“… shot, Hod.”
“What?”
“I said it’s your shot. You dreaming or what?”
“Thinking. I told you I was thinking, didn’t I?”
He lined up on the fourteen ball, an easy cut into the side pocket-and missed it. Shit. How could he miss a shot like that? Nervous, that was how. Adam hippity-hopping around like Bugs Bunny, all this talk about jacklighting deer, it was a wonder he didn’t miss every time.
He had left Adam wide open; he saw that and knew it was over. Adam tapped in the six, tapped in the seven with just enough English to give him position, and then tapped in the eight. “My game,” he said, grinning. “Beer’s on you, too, right?”
“Yeah, right.” They’d had a beer side bet on this one and Adam always seemed to win when they had a side bet. Not that Hod figured he was being hustled; Adam wasn’t that good. Just lucky. That was why he’d been able to go out jacklighting and not get caught. Pure luck. Hod didn’t have that kind of luck; first time he went out, game warden would be hiding in the bushes ten feet away when he fired his first round.
There were two stripes still on the table, his last two balls. He gave Adam twenty cents-five for each of the stripes, ten for the eight ball-and went to the bar and called to Barney Nevers for two more Henry’s. Two stools down from where he stood, Seth Bonner was nursing a highball; old Seth must have come in while they were playing the last game.
“Hey, Seth,” he said, “how’s it going?”
“Hell of a question to ask a man just lost his job.”
“Tough about that,” Hod said sympathetically.
“People from California,” Bonner said. “Goddamn college professor. Mr. Jan Ryerson, he says the first time he come around. What kind of name is that for a man? Jan?”
“Man can’t help the name he’s given.”
“Comes all the way up here, takes my job away from me, and for what? Write some damn book. Bookwriter with a name like that, he’s probly queer.”
“Not with a wife like he’s got. She’s a looker, Seth.”
“Don’t mean nothing,” Bonner said. “Lots of ’em go both ways, down there in California. Besides, he probly married her for her money. Her father’s some big mucky-muck politician. That’s how they got hold of the lighthouse.”
Hod shook his head, paid Barney for the two Henry’s, and carried them back to the pool table. Queer-that was a laugh. What did Bonner know about queers? Or anything else, for that matter? He was half cracked, and living alone out at the lighthouse the past three years had only widened the crack. Maybe it was a good thing those people had come up from California. Now Seth had a decent place to live and his sister Emma to take care of him, whether he liked it or not.
Another thing, too. Hod remembered the way that big blond Ryerson had kicked Red the other day, and how he hadn’t backed down from Mitch afterward. Never mind that he was a college professor; he had guts. Probably tough when push came to shove-that quiet type could fool you. Mitch must have sensed the same thing, because he hadn’t tried to push it with Ryerson, hadn’t said much about the incident afterward. Queer? Not that one. No way.
Adam was still hopping around, right foot, left foot, cradling his cue stick across his body like it was that Springfield 30.06 he kept in his van. “Losers rack,” he said, and Hod said, “Yeah, yeah,” and fished the balls out of the return slot and racked them for Adam’s break.
That was when Mitch came in.
Hod knew right away something was wrong. It was the way Mitch moved, hard and angry, and the way he was banging his fisted hands against his thighs. One long look at his face, when he got close enough, and Hod could tell that whatever it was, it was bad. Real bad.
And it was. “Red’s dead,” Mitch said.
“Dead? Christ, Mitch, what-?”
“Run down in the road not far from my place. An hour ago.”
“Chasing cars again?”
“No. Wasn’t any accident.”
Adam said, “It wasn’t? What was it?”
“Murder, that’s what it was. Son of a bitch ran him down deliberate.”
Hod said, “Jesus, who did?”
“That bastard from California, the one out at the lighthouse. Ryerson.”
“How do you know? You see it happen?”
“Enough of it. I was just coming out of the house, getting ready to come over here.” Mitch slammed his hands against his thighs in a hard, steady rhythm. “Red screamed,” he said. “When Ryerson hit him.. he screamed. You ever hear a dog scream?”
“No,” Hod said. His throat felt tight.
“Just like a woman. Knocked him into them bushes alongside the road, screaming all the way. Big car like that… he never had a chance.”
“That new Ford wagon?”
“That’s the one,” Mitch said. “No other like that around here. It was Ryerson, all right.”
“He didn’t stop?” Adam asked.
“Didn’t even slow down. I told you, he done it on purpose. Saw Red out running the way he liked to do, swerved over, and picked him off like a jackrabbit. Poor old dog was dead when I got to him, head all bashed in. Poor old dog. He never hurt nobody in his whole life.”
Hod said, “But why? Why would Ryerson do a thing like that?”
“Red nipping at him last week; words we had over it. He seen in his headlights it was the same dog and let him have it.”
“That’s no damn reason… ”
“Not for you and me, it sin’t.”
Mitch hadn’t been trying to keep his voice down; everybody else in the Sea Breeze had heard him too. Seth Bonner got off his stool and came over halfway and said, “Plain dirt meanness, that’s what it was. Looked at me once like he wanted to kill me, too. Crazy California queer. We don’t want his kind around here!”
He was getting himself worked up, but Mitch wasn’t paying any attention to him. Nobody was except Barney Nevers. Barney said, “Pipe down, Seth, will you?”
“Don’t have to do what you tell me,” Bonner said.
“You want me to ring up Emma?”
Old Seth said, “Wouldn’t do that,” but he went back to his stool and sat down.
Adam said, “What’d you do, Mitch? Go after him?”
“No. Too late for that.”
“What, then?”
“Took Red up to the house and called the sheriff.”
“What’d he say?” Hod asked.
“Said there wasn’t much he could do. Said I didn’t see the whole thing, said it was dark and easy to make a mistake about intent. Said Ryerson could claim he didn’t know he hit Red and that was why he didn’t stop, and you couldn’t prove otherwise.” Mitch whacked his thighs again and his next words came out bitter. “Said it just ain’t much of a crime to hit-and-run a dog.”
“You could swear out a complaint anyway,” Barney Nevers said from behind the plank. “Malicious mischief or something.”
“Sheriff said that too.”
“You going to do it?” Hod asked.
“No. No damn point in it. Law ain’t worth a shit when it comes to this kind of thing.” Mitch sat heavily against one corner of the pool table. “Hod,” he said, “get me a drink, will you? Double shot of sour mash.”
“Sure. Sure thing, Mitch.”
Hod went to the bar, paid Barney Nevers for a double Jack Daniel’s-cost him his last dollar but the hell with
