Killshot

“You say while you were talking to your mom.”

“I didn’t mention it to her.”

“No, I don’t imagine you would. But how come you wait till now to tell me?”

“I was going to right away, but then ...I don’t know, it didn’t seem that important anymore. They might’ve been hunters.”

“It’s the duck season, honey. There aren’t any ducks in the woods. Were they just, maybe walking through?”

“It was more like they were trying to stay hidden, watching the house. That was the feeling I had.”

“I don’t see how it could be those two guys, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“No, I don’t either.”

“They might like to run into me sometime, but they’re not gonna hang around on the off chance, with the police looking for them. Or so they say.”

Carmen said, “How could they know where we live?”

“They couldn’t, there’s no way they could find out.”

She saw Wayne thinking about it as he finished his dinner. On Jeopardy the contestants were getting ready for the hardest part, Final Jeopardy.

“Unless,” Wayne said, “that one, the Indian, remembers me talking to Lionel and goes to see him. Hey, but Lionel’s away someplace. I don’t know where, but he sure as hell isn’t home.”

“It probably wasn’t anybody,” Carmen said. “Just some guy. I’m not gonna worry about it.”

“No, they’d be pretty dumb to hang around.”

Carmen didn’t say anything. They were showing the Final Jeopardy question now. She looked at it, then at Wayne as he slid off the kitchen stool and went over to the closet where he kept his hunting gear, his shotguns, boxes of ammunition, coats, boots, lures, old copies of hunting magazines. She could see him in there with the light on.

“Hon, what are two adjacent states, one’s a Spanish word, the other’s Indian and they both mean red, the color?”

She was pretty sure the states were Colorado and Utah.

Wayne came out of the closet holding his Remington 870 fitted with the shorter slug barrel. He said, “Colorado and Oklahoma,” crossing to the door. He stood the shotgun next to it, against the wall.

Carmen said, “I think it’s Colorado and Utah.”

That was what the smartest woman she had ever seen on Jeopardy also thought, and they were both wrong. The states were Colorado and Oklahoma.

It surprised Carmen. Still, she felt good about it, smiling as she said, “How’d you know that?”

“I went bird shooting down there one time,” Wayne said. “Remember?”

“Knowing my love of corrections,” Donna had said to Richie Nix more than once and in different ways, “for them to treat me the way they did, I have lost all respect for our prison system.”

He told the Bird she was always going on about it. It convinced Richie they could trust Donna. At least tell her where they got the van. The Bird said no.

“She’s confused,” Richie said. “We drive off Saturday in a Cadillac, come back that night in a Dodge van wearing hunting outfits.” Camouflaged coats and caps, all green and brown with a little black.

The Bird said, “Let her be confused.”

“Yeah, but we don’t want her pissed off at us.”

The Bird said, “You don’t tell a woman use to wear a state uniform your business.”

He didn’t get it.

“That’s the whole point of what I’m saying,” Richie said, “she knows my business. She knows I got felony warrants out on me. It don’t matter to her, she spent her life with guys like me. Man, she’s a fucking convict groupie. We stay friendly with her, we have a nice little place to hide out. But we hurt her feelings, that’ll piss her off. Bird? You understand?”

The Bird said, “Don’t call me Bird no more.”

That stopped Richie, confused him. “You said they call you the Blackbird.”

“Not anymore.”

“Well, what am I suppose to call you?”

“My name, Armand.”

“Armand? You serious?”

They had been having their differences the past couple of days. It had taken that long to locate the ironworker’s house, the address in the phone book listed as a rural route number. They had to scout the place then. The Bird’s idea, leave the van on a back road and cut through the woods like a couple of hunters, sneak up on the house from behind. Okay, they had done that. Stood in wet weeds and bushes in their camie outfits—there was the house, there was a Cutlass and a boat with an outboard on a trailer in the garage, but no pickup truck. Which meant the ironworker wasn’t home and the Bird would not go up to the house till he knew both the guy and his wife were in there. Richie liked the idea of walking into the house, take care of the woman and wait for the guy to get home. Surprise him, we’re sitting there. The Bird had said, “Take care of the woman, ’ey? You think you can do it?” Still bringing it up. The Bird didn’t like the idea of walking in, he said, because somebody they didn’t expect could come along while they were in the house. Maybe cops. These people would have talked to the cops, no? What if the cops stopped by to ask them some more questions? Anything Richie wanted to do, the Bird was against it. Now he had a faggy name he wanted to be called, Armand.

They were in Donna’s living room under the pictures of guards, cons and prison officials: Richie and Armand sitting with their drinks among the stuffed animals, Armand fooling with Mr. Froggy’s button eyes; while Donna prepared her gourmet frozen chow, banging pans out in the kitchen so they’d know she was there.

Richie said, “Armand?” Jesus Christ, he felt weird saying it. “You notice she’s not talking to us? When she makes all that fucking noise like that it means she’s getting pissed off. I don’t want her to do nothing dumb.”

The Bird, Armand, said, “Pimpslap a woman, you want to keep her in line.”

“Now that would really set her off.”

“If she don’t know better,” Armand said, “she’s in trouble.”

Man, this guy was from some other fucking world. “Armand,” Richie said, “you’re not married, are you?”

“No way.”

“You ever live with a woman? I mean outside of your family?”

“What’s the point?”

“Armand, lemme tell you something. You’re always telling me something, now it’s my turn. Okay, Armand.” If he kept saying the name it would get easier. “You might’ve shot a woman or

two in your line of work. ... Have you?”

“Go on what you’re gonna tell me.”

“Let’s say you have. But shooting a woman and understanding a woman are two entirely different things, man. I’ve lived with women in foster homes and women since then.” Richie dropped his voice to add, “I might even still be married, I’m not sure, she got scared and took off on me. That’s okay, a woman being scared. But don’t ever let ’em get pissed off at you if you can help it. First thing, they’ll stop talking to you. Like her out there. You give them any more cause, then look out. A woman won’t ever come at you, they got other ways. Put ground-up glass in your chow. Pour gasoline on you while you’re sleeping and set you afire. I know guys it’s happened to. The least thing they can do is tell on you, that’s too fucking easy. Donna knows I got a sheet six feet long besides warrants from here to Kentucky. She can make a case anytime she wants. But, see, that don’t worry me. What does is the sneaky shit she’s liable to pull, say her feelings get hurt. What I’m telling you, Armand, you have to keep a woman thinking you give a shit what she thinks.”

Armand said, “So you don’t trust her.”

“Man, I just got done explaining it to you. I don’t have to worry do I trust her, long as she trusts me.”

The Indian took time to finish his whiskey before saying, “What do you want to tell her?” Not sounding so goddamn sure of himself now.

Richie felt he had him. He said, “Watch,” and called, “Hey, Donna? Fix us up here, will you?”

There she was, looking like a cartoon spider with her skinny legs and arms and that big butt sticking out. She