— He’s Peter, said Gilmore.
— Peter.
Gilmore pointed at the name embroidered on Pete’s jacket.
— He didn’t have a wallet on him, said Speedy.
— Peter, said Lee.
He saw Pete’s eyes rolling in their purpled swells. The blood vessels of one cornea had all burst.
— Did he tell you anything? said Speedy.
— No, said Maurice. He doesn’t have anything to say at all. Maybe you should get your torch going.
The eyes rolled.
— He’s nobody I know, said Lee, and they looked at him.
He stepped backwards out of the locker. The other men resumed talking. Lee went across the floor to the tool bag and opened it and dug through it and came out with an eight-pound sledgehammer. He carried it mid-shaft in one hand and he went back into the locker. He shouldered his way between Speedy and Gilmore. He heard his name spoken. He pushed past Maurice and he stood above the kid.
— Lee, said Maurice.
Lee laid the sledgehammer over his shoulder and he leaned down. He tore the strip of tape off the boy’s mouth. He heard him suck in breath. Two of his teeth were missing.
From beside him Lee could see Maurice taking a step backwards. He had the shotgun at his hip and was not quite pointing it and he was looking to Gilmore.
— You’re nobody I know, said Lee.
He straightened up. He put both hands on the shaft of the sledgehammer. The cords in his arms drew tight. Through his gloves he could feel the wood grain in the hickory.
— You’re nobody at all.
Lee brought the sledgehammer down. It moved with all the motion his arms could put to it, with its own weight carrying it. The steel head crashed into the frozen dirt six inches from Pete’s skull. Fragments of earth cascaded into his face. He had his eyes and mouth squeezed shut. When Lee lifted the hammer, a grey dent was left where it had struck.
He turned around.
Speedy’s hands were pressed against the sides of his head. Maurice was pointing the shotgun at Lee but he’d not yet pumped the action. He was looking from Lee to Gilmore and back to Lee. Gilmore himself was unreadable.
Lee went out of the locker. He threw the sledgehammer away from him. It hit the ground and bounced and came to rest. He could hear Gilmore speaking to Maurice:
— … your kind of shit to deal with. You figure out what this little sack of shit thinks he saw. And then you figure out what you want to do with him. The plane will be here in an hour. And nobody says a word, a fucking word, to Arlene.
Gilmore came out of the locker and crossed through the shed. He slowed as he passed Lee and the two of them looked at each other and neither said anything, and then Gilmore went back outside into the gathering daylight.
The locker door was partially ajar but all Lee could see through the opening was Speedy’s back.
The business card he’d taken from his wallet was yellowed with age. It showed a cartoon man in coveralls holding an oversized wrench, and behind the man was a woodstove with two white eyes and a smiling row of teeth.
The man on the other end of the line had not spoken for a long moment.
— Do you understand? said Lee. If I call the bulls and they come with all their lights and sirens and all that shit, then these boys will kill him. If you don’t understand the rest of it then you have to understand that.
— I understand.
— Then …
— Yes. It’s a ways from me. I’ll need twenty minutes.
Lee closed his eyes.
— I’ll see you.
He hung up. He breathed slowly. He walked a lap around the interior of the restaurant. He opened the rusty tool box he’d seen the night before. The box contained wiring tools: a cable ripper, a selection of marrettes, screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers.
On one of the stripped grocery shelves he found an old pack of cigarettes. There was one cigarette in the pack. It was stale and dry and the smoke moved briskly through it when he lit it. He looked back at the telephone.
There was what might have been an office through a door past the round-top fridge. The smell of mouse shit was sharp. One window in the office was unboarded, and Lee looked out on the white stillness of the property. The rising sun was slanting crosswise through the spruce. He could not see the shed or the campers from here. He opened his wallet again and looked at what little remained. One thing was his parole officer’s card. He balled the card up and threw it in the corner. Wade Larkin hadn’t ever been much use in the first place.
Lee drew on his cigarette.
He came back out of the empty office and went towards the tool box on the table. That was when he heard boots behind him. Maurice was standing in the opening between the rear storeroom and the restaurant. The shotgun was laid over his shoulder.
— What are you doing, Lee?
— I came down here to warm up.
— To warm up. What are you doing with that tool box?
Lee went past him into the rear storeroom. Over his shoulder, he said: The heater in the van is broken.
He took two steps and then he started to run for the back door. Maurice swung the shotgun by the barrel and the butt hit Lee in the back of the head. He pitched hard onto the concrete floor. The tool box crashed open in front of him and the wiring tools and marrettes scattered out.
— What in the fuck, Lee? I told you not to come down here. And why are you running?
Lee’s vision wavered. There was an immense throb pulsing out from where he’d been struck. The cigarette, pressed between his cheek and the floor, was searing his skin. He rolled his head off it. He got himself up onto his hands and knees and put his fingers down over a flathead screwdriver that had spilled from the tool box. Maurice stood beside him. He put the shotgun to Lee’s ear.
Maurice started to say something but Lee snapped the screwdriver into Maurice’s thigh and brought it back out. He surged up off the floor and into Maurice and both men scrambled backwards into the restaurant, coupled absurdly, grunting, seeking out soft parts with knees and thumbs. Maurice still had hold of the shotgun in one hand but he hadn’t pumped it yet and his free hand was occupied with trying to crush Lee’s windpipe or drive his fingers into Lee’s eyes. Lee thrashed his head about. He pulled at any part he could get hold of. Maurice’s weight was enormous. He guided them by sheer size, both bodies colliding into tables and shelves.
Then Maurice backed Lee into the range and pressed his whole weight into him. He drove his knee up into Lee’s thigh and wrapped his hand around Lee’s throat and squeezed. But now they were fixed in one place. Lee rammed the screwdriver into Maurice’s neck, as many times as he could, as quickly as he could. Maurice’s fingers released Lee’s windpipe, and the big man moved backwards and found the refrigerator and sat down on the floor against it. He had his hand around his own neck now and he looked surprised. Doubtful. He was still holding the shotgun in his other hand.
Blood came out of Maurice’s mouth and between his fingers. It was all over his shirt. Lee staggered upright from the range, gagging air back into his lungs. His hand was slippery with blood.
Maurice said a nonsense sound.
Lee dropped the screwdriver and dug under the counter until he found a threadbare tea towel. He wiped the blood from his hand. He fingered the swelling on the back of his head. Then he went over to Maurice and pulled the barrel of the shotgun. Maurice held on. Lee planted his boot on Maurice’s arm and pushed, still holding the barrel,
