Joey Beans ran for the relative safety of the putt-putt golf course.
The second shot went off as Neal pulled back on Overtime’s arm and tried to haul him out of the starting chamber. Overtime rammed the stock back and hit Neal on the collarbone. Neal kept his grip on Overtime’s arm, braced his feet against the side of the slide, and jerked. He reached his left hand around, grabbed the killer under the chin, and pulled.
Overtime pushed his rifle hand out and probed with the barrel until he felt it touch a body.
Neal felt the barrel against him, rolled back, and pulled the man onto the slide with him as the gun went off. He was lying sideways across the slide now, with his feet braced on the edge and Overtime lying on top of him.
Neal felt as if he was drowning. Jets of water were shooting into his face and he couldn’t get his head up high enough to get a real breath. Add exhaustion, terror, and the thought that a bullet was going to blow his head off any second and it was not a happy situation.
Then why are you holding on? he asked himself.
He was considering this question when Overtime’s elbow crashed into his rib cage and he let go.
He felt the killer slide away from him as he dug his feet back into the side, reached over his head, and gripped the edge.
This isn’t as bad as the Newport Bridge, Overtime thought as he careened down the long straightaway.
Problem: Escape.
Analysis: You’re moving at high speed away from your adversaries. You still have your weapon. You can still make it out of here.
Solution: Go with the flow.
Overtime lay back to increase his speed, slid around the double corkscrew, built up tremendous velocity on the next straightaway, and flew around the first high bank. The problem came when his two hundred pounds hit the next bank a little roughly and one of Joey’s cheap sections gave way and he crashed through it like a rocket and was launched fifty feet into the warm Texas sky.
Witnesses later said that his screams were truly unsettling.
The water in the pool below got pretty hard when he hit it at the speed he was going, so he was probably already pretty banged up when the current sucked his unconscious body into the tube, plummeted him thirty feet, and shot him out like a bullet into the final pool.
There were no flotation devices, lifeguards, or emergency personnel there to meet him. There was no water, either-just the rock-hard pool bottom, a busted canvas bag, and some sand-so the twenty foot high-speed dash headfirst into the concrete is what killed him.
“Was that the man who shot Mr. Withers?” Charles asked Polly a few minutes later as they looked into the dry pool.
Polly looked at Overtime’s shattered remains and said, “Hard to tell.”
Joe Graham held on to Karen as she crawled out and grabbed Neal’s hand, but they couldn’t get enough leverage to pull him out.
“Mmmmmmm,” Watanabe said behind the duct tape.
“What’s he saying?” Graham asked.
“He’s probably telling you to shut it off!” Neal hollered. “In any case, shut it off!!”
“Oh.” Graham found the switch and the flow of water stopped.
Graham yanked the tape off Watanabe’s mouth.
Karen pulled Neal up.
“Ready to go home?” Neal huffed.
“I think so,” answered Karen.
“I am,” Neal said.
“By the way, I forgot to tell you that you’re fired,” Graham said.
“That’s good,” Neal answered as he put his arm around Karen. “That’s very good, Dad.”
Then he and Karen walked down the water slide.
Epilogue
Neal lined up the putt perfectly, gave it a gentle stroke, and bounced the ball off King Herod’s lip for the third time.
“You’re awful at golf,” Karen said.
“The only thing that could improve golf,” Neal said, “are snipers.”
“Not funny.”
It was a beautiful spring day in San Antonio. Both the bluebells and Candyland were in full bloom, and Neal and Karen had flown down for a long weekend.
Brogan snored away on a chaise lounge as Brezhnev watched the one-sided match and wagged his tail when Karen hit her shot. The old bartender and the dog had a free lifetime condo at Candyland and used it frequently.
“You want to go on the water slide?” Polly asked Neal. She held six-week-old Karrie Landis-the reason for Neal and Karen’s visit-in her arms.
“No thank you,” Neal said. He lined up the ball again and this time got it past Herod’s molars. A moment later, Herod’s tongue spat it back out.
“Where’s Graham?” he asked.
“Three holes ahead,” Karen answered. “With one arm.”
Graham loved miniature golf. It was so tidy.
A lot had happened over the fall and winter.
Marc Merolla cashed in his marker with Ethan Kitteredge and ended up with 50 percent of the Family Cable Network in his own name. His grandfather died in prison shortly afterward.
Ed Levine bought a house down the street from Marc Merolla and became the managing director of Friends of the Family. Ethan Kitteredge stayed on as director emeritus but spent most of his time on his boat. One of Ed’s first official acts was to confirm the termination of Neal Carey with the brusque message: Get a life.
“The Polly and Candy Family Hour” became a huge hit on FCN, barely skipping a beat. They gained a lot of new viewers, lost some old ones, but most of the audience stayed for the recipes. And the show took a slightly new direction-it still stressed family but broadened the definition to include just about any combination of people living together and caring for one another, including the big house that Candy, Polly, and Karrie shared. The day that Candy endorsed gay adoptions cost her a few thousand viewers and half a dozen sponsors, but most of the audience still stayed for the recipes and new advertisers signed on.
Karrie Landis’s first appearance on the show became the highest-rated hour in the history of cable television.
Chuck Whiting stayed on as head of security, stayed married to his wife, and stayed distantly in love with Candy Landis.
Harold opened a dry-cleaning business in Chalmette Oaks.
Joey Foglio was never heard from again.
Once a month, cemetery workers in Queens would see a one-armed man sit beside a headstone marked WALTER WITHERS-HE PLAYED THE GAME, turn on a cassette of Blossom Dearie, and let it run for an hour or so.
Neal transferred his credits from Columbia to Nevada and rented a small apartment in Reno, where he stayed a couple of nights a week. The severance pay, pension check, and disability (mental) that Ed sent were more than enough to cover expenses. Neal’s thesis title, “Tobias Smollett: The Image of the Outsider In the Eighteenth- Century English Novel,” was accepted by a suspicious but tolerant faculty.
Karen went back to teaching school and was also a frequent guest on “The Polly and Candy Family Hour” to talk about kids. On the nights Neal was in Reno, she’d usually go out with Evelyn or Peggy Mills, have a few drinks, and talk about men. On the nights Neal was home, she liked to go to bed early.
