kids sometime. Don't hurt him. Kill me. I'm an old man, I've had my kids.”
Lamar's eyes widened in mock amazement.
“Tell you what,” he said, 'how 'bout if I kill both you and then you can argue in heaven over which one I should have killed.” He thought his own joke was pretty funny.
But then he turned to O’Dell.
“O’Dell, you go get that goddamned Richard and the old people. We are going to get out of here now, case anybody heard the ruckus. You get ’em loaded up.”
“Yoppa, Mar,” said O’Dell.
Lamar knelt down by Bud.
“You in much pain? I could do you now, save you some hurtin'.”
“Fuck off, Pye.”
“Sand. Smokey got sand. I like that in a man. Now I would say, though, your partner is sorta lacking in the ball department. He's whining like a baby. I hate babies.”
“He's a kid, you prick.”
“Still, gotta learn not to whine. Nobody likes a baby.
How you onto us, anyhow?”
“It's on the net. There'll be sixty cruisers here in a minute.”
“You goin' to face the Lord with a lie on your lips?
Bible say that's a ticket to hell, friend. You'd best use this time to make your peace with God.”
“Pye. Don't hurt the boy any more. And the old people.
Let them go. You got me, you got your Smokey sergeant, that's enough game for one day.”
“Say, you are a bull stud,” said Lamar, 'but I'm going to kill you anyway.”
Bud tried not to shiver but he could not stop. He tried to make it stop hurting but it would not stop hurting. He looked. So much blood.
He must have been hit a hundred times. He never guessed he had so much blood in him. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to think.
Lamar had gone somewhere. He was alone. He thought of Jen. Oh Christ, he'd been such a bad husband. All the things he'd never said or did. And at the end, all that time with Holly. Why? Why wasn't I a good man? I only wanted to be good and it all came to this. And he thought of his youngest son, Jeff. Oh, Jeff, I wanted to be there for you so bad. I wanted to help you, show you things, and if you needed a little extra help, I wanted to give it to you. I never would have left you. He missed his children.
“Bud,” came a sob.
He rolled over through oceans of pain. He didn't know it could hurt so.
“Ted, just be calm.”
“Bud They're going to shoot us dead.”
“They're just trying to scare us. They gotta get out of here fast and they know it. If they do us, our people will hunt them down and kill them and they know that. It's all bluff.”
“No, it ain't. Bud, you'll make it. I won't. I'm dying no matter what. Bud, please. I miss Holly. I love her, oh Christ, I love her so. I'm sorry I wasn't the man—”
“Stop it, Ted.”
“Bud, you take care of her. Promise me, please. You take care of her.
You help her. Like you tried to help me.”
“PLEASE! OH GOD, I'm scared. PLEASE before I die.”
“Ted, I—” But Lamar was back. A car pulled up, a Jeep Wagoneer.
Bud saw the two grim old people sitting ramrod stiff in the back. They were next. A twerpy-looking white boy was driving—that goddamned Richard Peed. Lamar and O’Dell walked over.
Lamar said, 'You made your peace with the Lord yet, Trooper?”
“Eat shit,” said Bud.
Lamar walked over to Ted. Ted had folded into a fetal position half on his belly and his side, and was weeping softly. Lamar bent over him with the .45 and shot him in the back of the head. His hair jumped a little as the bullet tore into it. Then he turned to Bud. But the .45 was empty, and its slide had locked back.
He handed the gun to O’Dell and brought his shotgun to bear. The range was about twenty-five feet.
“You shoulda worn your vest, Sarge,” said Lamar merrily.
Bud crumpled against the buckshot and heard no noise:
He was in the center of an explosion. Red everywhere, the smell of dirt and smoke in his nose, the sense of heat and the thousand things that tore into him. He felt his soul depart his body.
CHAPTER 7
They traveled in silence for the longest time, O’Dell behind the wheel, beaming with bliss, a wary Lamar next to him, and Richard and the rigid Stepfords in the back seat. At one point, Mrs. Stepford whispered something to her husband.
“Excuse me,” he said, 'Missus has to go wee wee Lamar said, 'I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have to ask you to squeeze it in a mite longer. We have to make some tracks.”
“What the hell difference does it make?” said Mr. Stepford.
“You're going to kill us same as you done them law enforcement boys.”
“Just cooperate, okay, old man? I got to concentrate on where I'm going.”
They drove onward, over country roads, right at the speed limit but never breaking any laws. They heard no sirens, and the radio announced no discoveries of police bodies. They saw no helicopters.
“Okay,” said Lamar, looking at a map, 'you want to go on straighty-straight. No tumee. Y'all keep your eyes open for Cox City, where we're going to go left on 21 to Bray.
He can't read the signs but he can drive straight and turn when I tell him.”
“Where are we going, Lamar?” asked Richard.
“Richard, I ain't ready to talk to you yet. Got to figure this out yet and what I'm going to do with you. You just be quiet.”
“Did I do anything wrong?”
But Lamar just glared ahead. Finally, past Empire City, Lamar took off his hat. It was a wide, white Stetson, once Mr. Step ford's finest Sunday-go-to-meeting hat. He made a show of examining the small pinfeather in the band, but it was clear he had made a decision. He pirouetted around in the seat to face the three in the back.
“Now Richard,” he finally said with a good deal of weariness, 'I want to know—where the hell were you during the fight?”
“Ah,” said Richard, 'ah, I went through the kitchen after O’Dell. I was going to circle around from the other direction, see. Only it was over before I got there.”
“Weren't not,” said Mr. Stepford.
“I could hear him. He was lying on the goddamned kitchen floor. He was crying.”
“I believe you'd make a better outlaw than this poor Richard boy here, don't you, Mr. Stepford?”
“Believe I would, Lamar, though I don't run with no trash like you boys.”
“Well, anyway,” said Lamar, 'Richard, what the hell am I going to do with you? You got to do more than just art”
“Lamar, you know this isn't my cup of tea.”
“It sure ain't. But if I can't trust you to back me up in a scrape, what the hell good are you? We are in Scrape City from here on out.”
“Lamar, I don't even know how to shoot the g—” Lamar's arm flashed back, and he slapped Richard hard with the hat across the face. It didn't hurt so much as shock Richard, who looked at Lamar with utter dismay. This merely made Lamar more angry, and he commenced to beat heavily on Richard with the hat, slapping it at him.
Richard cowered, covering himself with his arms.
