“Is there a beer in there?” he asked.
Harry glanced in and then closed the door. “Nope.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” Clay said.
Harry ignored him. He jerked his thumb at the stain in the hall. “What about the woman?” he asked.
“I patched her up,” Clay said. “Enough to get her to the Community Hospital over in Doglan—”
“Dog Leg,” Harry corrected him absently. He shrugged at Clay’s glare. “No one is gonna know who you mean if you call it Doglan.”
Clay wiped bloody hands on his jeans. It had been a while since he’d had to patch so many people up. These days, his job usually required the opposite. He popped the tab on the soda and took a drink. It was disgusting. It was probably sugary enough when it was cold, but warm it tasted like a melted cough drop.
“She lost a lot of blood, but she’s got a good chance to pull through. The arm might not, but it’s not like I shot her. I sent Abbot with her. He’ll hang around until she wakes up and make sure she doesn’t run her mouth.”
He took another swig of the soda—it wasn’t an acquired taste, still gross—and leaned back against the scarred counter. They both looked at Arlo, sprawled out on the floor. He was still wearing the charred sneakers that Clay had shoved in the oven last night. Clay hadn’t noticed that earlier.
“He did,” he said.
“Didn’t think Arlo had it in him.” Harry scratched the side of his jaw and scowled. “I didn’t think Hadley did either. I thought he’d come with a reference?”
“Yeah. He did. Two months ago, Hadley got out of the state pen, and Guthrie asked us to give him a chance. He’d played hero over some girl and got six years for manslaughter when some kid turned out to have a glass jaw—served three. I checked. That’s the weird thing. So how the fuck did he pull this off?”
Harry shrugged and held out his hand for the soda. Clay handed it over.
“I don’t know,” Harry said. He took a drink and pulled a face before he tossed the can in the sink. “Jesus, that’s disgusting. Maybe he just saw an opportunity and seized the day? Fuck, after three years in prison, I’d want more than another forty doing nine to five in this shithole.”
Maybe. It was a pretty complicated plan to come up with on the fly, though. And Hadley hadn’t held that gun like it was his first time.
That was Ezra’s problem, though. Clay was the muscle, not the brain. He liked the work/life balance that gave him. He ran his fingers through his hair and picked out splinters of plywood from the tangles.
“I should introduce you to Grade,” he said. “The two of you have a lot in common.”
“Yeah, I’m still hoping to patch things up properly with Lanie,” Harry said, “so I gotta pass. Besides, small town. His ma was probably my granny’s hairdresser or something. Where is Pulaski anyhow?”
Clay gave Arlo’s outstretched arm a nudge with the toe of his boot. “Looking in the shed for something to wrap the body in.”
“Useful.”
“Yeah.”
Clay’s phone went off in his pocket. It was Ezra’s ringtone, the chorus to “Copperhead Road.” They listened to it for a while, and then Clay pulled it out and turned it off.
“He’s pissed,” Harry said.
“Fuck me. Really?”
Clay pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He’d just lit one, over Harry’s pointed throat clearing, when Grade pushed the back door open with his foot. There was a roll of tarp over his shoulder, he stank of bleach, and he looked pleased with himself.
“I found Buchanan,” Grade said cheerfully. He turned his head to point with his chin toward the garden. “He’s in the shed.”
Clay inhaled a lungful of smooth, warm smoke and then pinched the end of the cigarette out. He flicked the butt onto Arlo’s body, where it singed a hole in the middle of a cartoon pole dancer’s stomach.
“At this point,” he admitted, “I amnotsure if that counts as good news or not.”
Harry grunted. “Pretty sure he’s going to end up in my truck,” he grumbled. “So not great news for me.”
Fair point.
