anybody, why can?t I nail his ass? Then one night I remember what the old fart told me. What I come
to realize is that maybe I know this guy?s MO, front and back, but I?m not thinking like him, instead
I?m thinking like me thinking like him, see what I mean?”
“So did you catch him?” I asked.
“I would have but the dumb son of a bitch shot himself cleaning his .38. Really burned my ass. But I
would?ve had him. So what I been tryin? to do, see, I been thinking like whoever?s icing all these
people here.”
“And what?ve you come up with?”
“Not a fuckin? thing,” he said.
I sighed. For a moment I thought the Kid had come up with something important. But he wasn?t
finished yet. “I don?t know the why, see,” he went on. “If I had a handle on the why, I would nail his
ass. Or hers. Y?know, it could be a fancy, ever think of that?”
“Well,” I said, rather pompously, “once we establish motive—”
He cut me off. “We?re not talkin? motive, man. We?re not talkin? about motive, we?re talkin? about
where that fucker?s head?s at. Why he?s doin? it. Y?see, life ain?t logical. That?s the myth. Truth is,
nothing is real, it?s all what we make it out to be. It?s the same thing—when his foot itches and we
scratch ours, that?s when we nail his ass.”
“Okay,” I said, “if my foot starts itching I?ll let you know.”
He chuckled. “Think about it,” he said.
“And thanks for the backup.”
“It?s what it?s all about,” he said.
Five minutes down the road my headlights picked up Zapata. The pickup was idling on the shoulder
and he was waving at us with a light. I pulled over.
“Kid, you know where South Longbeach Park is, down at the end of Oceanby?”
“Then follow me. Don?t drag ass.”
“What the hell?s going on?” I yelled at him as he crawled back into the pickup.
“There?s been a massacre out there,” he yelled back, and roared out onto the highway in front of me.
1-le had a red light on the roof and a siren screaming under the hood. I haven?t driven like that since I
was in high school. Most of the time I was just hanging on to the steering wheel.
It took us thirty minutes to get to South Longbeach. We came in behind the theatre, a grim and
foreboding spectre in the darkness, even knowing as little as we did.
This one had drawn the biggest crowd yet, at least a dozen cop cars, red and blue lights flashing
everywhere.
