Page 2 of Havoc

Both. But he won't sleep tonight either way, and Friday we'll have our money, so it doesn't much matter which one he lands on.

I let myself out.

The porch light comes on behind me when I'm halfway across the yard, and it stays on the whole time I'm gettin' my helmet off the seat, which tells me he's standin' at the window watchin' me go.

Good.

Twenty-two miles back to Rosalie, and I take every one of them slower than I need to.

The sun went down somewhere around Duplessis's second minute. Now the road's got that blue in it that comes right after, when the cypress on both sides has gone flat black and the water between the trunks still holds a little light, and there's nothin' out here but me and the engine and about four thousand frogs hollerin' at each other in the dark.

I don't think about the job. Job's done Friday or it ain't, and either way it's Ransom's problem before it's mine.

Mostly I don't think about anything, which is the reason I take the long way.

Route 9 comes up. The salvage yard's lit yellow behind the chain-link, stacks of crushed cars throwin' shadows forty feet across the gravel, and the sign over the gate says KINGS CUSTOM in letters my old man would've had something to say about. Past the yard the clubhouse squats low and ugly with every window burnin'.

Ten bikes in the lot. Music comin' through the wall loud enough to feel in the handlebars before I've even shut down.

Home, I guess.

Word's never sat right on me.

Cricket's out on the steps with a push broom, holdin' it about the way you'd hold a rifle you'd never once fired.

"Havoc." He snaps upright so fast the handle damn near takes his eye. "Hey. Evenin'. How'd it go — was it good? Did it go good?"

"Sweep the steps, Cricket."

"Sweepin' 'em."

"You're standin' on 'em."

"Right." He hops down into the gravel, which is not the steps, and starts sweepin' the gravel.

Twenty-one years old, three months out from his patch, and he'd walk into the basin barefoot if somebody at that table told him it needed doin'. I leave him to it and go on in.

Inside it's warm and loud and smells like beer and cigarette smoke and whatever Deacon's got goin' in the back, and Tyrant's holdin' court down at the end of the bar with the book open in front of him. Red hair, red beard, both forearms flat on the counter like a man fixin' to hand down a sentence.

Blitz is standin' in front of him with his arms out.

"It was one time."

"Twice." Tyrant doesn't look up. He turns the page. "Tuesday, and again this mornin'."

"Tuesday don't count, the truck was already blocked in when I⁠—"

"Twenty."

"Twenty?"

"Ten a time. It's in the book. You want to read it?" Tyrant spins the ledger around and lays one finger on a line. "Your name's in here eleven times, Blitz. There's men been patched fifteen years and ain't got eleven."

"'Cause they're old and they don't do nothin'."

Over by the door, Raider makes a sound like a hinge, which is what he does instead of laughin'.

"Havoc." Tyrant still hasn't looked up. "Tell him."