He reached the relative safety of the showroom just behind Delbert, the glass door whooshed shut behind them as they entered and set down the boxes. Becky stood and slowly shook her head as he approached her. She and Peggy had been kneeling beside Bill on the floor. "He's gone, Joe," she said.
He could see she was close to tears, and Peggy was more than close, she was openly weeping. Delbert walked over to Bill's body and covered it with a carpet runner he had taken from near the front door. The old man seemed close to tears himself, Joe realized. Joe said a quick mental prayer to God, before he spoke.
"Listen, I don't want to sound hard, or as if I don't care, but we can't fall apart now," he struggled to keep his voice calm as he spoke. "Right now, unless we want to just give up and die, we need to get ourselves in gear. If it wasn't one of the patrol cars that blew by us while we were on that dirt road, and we also know it wasn't that red pickup... someone is still out there, and once they get their shit together they'll come back for us. I for one don't want to be here, and if we intend to be gone I need help. Crying isn't going to bring Bill back..."
"What do you need me to do, Joe?" Delbert asked.
Joe looked around the showroom. "We need another truck, Dell, and I don't see any here, which means we're going to have to go back outside to find one. Which means," he looked at Becky and Peggy, "I need you both to keep watch in front. We're going out the back." He walked over to a small plywood board to one side of the double doors, and began to search through the key-tags that hung from it. "Dell, take a quick look out front and tell me whether or not you see a light green Durango out there, a new one," he continued to search through the keys as Delbert looked.
"Yeah, out next to the road," he replied.
"How about a two-tone red and white one?"
"Nope, not out here anyhow."
"Good," Joe said, as he dropped the remaining keys in a heap by the board. He had kept two sets apparently there were two two-tone, red and white, Durangos out back somewhere. "Okay Dell, let’s go find it," he said, as he turned and walked down a hallway in the direction of the back of the building, he turned back. "Becky?" he asked.
"Go, babe, I'll be waiting, we'll be fine."
He turned, and Delbert followed him down the hallway through a set of double steel doors and into a large garage area. Joe searched the garage quickly with his eyes, but no red and white, two-tone Durangos resided in the shadowy interior. They walked to a set of double steel doors set into the back of the garage, Joe pressed the bar handle, and they walked out into the back lot.
They found the first Durango directly behind the rear of the garage, Joe checked the stock numbers and after determining which set of keys went to it, he opened the door and got in. A low chiming greeted him as he opened the door. The Durango was one of the upper level models he saw, and it was also not four wheel drive. The tires were not much more than passenger tires, and when he turned on the ignition to check the gas gauge, the needle stopped just above empty.
"Let's see if we can find the other one," Joe said, "this one isn't going to do us a hell-of-a-lot-of good, Dell."
They found the other truck farther back in the lot. It was a low end model, built more with a hunter, or some other type of sportsman, in mind, and much better suited to their needs. Plain stark vinyl interior and the gas gauge leveled out at half when Joe checked it. Not great, he thought, but a lot better than the other truck, and he felt they didn't have the time to pick and choose.
"This is her, Dell," Joe said, "let’s go. Delbert climbed in as Joe started the truck and drove out of the back lot toward the front of the dealership.
Joe had been tensed, expecting to hear the chatter of machine pistols while they were out back, and when he drove by the glass encased showroom and saw Becky and Peggy crouched by the side of a car on the showroom floor, he breathed a sigh of relief. He just caught Becky's waving hands out of the corner of his eyes, before two men jumped out from behind one of the trucks in the front row and opened fire.
Too late, he thought, as he realized he had left the machine pistol lying on the front seat instead of keeping it in his right hand where it should have been. Delbert had held on to his though, and nearly kicked his side door open as he leaped from the truck and opened up on the two men. Joe could hear the sound of machine pistols behind him as well, as Becky and Peggy also opened up. He aimed the Durango at the two men, levered the door-handle and
