Slice

heartbeat.

He saw the shape of Stobaugh County the way it fit between the four adjacent, touching land masses, and the surrounding and interlocking blue features, and the way the fishhook looked. This was his name for the part of the state he was now in, and he had looked at it for a long time, then redrawn a portion of it to scale on a page of the ledger, making clean, ultra-precise lines with a draftsman's hand, and the eye of an artist. Very close to true scale he had drawn what he called the fishhook shape of this land mass, bisecting it with the Sandy Road and Lingo Road, and Talbot's Mill Run, and Johnson's and Hunter's Ferry Road and the old Althea School road, crisscrossing the fishhook and neatly printing the names that were still only names to him.

But he had memorized the placement of Hora's to the Big Pasture, and the surrounding Rowe's Field, and South Spur, and Dutch Barrow, and Fast's, and Kerr's Store, and Bayou Landing, and he would know in an emergency situation how to get to Indian Nose and Hurricane Lamp, or where Thurman's property line was, or Texas Corners or the McDermott Cemetery. He'd been there for half an hour but he retained in his memory the place-names and roads and routes and geographic locations of the area better than some old-timers who'd been there for fifteen years.

Because his life might depend on his being able to make it through Lightfoot Swamp to Breen's Hole. He might have to find the burial mound south of Clearmont Church in a hurry, and he wouldn't have the luxury of calling Triple A or stopping a friendly stranger and asking directions. He might have to negotiate the twists and turns and surprises of County 530 in the pitch-black night, escaping with his life up through Dogleg and Hibbler to Whitetail Island, or Number 22, and when the time came it was all filed away inside his computer, the lay of the land and the escape routes. He believed that if you planned hard you won.

He smelled humans now and it was the scent of people nearby. He walked around vehicles, and a barking dog on a chain penetrated his faraway thoughts as he came around part of a rusting pickup and saw a heavy young woman sitting on the porch of a decrepit, tar-paper-covered house.

“Howdy,” he called out from a distance, beaming a smile in the woman's direction.

“Where'd jew come from?” she asked without interest, her mouth not unlike his, a small slit that opened in a shapeless mass of dough.

“This way.” He gestured vaguely, stepping around toward the front of the house but not going up on the porch. “Michael around?'

“Michael?'

“Yeah.'

“Michael who?” she asked with a smart tone.

He thought how easily he could snuff her out. Go up on the porch, chain-snap her once, and butcher the fresh hog.

“Tell Michael Hora it's somebody used to work with him,” he said in a voice loud enough to carry to the surrounding buildings. He felt eyes on him for just a second or two before he heard the flat voice to his left and to the rear, “Bunkowski? Chaingang? Jesus!” he said as Chaingang turned and saw the man standing there. He bad not heard him come out of the building. “Whatchew doin’ here?” He didn't seem that happy at the prospect of a reunion.

“I gotta proposition for ya.'

“I ain't in that line no more.'

“No. Not that.'

“Okay. What?'

“Need to go someplace we can talk in private.'

“She don't hear nothin'.'

“Uh huh.'

“Go on. Speak your piece.'

“I need a place to stay.'

“So?'

“Someplace where people don't get too curious.'

“You're hot then, are ya?'

“Oddly enough—no. But I need time to myself.'

“Umm.'

“I remembered you had a big place down here. I thought we might work out some kind of a deal.'

“Howzzat?'

“I need to have something to do to occupy my time. I plan to go on a, uh, training regimen that will include a diet and lots of hard work.'

“Diet. Work.” He repeated the words like they were foreign phrases he'd never heard before.

“Right. And you have work that can be done, right?'

“I cain't afford to pay for no work right now.'

“No. You don't understand. I'll pay you. Also I'll do some of the work. Whatever fits into my schedule.” They talked some more and Chaingang pulled out a thousand dollars in cash. “For a month in advance?” Hora walked over and reached for the money. “Oh, and I have a woman with me.'

“Where?” Hora looked around as if she might be standing in back of him.

“Back in my vehicle.'

“You two ain't runnin'?'

“She knows nothing.'

“Umm.'

“A thousand a month up front. Anybody asks, I'm help you've hired to do the heavy work.'

“Heavy work.” More new vocabulary. “We can try it for a month, I reckon.” He eyed the money. “Jus’ don't bring down no heat on me.'

“No way,” Chaingang said.

“Reckon you can use the ole sharecropper shack. It's over yonder'—he gestured—''tween here ‘n the ditch.'

“What work is there now?'

“Say what?'

“What kinda work needs doin'?'

“Shit.” He laughed. “I dunno. Gotta unload these ties.” He gestured at a huge pile of railroad ties. “'N these here timbers.” A flatbed truck was piled with landscape timbers. “Always somethin'. Weeds need a cuttin'. Shit like that.” He shrugged. “Do whatever feels good.” He laughed again.

“Okay.” Chaingang turned to waddle off in the direction of the pastureland.

“I didn't hear the bell go off.” It was a word they used for a certain kind of alarm device they had used to safeguard their nighttime defensive perimeters. Nothing to do with a bell at all.

“I didn't ring it,” Chaingang said without turning. He added as he lumbered off, “Stepped over the trip wire.'

Hora looked at the huge fat man's back and said nothing.

BUCKHEAD METRO

“Don't say it. Whatever it is. I can tell by the look on your face. Whatever it is I just don't want to hear about it. Keep it to yourself.” Eichord was half-serious.

“How can you tell anything about anything by the look on my face. Don't you know I'm an inscrutable fucking slope?'

“Not today. You're very scrutable today and I don't like what I see in your scru.'

“Scru you, too, G.I.” He twisted in the seat. Paranoid.