Soto, on the other hand, grew quieter and colder. He said, “Remember the move—hit her, slide sideways to let me in, you slam the door.”
“I got it, I got it,” Kort said.
—
THEY’D HITPoole’s parents the night before last, and the results had been disappointing. They had gotten to the Pooles’ suburban house well before nine o’clock, cruised it twice, looking for eyes, then parked in the street in front of the house.
Kort had led the way to the porch, carrying her clipboard. Unlike most clipboards, which are made from lightweight fiberboard, Kort’s was handmade from quarter-inch steel plate. After a final check, Soto had leaned against the front wall of the house, while Kort said, “Here we go,” and rang the doorbell.
Margery Poole came to the door a few seconds later, a frown on her face. By Nashville suburban standards, it was late for an unexpected visit.
She saw Kort with the clipboard, asked, “Yes?” and Kort lifted up the steel sheet and whacked Margery Poole in the face. Poole flew backward into a short hallway that led to the living room, where her husband was watching a ball game.
Kort stepped aside as soon as Poole went down, a move they’d choreographed, and Soto went past her with the gun up. Kort moved inside and slammed the door. Soto went to the living room, where Kevin Poole was halfway out of his easy chair, and when he saw Soto’s gun, he went sideways toward a magazine shelf and stuck his hand in and before Soto could say a thing, his hand came back out with a revolver in it and Soto had no choice but to shoot him in the head.
Kort said, “What?”
“He had a gun,” Soto said. “What about the missus?”
“Shit. Couldn’t you have shot him in the hand or something? Be a lot better if we had two of them.”
“You don’t fuck around when the other guy’s got a gun,” Soto said. The expert talking.
What was done, was done. They dragged Margery Poole into the living room and went to work on her.
—
CUTTING UPMargery Poole had been entertaining, but they had gotten only one name they thought might be worthwhile. That name was John Stiner, who, like Poole, was another man on the run. They didn’t know where he was, but that was what the College-Sounding Guy did.
Twenty hours later, the College-Sounding Guy called Soto with a name: he didn’t know where Stiner was but he’d located Stiner’s sister, Marilyn Campbell, wife of a hardware store owner in Franklin, Tennessee, farther down south of Nashville.
Soto called Kort and told her they’d be starting very early the next morning.
—
THE CAMPBELLSlived in a faux-historic Americana white frame house, with pillars, on West Main, with a broad green yard. Kort and Soto were outside the house early enough to see Andy Campbell leave for the store. Any kids should have already left for school, which meant that Marilyn Campbell should be alone in the house.
“What do you think?” Kort asked.
“There’s quite a few cars going by, so make sure you get right on top of her,” Soto said. “As soon as she goes down, I’ll be right behind.”
“Bring my tool kit.”
—
MARILYN CAMPBELLopened the screen door to an ungainly young woman standing on the porch with a clipboard. She said, “Can I help you?”
“I hope so. Could I speak to a Mr. Andrew Campbell?”
“Andy’s not here right now...”
“Good,” Kort said. A half second after Campbell realized the woman was wearing plastic kitchen gloves, Kort slammed the steel-plate clipboard into Campbell’s face.
Campbell, stunned, blinded, her nose broken, went down on the floor, on her back, and Soto was around the corner and up the porch steps and on top of her. After Kort slammed the door, they dragged her, still stunned but screaming now, blood coming out of her mouth.
Soto slapped her hard, with an open hand, once, twice, three times, screaming, “Shut up, bitch, shut up bitch...” and then flipped her onto her stomach and pulled her arms around behind her, and Kort wrapped her wrists with duct tape.
Soto said to Kort, “I’ll run the house.” He took out his pistol and jogged through the first floor, then up the stairs to the second floor. There were four bedrooms and a home office on the second floor. The master bedroom was empty, and so were two others, one apparently a schoolgirl’s room, with stuffed animals and a quicklymade bed, and the other a boy’s room, with soccer gear littering the floor, and the bed a mass of tangled blankets and sheets.
