The Snake

everything.' What I used to call a cackle was a pose too. He did have a laugh. He thought it was funny.

Velda reached for my arm and I knew she was scared. It was too much too fast all over again and she could only take so much.

'Smart,' he said to me. 'You're a clever bastard. If all I had was the cops to worry about it would have been no trouble, but I had to draw you.' His mouth pulled into a semblance of a grin. 'Those nice talks we had. You kept me right up to date. Tell me, did you think I had a nice face?'

'I thought you had more sense, Sonny.'

He dropped the grin then. 'Get off it, guy. More sense? For what? You think I was going to spend all my life in the cooler without getting some satisfaction? Mister, that's where you made your mistake. You should have gone a little further into my case history. I always was a mean one because it paid off. If I had to play pretty-face to make it pay off I could do that too.'

'You won't make it, Sonny.'

'No? Well, just lose that idea. For thirty years I pull him into his hidey hole and shot him in the head. But he never lived through my shot. No chance of that. Man, this is my big day... the biggest damn day in my life! Now I got everything!'

He drew himself erect at the thought, a funny expression changing his face. He said, 'Only one thing I ain't got any more,' and this time he was looking at Velda.

'Take those clothes off, lady.'

Her fingers that were so tight on my arm seemed to relax and I knew she was thinking the same thing as I was. It could be a diversion. 'If she could step aside and do it so we were split up I might get the chance to jump him.

I didn't watch her. I couldn't. I had to watch him. But I could tell from his eyes just what she was doing. I knew when she took the skirt off, then the bra. I watched his eyes follow her hands as she slid the skirt down over her ankles and I knew by the quick intake of his breath and the sudden brightness of his eyes when she had stepped out of the last thing she wore.

She made the slightest motion to one side then, but he was with it. He said, 'Just stay there, lady. Stay there close where I can get to you both.'

Not much time was left now. The fire in his eyes was still burning, but it wouldn't last.

'Real nice, lady,' he said. 'I like brunettes. Always have. Now you can die like that, right together.'

No time at all now.

'Too bad you didn't get the money, Sonny.'

He shook his head at me, surprised that I'd make such a bad attempt. 'It's right on the floor there.'

'You'd better be sure, Sonny. We got here ahead of you.'

If he had trouble opening the door I might be able to make the move. All he had to do was falter once and if I could get past the first shot I could take him even if he caught me with it. Velda would hit the ground the second he pulled the trigger and together we'd have him.

'No good, Hammer. It's right there and Old Blackie is still guarding it with his rifle. You saw it.'

'You didn't.'

'Okay, so you get one last look.' He reached for the door handle and gave it a tentative tug. It didn't budge. He laughed again, knowing what I was waiting for but not playing it my way at all. The gun never wavered and I knew I'd never get the chance. From where he stood he could kill us both with ease and we all knew it.

The next time he gave the door a sharp jerk and it swung open, the hinges groaning as the rust ground into them. He was watching us with the damndest grin I ever saw and never bothered to see what was happening in the cab. The pull on the door was enough to rock the car and ever so steadily the corpse of Blackie Conley seemed to come to life, sitting up in the seat momentarily. I could see the eyes and the mouth open in a soundless scream with the teeth bared in a grimace of wild hatred.

Sonny knew something was happening and barely turned his head to look... just enough to see the man he had killed collapse into dust fragments, and as it did the bony finger touched the trigger that had been filed to react to the smallest of pressures and the rifle squirted a blossom of roaring flame that took Sonny Motley square in the chest and dropped him lifeless four feet away.

While the echo still rumbled across the mountainside, the leather-covered skull of Blackie Conley bounced out of the cab and rolled to a stop face to face with Sonny and lay there grinning at him idiotically.

You can only sustain emotion so long. You can only stay scared so long. It stops and suddenly it's like nothing happened at all. You don't shake, you don't break up. You're just glad it's over. You're a little surprised that your hands aren't trembling and wonder why it is you feel almost perfectly normal.

Velda said quietly, 'It's finished now, isn't it?'

Her clothes were in a heap beside her and in the dying rays of the sun she looked like a statuesque wood nymph, a lovely naked wood nymph with beautiful black hair as dark as a raven against a sheen of molded flesh that rose and dipped in curves that were unbelievable.

Up there on the hill the grass was soft where we had lain in the nest. It smelled flowery and green and the night was going to be a warm night. I looked at her, then toward the spot on the hill. Tomorrow it would be something else, but this was now.

I said, 'You ready?'

She smiled at me, savoring what was to come. 'I'm ready.'

I took her hand, stepped over the bodies, new and old, on the ground, and we started up the slope.

'Then let's go,' I said.