he had to snatch his free hand away in order to club the woman.
The baby seemed to sense that something was wrong and its face wrinkled in preparation for a scream. Cooper wiggled his finger before the baby again but it was too late and the child let out an anguished cry.
The woman had slumped onto the seat, so Cooper was free to reach for the infant with both hands, but the crossbar on the car seat confused him temporarily. Suddenly horns were blaring and Cooper heard someone yell,
'Hey, asshole!
The sun had moved and traffic in front of him was already receding into the distance. The man behind him, the one with the necktie, was honking and yelling, in a great rush to move on, and Cooper realized that he was visible again. The woman moaned, her eyes fluttering open and shut and open again, and the baby screamed.
Cooper took the purse that the woman had offered him and left the car.
He ran into the woods, with the man with the necktie yelling at him, and he ran until he could hear no more sounds from the highway.
Cooper crouched behind the empty propane gas tanks that crowded the fence at the back of the restaurant. Kyle came out the back, dragging the garbage towards the dumpster. He passed the police car that was parked close to the dumpster, its front light pulsing on and off the high beam and the front door still open as if someone had arrived and jumped out in a hurry. Glancing around to see if he was observed, Kyle peered into the cop car. Cooper could almost feel the boy's temptation to slip inside the automobile, to sit where the cop sat, to speak into the radio, to fondle the shotgun clipped to the dashboard.
Kyle was grinning with nervous excitement, his freckled skin flushed.
Red on the head like the dick on a dog, Cooper thought and laughed silently.
Kyle resisted the temptation of the police car and hoisted the garbage can with some trouble into the dumpster. Cooper wanted to take the can away from Kyle and lift it with one hand, just to show him how he could do it. Instead, he hissed.
Kyle looked around, startled, as if he had heard a snake.
It took him a moment to locate Cooper, who was waving from behind the propane tanks. He hurried over, glancing back at the restaurant.
'Was it you? I figured it had to be you, but I didn't know.'
'What?'
'The cops said somebody wearing one of our uniforms robbed a lady's purse in broad daylight on the highway.'
'That wasn't me,' Cooper said.
'Right in broad daylight. I said, Jeez, that sucker's got balls. I figured it was you.'
Cooper shook his head without conviction.
'They said he was a great big guy, that's all the lady remembers. But about eight different people saw him in his uniform. He was even wearing his hat.'
Cooper took the striped paper hat off his head.
'it was you, wasn't it?'
'No,' Cooper said. 'Are they looking for me now?'
'Of course they're looking for you, duh. What do you think the cop car is doing here?'
'You didn't tell him where I was?'
'I didn't know where you were. I just saw you right now.'
'Uh-huh.'
Cooper laid his hand on Kyle's shoulder.
'And I wouldn't have told him anyway, I swear,' the boy said, suddenly talking much faster. 'I wouldn't tell him no matter what, but I didn't tell him anyway because I didn't know.'
'I didn't do it,' Cooper said.
Kyle tried to back away, but Cooper's grip tightened on his shoulder.
'I knew that. I believe you. You wouldn't be that stupid.'
'It wasn't stupid,' Cooper said.
'I know that, it's the cops who said it was stupid, not me. I knew you wouldn't do anything stupid. We're friends, Coop. We work together. I know you.'
'You don't know me.'
'Well…'
'You're not my friend.'
'Sure I am, sure I am.'
'I've got two friends,' Cooper said.
'And me. I'm your friend. You can count on me.'
Kyle tried to twist his head to see if there was any activity at the back of the restaurant, but Cooper's grip continued to grow in pressure.
The boy felt tears coming to his eyes.
Cooper tried to remember who his two friends were.
'My punk,' he said, not aware he was speaking aloud,'and somebody else…'
Two cops came out of the back of the restaurant, each holding a cup of coffee. Kyle started to speak, but Cooper reacted quicker, yanking the boy behind the tanks and clamping a hand on his mouth so fast that the boy's neck snapped back as if he had been hit.
When the cop car drove off, Cooper looked at the boy's struggling form as if he had just noticed it for the first time.
He removed his hand from Kyle's mouth and the boy gasped and sputtered and looked for a second as if he were going to speak again, but Cooper didn't want to hear from him, he knew the kind of thing he'd hear, so he closed his hand on the boy's throat and used that grip to beat his head against the propane tank.
The tank made a dull, hollow sound, like the biggest drum that Cooper had ever heard. When the boy stopped squirming after the fourth or fifth hit, Cooper carried him to the dumpster and tossed him in. He laughed about that as he ran through the back lots. He laughed until he reached the safety of the pines. He didn't know why, it just struck him as funny.
After his second day of walking, Cooper emerged from the woods to follow the sound of a tolling bell. He found himself on a dirt road and he walked towards the bell, drawn not only by the sound but by its promise of human community. He was tired of sleeping on the ground and talking only to squirrels and he was hungry. There was money in his pocket that he had taken from the woman's purse, so he could buy food. He had counted the money many times; he didn't think it was enough to buy a car, any kind of car, but he was certain it was enough to buy a meal.
There was also her credit card, and Cooper knew there were ways to get money and food and cars and anything you wanted with somebody else's credit card, but he had never understood how it was done. He knew his punk would know. Even if the punk didn't know something like that right away, he could sit down and figure it out, just by thinking about it.
And if that didn't work, he wasn't afraid to ask someone else.
Cooper never felt comfortable asking people questions when he didn't already know the answers. It was just asking to be ridiculed, but somehow it never bothered the punk. Swann. He had said Cooper wouldn't even remember his name, but, there, he did remember. He said it aloud,
'Swann,' and found himself suddenly close to tears. Cooper shook his head, angry at himself. He didn't know what the hell that was all about, crying over a punk.
Cooper's hand hurt where the woman in the car had bitten him and it was turning a very angry looking red around the tooth marks. As he walked, he put the sore hand to his mouth and sucked on it a little, which made it feel better. The. sound of the bell kept getting louder and even though there was no way to see very far through all the trees that lined both sides of the road, he could tell he was getting closer., Suddenly there was a wider spot that spread and spread and sitting there right beside the dirt road was a one-story, one-room clapboard church. An old man stood in the yard, pulling on a bell that looked more like a dinner bell than a church chime, and a fat-faced man dressed in a shiny black suit, white shirt, and black bow tie stood by the doorway, clasping a black book to his bosom. He looked to Cooper like the preachers he had seen in Western movies, except that his skin was the color of
