Bob wriggled free and saw that Thelma’d hit him left of the nose, maybe an inch, and that the bullet had drilled a perfect round black hole, which, in another second, began to release a surprisingly thin gurgle of black fluid. Then his nose began to bleed, not copiously, just a trickle of black as blood under pressure sought escape. The man’s eyes were open, and so was his mouth. Behind him, a ponytail fanned out on the sidewalk in the harsh light, and a puddle of exit-wound blood, black in the illumination, began to delta outward through the hair. That must have been a hell of an exit. He wore a cut-off Ole Miss T-shirt, a pair of tight jeans, and was barefoot. His feet were dirty with long, animal-like toenails crusted with grime.

Bob stood up.

“Mr. Swagger, are you all right, sir?”

“I am fine, Detective. That was some shooting,” he said.

“I am so sad I had to drop him. Only had to do it once before and it shook me up for a year.”

“I am glad you were over your shakes tonight, Detective.”

The other three officers had gathered around, and Thelma put her pistol away, and knelt next to the fallen man. She pried the gun from his fingers-a Smith K-frame, probably in.38-decocked it, and expertly popped the latch open, letting the cylinder rotate out.

They both looked into it.

“Empty,” she said. “Well, I couldn’t wait. I had to put him down.”

“You made the right decision, ma’am.”

“Thelma,” one of FAT kids said, “you didn’t have no choice. You did the right thing.”

“That’s right, Thelma,” said another. “Don’t you worry about it. Nobody could fault you.”

“You sure you’re okay, Mr. Swagger? Maybe when the medical people get here you might want to have them look at you.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Maybe it’ll hit me later, but right now it just seems unreal. Detective, where’d you learn to shoot like that? I never-”

“Thelma’s three-times running ladies’ USPSA champ of the Southeast Region, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Kentucky. She could go pro, she’s that good, Mr. Swagger. Para-Ord sponsors her. You’re lucky she’s here. She’s probably the best shot of any law enforcement agent in this part of the country. Maybe the whole damn country.”

A cruiser, its lights running hard, pulled up, and then another and another, so on until general delirium took over the scene.

The thing was, you couldn’t smoke. He might see a lit cigarette glowing in the otherwise-darkened interior of Vern’s red Cadillac El Dorado, then bolt. Agh. So both Vern and Ernie, in cranky moods, sat grumpily scrunched down in the car in a dimly illuminated zone of the parking lot of the Mountain Empire Motel. Neither had had a cigarette in hours. It was a little after midnight.

“I might sneak out and run around back for a smoke,” said Ernie.

“You will not, cousin, no sir. And take a risk he pulls in just as you’re in his lights? That’s how it’ll happen, you know it is, that’s how it always happens when you give in to your hungers on a job. You be a good bad guy now, and do what Daddy has said. We may get a kill out of this tonight and then we can smoke our asses off.”

“Vern Pye, I don’t mind saying, I didn’t enjoy your tone with me just there. Didn’t say I’d do it, now, did I? No sir, said I might. Just talking. You’re so high and mighty, I see your eyes go all buggy anytime a piece of hot under the age of fifteen with no tits goes on by. Please watch that tone, Vern.”

“Well, excuse me, sir, I’m just trying to get the job done right and proper so I can go back to my regular line of business. And what kind of gal I take a fondness toward ain’t nobody’s business. I will say, this here stay in scenic Mountain City has been as hard on me as it has on you, cousin.”

“You don’t even want to be here, that is why you are in such a punky mood.”

“No, I don’t. This is not the right move. But if the old man says do it, I have to do it and so do you, even though you agree with me and not him.”

“All I know is, he says go, I go. That’s how it is.”

“Even now in this car alone you are afraid to defy him.”

“Maybe I just respect the rules, is all. And if you don’t, no cause to turning all crabby on me.”

But then a car pulled into the lot. Both squirmed down a little, both noted that it was indeed a small Ford or Toyota, the sort the rental companies generally provided. It prowled, looking for spaces, and found one close to Room 128, which they knew to be the hit’s.

“Could be,” said Vern.

“Pray to God,” said Ernie. “Or maybe it’s a teen-age gal in short-shorts and a halter with the new issue of Tiger Beat.”

“Asshole.”

The fellow got out, slid around to the trunk, opened it, took something out, and held it tight under his arm, looked about for signs of something not in place, and then moved gently toward the room. But it was the limp that gave him away for real. It was like he had pain in that right hip from more than a single wound. He was also moving stiffly as if bandaged in a dozen or so places. He paused, took a look around the lot again, satisfied himself that it was all clear, then bent to open the door, slipped in, and locked the door behind him.

“Hot doggies,” said Vern. “I can taste that Marlboro right now.”

“He’s the pilgrim, all right. Can’t believe a old gray-hair like that dusted Carmody and B.J., but now’s the night he learn it don’t pay to poke at Grumley.”

“That’s holy Baptist writ, right there, cousin.”

Vern slipped his Glock.40 from the shoulder rig and edged back the slide to make certain a shell lay nested in the chamber, while Ernie, a wheel gunner with an engraved El Paso holster on his belt, did the same with his 2.5-inch-barreled, nickel-plated Python full of.357 CorBons.

Vern had figured it out.

“I say we wait a bit. Let him get settled in. Brush his teeth, check the lot through the window, make his calls, maybe have a sip or ten on that bottle of bourbon he done brung into the room, get all settled and snuggly, then we kick the door and empty our guns into the guy on the bed who won’t know what hit him, and then we head out fast. You okay with that, cousin?” Vern asked.

“Sounds like a plan,” said Ernie. “Should we call your daddy?”

“Don’t know about that. You look more like him than I do. It’s in the nose and the mouth.”

“I don’t like powder blue. It don’t bring out the color in my eyes. And I don’t wear no white fright wig so’s to look like that chicken-pushing Confederate colonel. My ma never said he was my daddy. He’s the only one.”

“Ooo, doggie, I see I done touched a nerve.”

“Hell, cousin, he’s probably both our daddies by both his sisters. Now what’s that tell you about the old man’s judgment? So why’d we want to call him?”

“I think my ma’s his daughter, not his sister. He do like to stir the soup, don’t he? Anyway, I’m thinking we ought to bring other boys in. Maybe someone with a shotgun to blow the door, then step aside.”

“He brings that shotgun, he ain’t gonna want to step aside. He’s going to want to put a couple of double-oughts into the guy in the bed, watch the fur and feathers fly. Then we ain’t done nothing but been good little scouts. It don’t do me no good. ‘You hear, someone dumped two Grumleys and old Vern Pye hisself went after and put the man down hard.’ I want that said about me, and I want a reward for three hours without a cigarette.”

“That’s cool by me.”

They settled in, waiting as the seconds dragged by. What, another hour? An hour was too long. Half an hour would do. But as the time crawled by, doubts appeared.

“You sure you don’t want to call the old man?”

Vern said, “He’d just want to come out hisself. Then we got to wait on him. We got to wait while the whole thing comes together. That’s two more hours without a smoke.”