'Yeah. You?'
'Yeah.'
'When?'
'Last night,' I said. 'After I left you. About six.'
'I was up here 'bout eleven,' Vinnie said. 'Fucking place is rat heaven.'
'Yes,' I said.
Hawk's Jaguar pulled in and drove past us halfway to the south entrance. The Jaguar stopped, and Hawk got out and walked to the mall. He stopped before he went in and looked at Vinnie and me. He nodded once and went into the mall.
I looked at my watch. Five o'clock, straight up, as they say.
60
'I THINK I'LL go sit by the other entrance,' Vinnie said. 'Since we're both here, might as well cover both.'
I nodded.
Vinnie got back in his car, put the shotgun on the backseat, and eased the Camry quietly down to the north entrance, parking a few yards from the silver Volvo. I got back in my car.
According to the digital clock on my dashboard, it was 5:04.
The sun was above the far edge of the world now, and the gray light had turned faintly gold. It didn't go well with the Marshport Mall. Hell, sunrise didn't go well with Marshport.
5:05.
A couple of seagulls circled the parking lot without much enthusiasm. Pickings were by now awfully slim, and the gulls seemed to know it.
5:06.
There was a thin fog lingering just over the salt marsh. The traffic on Route 1A was still desultory. Occasionally, a truck would lumber south toward Boston, but mostly it was just quiet. I felt as if Tex Ritter should be singing on a sound track somewhere. '… look at that big hand move along, nearing high noon.'
5:10.
I took the Winchester and got out of the car and leaned on the fender. Traffic was picking up a little on 1A. Somewhere, somebody was frying something and making coffee.
5:12.
One of the gulls spotted something it considered edible. It landed and grabbed it. Two other gulls landed beside it and tried to get it away. There was a fair amount of gull squawk and flutter.
5:15.
'… or lie a coward, a craven coward in my grave.'
At the other end of the mall, Vinnie was out of his car, cradling the shotgun, leaning on the side of his car. The sun had cleared the horizon now, lingering brightly just above the gray ocean.
5:22.
One of the gulls had successfully wrested the scrap of garbage from the other two and flown off with it. The other two gulls had returned to the area. Maybe there was more where it came from. They circled slowly and low, looking beady-eyed and passionless at the littered surface below them.
At 5:27, Hawk walked out of the south entrance of the mall. He nodded at Vinnie as he passed him and kept on walking. Vinnie opened his trunk, put the shotgun in, closed the trunk, got in the Camry, and drove off. Hawk walked past his parked Jaguar and kept walking toward me.
When he got to me, he stopped and looked at me as if he'd never seen me before. I waited.
Finally, Hawk said, 'Done.'
'Boots is dead,' I said.
'Yeah.'
'I didn't hear a shot,' I said.
'Weren't no shot,' Hawk said.
61
'AND THEN WHAT happened?' Susan said.
'We got in our cars and drove away. I came here. I don't know where Hawk went.'
'And you didn't ask him what happened,' Susan said.
'No.'
'And Vinnie, when he saw Hawk come out, just drove away without a word,' Susan said.
'He did.'
