of there. There’s a good spot up the road ten-twelve miles from here.”
Billie Jean said with waspish petulance, “We ain’t got any more time to wait.”
Mitch shook his head obstinately. “Anyway the car’s only a two-seater. And Floyd’s got the keys to it.”
“You wanna get us all put away?”
“We wait,” Mitch said, and set his teeth.
Theodore growled. He turned around again to fix his cyclopean stare on Terry, who shrank back in the doorway and gripped the jamb, the tendons of her fingers standing out. Billie Jean lowered her brows and walked to the edge of the porch, sat down beside Theodore and bent to whisper in his ear. Mitch frowned and took a step forward. Theodore’s eye whipped around toward him and Theodore nodded in response to something Billie Jean said. Billie Jean formed her hand into a fist and pounded her knee, talking with sibilant earnestness; Mitch, unable to make out the words, kept walking forward.
He came within six feet of them: Billie Jean stopped whispering, gave him an arch look and stood up. Mitch pointed the gun at them. “You two gentle down.”
Billie Jean started to walk back along the porch toward the door. “You figure just wait here till the cops come, Mitch? What do you hear from your head lately?”
She stopped at the door. Her plump face was turned toward Mitch — but her hand darted out, clamped around Terry’s wrist and yanked Terry out onto the porch. Terry’s little cry brought Mitch up on the porch; he extended the gun before him and said, “Let her go!”
Billie Jean’s sensuous mouth formed a pouting leer. Terry grabbed her hand and tried to pry it loose. Mitch took another step toward them — and Theodore landed on him like a cement bag.
They had set it up between them — Billie Jean’s distraction, Theodore’s leap: he had fallen for it like an idiot. He had time for that disgusted thought in the instant when he felt the rush of wind from Theodore’s charging attack. Then he was pitching forward, agony exploding in his back where Theodore’s knee had rammed him; spinning, his wrist caught in Theodore’s fist. He went down with Theodore on top of him and the gun fell somewhere. The tumble, and Theodore’s weight, knocked the wind out of his lungs; a curse, savage but weak, escaped his mouth. Theodore grunted and twisted something and Mitch’s face was pushed down against the splintered porch boards. He felt something rip along the side of his jaw; only then did he begin to react. He was not a fighter but there was enough screaming panic in him to inject strength: he flailed his body, striking back with both heels, and hit some part of Theodore, enough to make Theodore shift his weight and cry out. Mitch got one elbow under him and heaved, rolling them both over. Theodore switched his grip from Mitch’s wrist to his torso and pinned one arm against his side in a cruel hug. Nothing was in focus or balance; Mitch couldn’t see through the red wash of outrage and terrified frustration that filled his eyes. Agony pulled at his mouth. Kicking blindly, he got purchase against a post and heaved again. It threw him off the porch. There was a sickening instant in mid-air, rolling over, like a dream of falling. They spun together and hit the dusty earth with a whacking thud. Somehow Mitch was on top of Theodore. The fall broke Theodore’s grip and Mitch felt himself rolling free. Stunned and spastic, he whipped around on hands and knees, scrabbling to get his feet under him.
He brought things into focus and saw several things at once. On the porch both girls were diving toward the fallen gun. On the ground before him Theodore was rolling toward the kitchen knife which must have fallen out of Mitch’s belt.
Mitch felt needles in his legs. With a cry he launched himself forward: he brought his hand up with deathly panic behind it, whacking the heel of his hand up under Theodore’s nose. It lifted Theodore off the ground: he heard the crush of cartilage, felt the spurt of blood on his palm; Theodore windmilled, off balance, and slammed his back against the edge of the porch. Behind Theodore the girls were a blur of swirling flesh, a cacophony of shrieks.