Beretta nine-millimeter best. It feels just like that Beretta .380 I have.”
“I heard that Beretta nine's a good gun. The GIs carry it.”
“That they do,” said Bud.
“Problem is, it costs about one hundred dollars more than the Clocks do. That's why the cops all like the Clocks. You can own one for about four-fifty. A Beretta run you five-fifty, six. Hell, my .380 was nearly five.”
“Dad, you ought to buy the gun you like. If you ever have to use it again, it'd be better to have one you liked rather than one you got a good deal on.”
Bud nodded. The boy was right. At least someone in the family was thinking straight.
Mick's Driving Range and Batting Cages was set on a rolling chunk of green Oklahoma farmland that overlooked the surrounding countryside, and now and then, when the artillery students were firing over at Fort Sill just to the north, you could hear the rolling booms of the big 155s as they detonated against far mountainsides. The road ran on a crest, the highest point in the county, and from the complex you could see for miles. It was a windy day, and Mick's was always festooned with pennants, like some kind of extravagant musical comedy, and the pennants snapped and fluttered in the wind.
The driving range was full up with golfers driving their little pills out onto the green like tracer bullets, but for some reason the batting cages had never quite caught on.
Jeff had no problem finding an empty one.
“Dad, you going to hit?”
“Nah, I'll just watch. I'd pop stitches if I swung the bat too hard.
We don't need that. You need some money?”
“Yes sir, I do.”
Bud handed over a ten-dollar bill and took a seat on the bench as Jeff got change and fed the tokens into the machine.
He stood easily at the plate as the mechanical device ninety feet away issued what sounded like a reptilian clank as it came to life. Then, with a shiver, its arm lashed out, and it dispatched a ball. Jeff just leaned into it and sent it sailing with a satisfying crack.
Jeff was hot. He was in the zone. He was really seeing it.
Bud just sat there and watched him and enjoyed each second of it: the snap as the arm uncoiled and sent a ball whistling inward, Jeff's seemingly slow stroke, the inevitable contact, and the rise of the ball, a white dot that screamed toward orbit then fell disconsolately to earth.
“Man, you are really whacking that ball today,” Bud called.
“Yes sir,” said Jeff.
“I am out of the slump.”
When Jeff used up the first ten dollars, Bud gave him another, and then, when that was gone, offered still another.
“Dad, you don't have to.”
“It's okay. It's so great to see you out of your slump.”
“Nah, it's fine. I feel good.”
Jeff and Bud headed back to the truck.
“What are you doing different? Can you tell?”
“It's the head. I was leading with my chin and it was throwing the whole swing off. That, plus pressing. So I just concentrate on keeping my head still, watching the ball, and swinging through. It's working.”
“Was it set on fast?”
“Absolutely, Dad. From the start.”
“Well, if I were a scout, I'd give you a hundred-thousand-dollar signing bonus, on the spot.”
“I'd settle for a Coke.”
“It's a deal.”
They got Cokes at the machine, nodded to gruff old Mick, and headed home as the twilight passed on toward darkness.
“You mind if I see if anything's on the radio. Dad?”
“Nah, go ahead,” said Bud.
Jeff fiddled with the stations, looking for KOKY, out of Oklahoma City, the big rock station, but as he slid through the sounds he cut across some urgent chatter that signified catastrophe, built around the last two syllables of the word 'robbery.”
“Wait, stop,” said Bud, but they couldn't get a clear signal. It must have been some Texas ghost signal or something.
But Bud grew concerned, in his way, and said, 'Switch to the AM. That news station.”
“Dad, you said—”
“Jeff.”
“Okay, okay.”
Jeff switched bands to get to KTOK, and they heard the weather, a network feed out of Washington, with headline summaries of notable local stories.
“See, it's—”
“Shhh,” commanded Bud, for he'd heard the announcer launch into another story.
“Authorities in Wichita Falls, Texas, have issued an all points bulletin for three escaped convicts in connection with a bloody shoot-out and robbery at a Denny's Restaurant this afternoon. Six persons are dead, including four law enforcement officers, in an armed robbery that netted an undetermined amount of cash. Oklahoma convicts Lamar James Pye, his cousin O’Dell Warren Pye, and Richard Franklin Peed escaped from the Mcalester State Penitentiary in Oklahoma April second.
They killed a prison guard, an Oklahoma highway patrolman and a bakery goods driver —and kidnapped an elderly couple—before dropping out of sight four weeks ago. Police say today's armed robbery and shoot-out in Wichita Falls shows that they are armed and dangerous and at large in the North Texas-South Oklahoma region.”
CHAPTER 15
The eggs lay before Richard. They seemed curdled and dissociative as if they were losing their very sense of eggness they were disintegrating untouched before his eyes.
Next to them, a small mountain range of home fries dried out as if in preparation for an ice age. Altogether, it hardly looked like food anymore. His coffee had grown tepid and rancid.
He glanced about, consumed with that same queasy feeling he'd had in the car before Lamar and O’Dell had gone crashing in on the Stepfords.
Everywhere he saw families, couples, a few lone Air Force personnel just sitting there eating their food. They had no idea what visitation was about to come crashing down upon them. In just minutes, Lamar, O’Dell, and Ruta Beth would be upon them, to take the money and threaten them with violence.
“Coffee?”
He looked up into the eyes of a waitress.
“Ah, no,” he said.
“You okay? You hardly touched your food.”
“No, I'm fine, I'm okay.”
“You want me to take it?”
“No,” he said.
“Not yet.”
“That's a real pretty picture.”
“Huh? Oh! Thanks.”
He'd been doodling. Lions, of course, as per his master's wishes. He dreamed of lions. They pounced and lunged through his deepest thoughts. He just couldn't get the neck right, though.
