“Ah, shit. Shit.” He got up, went to the sink, but only a thin trickle of water came out; the pump wasn’t working, the power was out. How’d that happened? Another mystery. He popped open the refrigerator, took out a bottle of water, opened it, washed his hand, dried it on his jeans.
He picked up the shotgun again, a cheap Mossberg that had seen better days, the barrel hot enough to iron with. He shucked a couple of shells into the sink, his hands now slippery with sweat, fished them out. Two shots. He looked around, saw a green-and-yellow box sitting on a windowsill, took out four more shells, shoved in five, pumped once to get a shell into the chamber, and shoved another into the magazine.
Buckshot. Bless you, Ralph, you dead motherfucker.
Planning to kill both them bitches anyway.
—
THEN COXwas at the door of the trailer, or just outside it. She shouted, “What’d you do to Cole, you big fat cocksucker?”
Deese thought, Fat? and looked down at his gut. He was six feet tall and weighed a hundred and seventy pounds.
“Cole went away,” Deese shouted back. “You and me got some things to do, sugarpuss.”
He heard her running away and hurried to the door, but when he got there she was behind the truck bed, looking at him. He stepped outside, the gun hanging from one hand. He grinned at her and said, “No place to run.”
She asked, “Do I look like I’m running?”
Her hand came up, and Deese realized that she had a pistol in it and he opened his mouth to shout, or something, and she pulled the trigger and the slug smacked into the door behind him. He dove back through the doorway and rolled away from it as two more shots poked holes through the trailer, both slugs blowing past a couple of inches above his body. He shouted, “Hey, hey, hey!”
He heard the truck door open, and when he peeked through a window he saw she was inside the truck, not looking at the door—she was looking at the money.
He eased back over to the door and shouted, “We can work something out.”
“What’d you do to Cole? Did you kill him?”
“He was a witness against both of us,” Deese shouted back.
In the truck, Cox frowned, and thought, Well, that’s true.
—
ON THE RIDGE, Bob asked, “What’re we doing? Somebody tell me. I can’t think, I’ve got to focus on what I’m doing here.”
Lucas said, “If it looks like he’s going to kill her, take him.”
“Wound him. Wound him, for Christ’s sakes,” Tremanty said. “Or let it play out.”
—
LUCAS ASKED, “What about the chopper? We could try calling the chopper, tell them what the situation is, see if they’d be willing to hover a few hundred feet up. She couldn’t reach it with that pistol, even if she tried, and he couldn’t with the shotgun.”
“Something’s going to happen, I don’t think there’s time,” Bob said. “I’m getting really fuckin’ sweaty here. Somebody wipe my forehead, I’m gonna mist up the lens.”
Tremanty handed a radio to Lucas and said, “Call the chopper.” He produced a handkerchief, and as Lucas thumbed the call button, Tremanty wiped Bob’s forehead. Lucas called the chopper, told them what they needed.
“Two minutes,” the pilot said.
—
COX SHOUTED, “It’s mostly one-dollar bills, you big fat chump.”
Deese: “Take a bunch, run over to the Lexus, and take off. There are license plates there in the truck. Put them on the car, drive up to Reno or back to LA.”
“You’ll shoot me.”
“No I won’t. I promise,” Deese shouted.
