The troopers walked forward, hitching their gun belts, frowning in judicious disapproval. The boy was squatting now beside the girl, squinting up with a hopeful little grin on his face, as though somehow prayer would keep this from turning into a bad situation. His trousers and underpants were wrapped around his right ankle, but he was otherwise dressed.
The girl was sort of dressed, too. From the waist up she was covered by a thin shirt that showed she didn’t wear a bra, and the area of her waist itself was covered by her bunched-up skirt. Below that, though, she was the nakedest thing Trooper MacAndrews had ever seen. Her legs were spread and one knee was lifted, and Trooper MacAndrews had never even seen his wife as clearly and frankly as that. He wanted very much to stare at that crotch, in fascination rather than lust, but with an effort of will he stared at the boy’s eyes instead. They were blinking, watery, hopeful, hopeless, apologetic, pleading, and a few other things.
“Well, now,” Trooper Jarvis said.
Trooper MacAndrews had nothing to say. Trooper Jarvis was older, and more used to dealing with the public. Trooper MacAndrews simply observed, but just the boy.
“Uh,” said the boy. His nervous grin flashed on and off, on and off, like a busted neon sign.
“I wonder, boy,” Trooper Jarvis said, “if you realize just how many laws you’re breaking out here.”
“Well, uh— We were just, we kind of—” The boy grinned nervously some more, and said, “We just got excited, I guess, and we wanted to screw.”
The word “screw” said in front of the half-naked girl startled Trooper MacAndrews more than he would have guessed. He found himself enraged by the boy, and wishing there was a reason to paste him one. He was also troubled by a physical change in himself that he couldn’t entirely understand; he
Trooper Jarvis, meantime, was saying, “Easy with the language, boy. Don’t make it tougher on yourself.”
The boy decided to try bravado: “Well, it isn’t against the law to screw, is it?”
“It is on the public highway,” Trooper Jarvis told him. “And in any case, this U-turn here is for official use only. You can’t come in here at all, much less come in here to . . . uh, fornicate.”
“I’ll check out the car,” Trooper MacAndrews said. He needed to get away from that girl for a few seconds.
Trooper Jarvis nodded, and kept frowning at the boy.
As Trooper MacAndrews moved away, the boy started the inevitable this-is-the-first-time-can’t-we-just-forget- it number. Well, maybe they could and maybe they couldn’t. Partly it would be determined by what, if anything, Trooper MacAndrews found in their car. And he was inclined to believe he would find either liquor or marijuana, and most likely marijuana.
The girl’s body was too close to the right side of the car for comfort, so Trooper MacAndrews walked around to the left. It was a two-door model, with busted glass in the side windows and Kentucky license plates; amazing it was permitted on the road in any state in the Union. Trooper MacAndrews shook his head in disgust as he walked up to the driver’s door and opened it, and looked in at the man crouched on the floor on the right-hand side. He was big, crowded in there, and he looked very mean. So did the pistol in his hand, which was pointing straight at MacAndrews’ head.
“One move,” the man said, “and you’ll never live again.”
Part 4
One
Parker watched the state cop slowly absorb the situation. His own gun was tucked away neatly in its regulation holster, and he didn’t have a prayer of either slamming the door or ducking out of sight before Parker could put a bullet in his head.
“Just stand right there,” Parker said softly. “Wait it out, everything’ll be okay.”
Matching Parker’s quiet tone, the cop said, “I don’t know what your game is, mister, but you’re making a big mistake if you—”
“All set!”
Stan Devers’ voice. Parker said to the cop, “Straighten up and look at your partner.”
The cop’s brow was furrowed, more in perplexity than alarm. He had been half leaning forward, still in the position of having just opened the car door, but now he slowly straightened and looked over the top of the car toward his partner. Parker watched his face, and saw him take in what had happened over there. The two troopers had been first distracted, and then separated, and were now both under control.
“Keep your hands away from the car door,” Parker said, “and back up three paces. Straight back, slow and easy.”
The trooper looked angry, affronted. “You’re going to regret this, my friend,” he said, his jaw tight, but he backed up three paces and stood there obediently waiting for what would happen next.
Which was that Devers appeared, in a State Police uniform, a gun in his hand. He wore the uniform well, and he was grinning. “Okay,” he said to Parker. “I’ve got him now.”
Parker at once shifted position, lifting himself up out of the awkward crouch on the floor, twisting around so he could open the passenger door and step out onto the gravel.
Noelle was just to his left, dressed now and folding the blanket. She was a very serious girl, methodical and humorless almost all the time, and her expression was intent as she squared off the corners of the blanket on each fold.
Off to the right, Ed Mackey, in another State Police uniform, was holding a gun pointed at the second trooper
