The final day. Bud tried to make it last longer. He dawdled, he examined each car with microscopic attention, he wouldn't disengage from conversations, he just let it drift. But still it ended. He pulled down the driveway of a farm all the way over near Healdton in Jefferson County.
The sun was a huge pink balloon sinking through wavering atmospheric phenomenon, and the twilight was still and windless. He looked each way as he pulled onto the road, and saw the black band of the highway stretching in a straight shot toward a blank horizon.
Okay, that's it.
“Dispatch, six-oh-five, do you copy?”
“Six-oh-five, over. What's your situation?”
“Ten-twenty-four on the O’Brian location.”
“Nothing to report. Bud?”
“No, Dispatch. Nada, zilch, negative. Anybody get anything?”
“That's a big negative, six-oh-five. Lots of disappointment at this end. Best git yourself home now, Bud.”
“Thanks, Dispatch. Ten-four and out.”
Bud clicked the radio off. In two weeks he'd gotten to know Dispatch a little, a retired Tillman deputy sheriff, another good old boy like himself, steady and salty. In a sense he wanted to please Dispatch as much as himself or It.
C. D. Henderson or Colonel Supenski. But it wasn't to be.
The joint task force, in two weeks, had called on close to four thousand addresses in the Southern Oklahoma region, and located close to four thousand Toyota Tercels, Hyundai Excels, and Nissan Sentras in the proper model years. Of these, over eight hundred had worn the Goodyear tires; each owner had been investigated and either cleared or interviewed at length. Some fourteen were put under surveillance, which had itself yielded nothing. Meanwhile, joint Highway Patrol-OSBI raiding teams had entered the domiciles of close to two hundred former or currently wanted felons who owned the proper car. Again, nothing, although the lieutenant himself said they'd served warrants on and apprehended over twenty-eight fugitives from justice in the process.
Bud himself had been to over 230 domiciles in the past two weeks, working twelve, fourteen, and sometimes sixteen hours a day, roaming the back country roads of the southernmost five counties. Some nights he hadn't even come home but had checked into truck-stop motels for a few hours' ragged sleep, and one night he'd just climbed into a sleeping bag and slept under the shelter of the open tailgate. Oddly, it had been his best sleep.
He tried to think it all over as he headed back to Lawton, to turn in the radio and see what the hell to do next, if there was a next.
Goddamn Lamar, smart as a whip. All them brains spent on defeating the law, and completely unyoked to any moral compass. He could have been a doctor, a goddamned lawyer, with brains like that. But he spent all that time just figuring out one thing: how to get away with it. He wasn't your 'criminal genius,” like the movies had it, sleek and cosmopolitan with a taste for fine wine, and maybe his IQ wasn't the kind that tests could measure. But he was a smart boy.
Tiredly, he turned on the AM radio to KTOK.” the Oklahoma City all-news station, and listened to the numb recitation of the world and the region's events, from what the president had done on down to what happened in the Oklahoma City council that day.
And soon enough, he got the bad news.
“In Lawton, highway patrol and OSBI authorities today called off a statewide dragnet for the car they believed was used by escaped convict Lamar Pye and his gang in the May 16 robbery and shooting spree in Wichita Falls, Texas, which left four law enforcement officers and two civilians dead.”
We'll just have to wait for you to strike again, Lamar, Bud thought.
And this time, I know you'll make a goddamned splash and a half.
“In a related development, Lawton school officials revealed today that a Lamar Pye 'cult' appears to be growing and gaining strength in Lawton high schools, elevating the escaped convict and armed robber into a folk hero. At Lawton West last night, vandals defaced the school gym with 'Long Live Lamar' and 'Go Lamar' graffiti. Superintendent Will C. Long said—” The superintendent's voice came on the air: 'It's a symptom of the moral limbo in which all too many of our children are raised that some of them would consider a Lamar Pye a hero.”
Shit!
That really got to Bud!
It was like these goddamned kids today. They thought it was funny or cool when somebody stood over a poor policeman and blew his brains out or caught him coming out of the men's room with his hands wet and blew him away with a blast of double-ought.
The news put Bud in a black funk, a near rage. It made him wish he was a drinking man still, and he felt like pulling over to the next bar he found and chasing his anger away.
Instead, he drove on as the darkness increased, changing to a C-W station, whose jangly rhythms soothed him some.
And then he knew he had to call Holly again. It just came like that and he didn't bother to fight it at all.
“He found a pay phone by a convenience store the other side of Oil City. He had to call collect because he didn't have enough change.
“Well, howdy, stranger,” she said.
“I thought you'd dropped off the earth.”
“Been looking at three-year-old Toyotas, just like a real detective.
How are you?”
“Bud, I'm okay. How're you?”
“Honey, I'm outta Toyotas, that's how I am, and I'm missing you something kind of bad.”
“A likely story.”
“Only the truth.”
“You ain't had sex in awhile. That's what it is.”
“No ma'am, that ain't what it is. I miss Holly. She's a peach. Now I don't think I'm gonna be doing a thing tomorrow.
You and me were going to look at places.”
“Oh, Bud. I thought you'd forgot.”
“No ma'am. Be over 'round ten.”
“Bud, I was looking through the want ads. I found a house to rent. I want you to see it so bad.”
“Ten o’clock?”
“Oh, Bud, I love you so much!”
Now why did I go do that, he said to himself when he hung up. Back in It all over again.
. Bud woke the next morning to a dilemma: since he was only going house hunting with Holly, did he need his three guns? The answer seemed clear but wasn't. It might seem to be 'No.” But if he didn't put the guns on, then Jen would surely know he wasn't headed off on police business.
Still, the prospect of walking into strangers' houses with a smile on his face and three automatic pistols on him wasn't pleasing either.
That's how it was. In this business you were always thinking, figuring angles, trying to work your way two or three jumps ahead. You always had your lies prepared up front because you didn't want to improvise under pressure, where you'd surely start contradicting yourself and anyone with half a brain could unravel your tale. It was like living in enemy territory all the time.
Goddamn, turning me into Lamar Pye, he thought as, after his shower, he put himself into the rigmarole of slipping into the holsters, loading the guns and magazines, every last thing, including the little Beretta .380, which felt as if, over the days, it was going to wear a hole in his belly.
“I may give up on this goddamned .380,” he called to Jen as he slipped the gun into an open button and down behind his belt at just the right angle so that it didn't give him too much difficulty.
But she didn't answer. Grim again.
“Okay,” he called, 'I'm going.”
She came around the corner and fixed him with a glare.
“Anyways, where you off to? I thought they called the search off.”
