money, too, because the trade surely wouldn't be even-steven. She could sell one of her guns, maybe. No, she didn't have papers on any of them. Would Gordie buy the Magnum from her? Damn, she hadn't given any thought to money before. She had a little over three hundred dollars in the bank, and a hundred more stashed around the apartment. That wasn't enough to last her very long on the road, not with a van needing gas and a baby needing food and diapers.
She got up and went to the bedroom closet. She opened it and brought out the boy-sized Buckaroo rifle and telescopic sight she'd taken from Cory Peterson. Maybe she could get a hundred dollars for this, she thought. Seventy would be all right. Gordie might buy this and the Magnum. No, better keep the Magnum; it was a good concealment weapon. He might buy the sawed-off shotgun, though.
As Mary returned to the bed, she caught sight of a figure walking out on the highway in the dim gray light. Shecklett was wearing an overcoat that blew around him in the wind, and he was picking up crushed aluminum cans and putting them into a garbage bag. She knew his routine. He'd be out there for a couple of hours, and then he'd come in and cough his head off on the other side of the wall.
Ought to be ashamed, living like you do with all that money you've saved.
Paula had said that. In the letter Mary had taken from Shecklett's trash and taped together.
All that money you've saved.
Mary watched Shecklett pick up a can, walk a few paces, pick up a can. A truck rushed past, and Shecklett staggered in its cyclone. He fought the garbage bag, and then he picked up another can.
All that money.
Well, it would be in a bank, of course. Wouldn't it? Or was the old man the type who didn't trust banks? Maybe kept money stuffed in his mattress, or in shoeboxes tied up with rubber bands? She watched him for a while longer, her mind turning over the possibility like an interesting insect pulled from underneath a rock. Shecklett never had any visitors, and Paula – his daughter, Mary supposed – must live in another state. If something were to happen to him, it might be a long time before anyone found him. She could easily do it, and she didn't plan on sticking around very long after she took the baby. Okay.
Mary walked into the kitchen, opened a drawer and got a knife with a sharp, serrated blade. A knife used for gutting fish, she thought. She laid it on the countertop, and then she returned to the bedroom and the work on the nurse's uniform.
She was long finished with the job by the time she heard Shecklett coughing as he passed her door. Aluminum cans clanked together; he was carrying the garbage bag. Mary stood at her door, dressed in jeans, a brown sweater, her windbreaker, and a woolen cap. She listened for the clicking of Shecklett's keys as he slid the right one into his door. Then she went out into the cold, her.38 gripped in her right hand and the knife slipped down in her waistband under the windbreaker.
Shecklett was a gaunt man with a pockmarked face, his white hair wild and windblown, and his skin cracked like old leather. Shecklett barely had time to register the fact that someone was beside him before he felt the gun's barrel press against his skull. 'Inside,' Mary told him, and she guided him through the open door and slid the key out of the lock. Then she picked up the garbage bag full of cans and brought that in, too, as Shecklett stared at her in shock, his pale blue eyes red-rimmed with the chill.
Mary closed the door and turned the latch. 'Kneel,' she told him.
'Listen… listen… wait, okay? Is this a joke?'
'Kneel. On the floor. Do it.'
Shecklett paused, and Mary judged whether to kick him in the kneecap or not. Then Shecklett swallowed, his big Adam's apple bulging, and he knelt on the thin brown carpet in the cramped little room. 'Hands behind your head,' Mary ordered. 'Now!'
Shecklett did it. Mary could smell the fear coming out of the old man's skin, what smelled like a mixture of beer and ammonia. The window's curtains were already drawn. Mary switched on a lamp atop the TV. The room was a dreary rat's nest, newspapers and magazines lying in stacks, TV dinner trays strewn about, and clothes left where they'd been dropped. Shecklett trembled and had a coughing fit, and he put his hands to his mouth but Mary pressed the Colt's barrel against his forehead until he laced his fingers behind his head again.
She stepped away from him and glanced quickly at her wristwatch. Nine-oh-seven. She was going to have to get this done fast so she could find a good deal on a van before she changed to the uniform and made the drive to St. James.
'So I called the cops. So what?' Shecklett's voice shook. 'You'd have done the same thing if you heard somebody hollerin' next door. It wasn't nothin' personal. I won't do it again. Swear to God. Okay?'
'You've got money,' Mary said flatly. 'Where is it?'
'Money? I don't have money! I'm poor, I swear to God!'
She eased back the Colt's hammer, the gun aimed into Shecklett's face.
'Listen… wait a minute… what's this all about, huh? Tell me what it's all about and maybe I can help you.'
'You've got money hidden here. Where?'
'I don't! Look at this place! You think I've got any money?'
'Paula says you do,' Mary told him.
'Paula?' Shecklett's face bleached gray. 'What's Paula got to do with this? Jesus, I never hurt you, did I?'
Mary was tired of wasting time. She took a breath, lifted the Colt, and brought it down in a savage arc across Shecklett's face. He cried out and pitched onto his side, his body shuddering as the pain racked him. Mary knelt down beside him and put the gun to his pulsing temple. 'Shit time is over,' she said. 'Give me your money. Got it?'
'Wait… wait… oh, you busted my face… wait…'
She grasped him by the hair and hauled him up to his knees again. His nose had been broken. The ruptured capillaries were turning dark purple, and blood rushed from his nostrils. Tears were trickling down Shecklett's wrinkled cheeks. 'Next time I'll knock out your teeth,' Mary said. 'I want your money. The longer you screw around, the more pain I'm going to give you.'
Shecklett blinked up at her, his eyes beginning to swell. 'Oh God… please… please…' Mary lifted the Colt again to hit him in the mouth, and the old man flinched and whined. 'No! Please! In the dresser! Top drawer, in my socks! That's everything I've got!'
'Show me.' Mary stood up, backed away, and held the gun steady as Shecklett staggered up. She followed right behind him as he went through a hallway into the bedroom, which looked like a tornado had recently roared through. The bed had no sheets. On the walls hung yellowed, framed black-and-whites of a young Shecklett with a dark-haired, attractive woman. There was a picture atop the dresser of Shecklett wearing a tasseled fez and standing amid a group of smiling, paunchy Shriners. 'Open the drawer,' Mary said, her insides as tight as a crushed spring. 'Easy, easy.'
Shecklett opened it in fearful slow motion, blood dripping from his nose. He started to reach in, and Mary stepped forward and pressed the gun's barrel against his head. She looked into the drawer, saw nothing but boxer shorts and rolled-up socks. 'I don't see any money.'
'It's there. Right there.' He touched one of the rolled-up socks. 'Don't hurt me anymore, okay? I've got a bad heart.'
Mary picked up the wad of socks he'd indicated. She closed the drawer and gave the socks back to him. 'Show me.'
Shecklett unwadded them, his hands trembling. Inside the socks was a roll of money. He held it up for her to see, and she said, 'Count it.'
He began. There were two hundred-dollar bills, three fifties, six twenties, four tens, five fives, and eight dollar bills. A total of five hundred and forty-three dollars. Mary snatched the cash from his hand. 'That's not all of it,' she said. 'Where's the rest?'
Shecklett held his hand to his nose, his puffed eyes shiny with fear. 'That's all. My social security. That's all I've got in the world.'
The lying bastard! she thought, and she almost smacked him across the face again but she needed him conscious. 'Stand back,' she told him. When he obeyed, she pulled the dresser drawers out one after the other and dumped their contents onto the bed. In a couple of minutes it was all over, the pile contained Shecklett's T-shirts,
