opened a crack.
“Go away,” somebody whispered.
“We closed.”
The door slammed shut, but Lamar caught it perfectly with the flat of his foot, his full force behind it, and knocked it back open. In reddish light there stood a scrawny Asian, about sixty. He looked mottled, as if suffering from some skin disease.
“You Jimmy Ky?” Lamar demanded.
“Jimmy Ky no here no more. He go away. Go far away. I Jimmy Ky's father.”
“My ass,” said Lamar.
“You're Jimmy Ky. Got a goddamn proposition for you.”
Lamar stepped inside and Richard followed.
“I heard you the best,” said Lamar.
“Well, I want the best.”
The Asian looked at him, betraying no fear. Richard now saw that the mottling on his face was tattooing, but of a sort he'd never imagined: It was lustrous, dark, vivid, incredibly detailed, and ominous. The old man was dark blue and red, his face gone in a kaleidoscope.
“You do that yourself?”
“My master Horimono.”
“Well it's pretty goddamned good. You that good?”
Lamar's aggression filled the air; he was like the lion confronting a goat. But the goat was strangely unafraid; the old man just looked at Lamar without much emotional investment.
“I his apprentice still,” he finally said.
“Show him, Richard.”
Richard gave him the drawing of the lion. Jimmy Ky looked at it for a long moment.
“It's shit,” he said.
“Why you want this trash? Go town.
Lots of people in town do this trash.”
“No, no,” said Richard, 'that's just from your Asian perspective. This is done from the Western perspective, and it's stylized in a different method. It has to look Western, it can't have that exotic—”
“I can do. Best! Make it roar. But it trash,” said Jimmy Ky, bluntly.”
“It ain't trash,” said Lamar.
“Look at the way he got the fire and the pride of that lion. Look at that bull neck. That's a goddamned piece of art. We got money.”
“How much?”
“How much you need?”
“Ah, for that, forty-five hundred dollars. You wan, you pay.”
“Four thousand bucks! Ain't no tattoo worth that kind of money.”
Jimmy Ky looked at him shrewdly.
“How bad you want it, mister? You no want it, you go away now. I go back to sleep.”
“Goddamn,” said Lamar.
“Seems like a robbery.”
“Gotta pay for the best,” said the old man.
“Shit,” said Lamar.
“How long?”
“Maybe twelve hours. Start now, be done tomorrow afternoon.
Then you go lie down for about a week. Get drunk.
Infection set in, lots of pain. You got want it. For every color, you suffer. Fever, sweats, lots of agony. No fun at all.
How bad you want it?”
“Shit,” said Lamar.
“I can get through any goddamned thing.”
He turned to Richard.
“You and Ruta Beth, you park across the street at that gas station, out of sight. You stay there as backup. You tell O’Dell to come on in.
He's working shotgun. Got that?”
“Yes, Lamar.”
“Okay, old man. Let's get to work. You make me a lion, okay.”
“Hokay, Joe. Can do.”
The old man actually seemed happy.
Bud missed it the first time. There were no lights on. It was just a deserted clapboard shack on the way to Indiahoma on a bleak stretch of highway. But when he'd gone on into Indiahoma, he realized he'd gone too far. He turned around and headed back. He seemed to course through inky darkness. The roast beef in his stomach hadn't settled yet.
He was half a minute from pulling that goddamned .380 out from under his belt buckle where it had grown into a massive problem. What on earth did he need three guns for?
Two was enough for any man.
But then he saw it, standing stark against the bleak prairie under some runty trees. He pulled halfway into the parking lot, gave it a once over. It seemed completely quiet and abandoned. There were no cars in the parking lot, and he could see a neon sign that wasn't on. But up near the edge of one window, he could make out just a sliver of light.
What the hell, he thought, feeling ridiculous. I've come this far, I may as well go all the way so the evening won't be a total loss.
Richard looked at Ruta Beth in the low light. He could hear her breathe, see the darkness in her eyes. He actually felt pity move through him. Imagine, a child like that coming upon the murder of her parents.
“How are you doing, Ruta Beth?” he asked.
She fixed him with a narrow glare.
“What the hell do you care?”
He felt her pain.
“Ruta Beth, I know how hard life can be sometimes. I was thinking how if you ever needed anyone to talk to, why, I'd be ready and will—” She recoiled.
“You ain't got no romance in mind?”
“Ah, Ruta Beth, why—” She drew back her little fist, knotted into a clot.
“You put your hands on me, Richard, and I swear, you will be sucking teeth for a month. And that before Lamar -gits done with you!”
“Ruta Beth, I only meant—”
“Shut up,” she hissed. A truck pulled into the parking lot across the way.
A man in it waited for a second, then got out and just stood there.
“Can you see?”
“Big guy, cowboy hat, that's all.”
“A cop?”
“I don't know. Not in uniform. Do they have plainclothes detectives way the hell out here?”
“I don't know,” said Richard, who had no idea.
“I doubt it,” said Ruta Beth, to herself mainly, since she expected no sensible answer from Richard.
“Maybe if he come from the city. But he come from the other direction, from Indiahoma. He's probably some big goddamn brave, in a big truck the government bought for him, just out for a cruise. A chief or some such shit.”
“Why would he stop here?”
“Maybe he knows Jimmy Ky.”
“He ain't a cop,” said Ruta Beth.
