Blue said, “You wanna do it?”
The stock felt hard against Elgin’s shoulder. The trigger, curled under his index finger, was cold and thick, something about it that itched his finger and the back of his head simultaneously, a voice back there with the itch in his head saying, “Fire.”
What you could never talk about down at the bar to people who hadn’t been there, to people who wanted to know, was what it had been like firing on human beings, on those icy gray ghosts in the dark jungle. Elgin had been in fourteen battles over the course of his twelve-month tour, and he couldn’t say with certainty that he’d ever killed anyone. He’d shot some of those shapes, seen them go down, but never the blood, never their eyes when the bullets hit. It had all been a cluster-fuck of swift and sudden noise and color, an explosion of white lights and tracers, green bush, red fire, screams in the night. And afterward, if it was clear, you walked into the jungle and saw the corpses, wondered if you’d hit this body or that one or any at all.
And the only thing you were sure of was that you were too fucking hot and still — this was the terrible thing, but oddly exhilarating too — deeply afraid.
Elgin lowered Blue’s rifle, stared across the interstate, now the color of seashell, at the dark mint tree line. The dog was barely noticeable, a soft dark shape amid other soft dark shapes.
He said, “No, Blue, thanks,” and handed him the rifle.
Blue said, “Suit yourself, buddy.” He reached behind them and pulled the beaded string on the klieg light. As the white light erupted across the highway and the dog froze, blinking in the brightness, Elgin found himself wondering what the fucking point of a LAD scope was when you were just going to shine the animal anyway.
Blue swung the rifle around, leaned into the railing, and put a round in the center of the animal, right by its rib cage. The dog jerked inward, as if someone had whacked it with a bat, and as it teetered on wobbly legs, Blue pulled back on the bolt, drove it home again, and shot the dog in the head. The dog flipped over on its side, most of its skull gone, back leg kicking at the road like it was trying to ride a bicycle.
“You think Jewel Lut might, I dunno, like me?” Blue said.
Elgin cleared his throat. “Sure. She’s always liked you.”
“But I mean…” Blue shrugged, seemed embarrassed suddenly. “How about this: You think a girl like that could take to Australia?”
“Australia?”
Blue smiled at Elgin. “Australia.”
“Australia?” he said again.
Blue reached back and shut off the light. “Australia. They got some wild dingoes there, buddy. Could make some real money. Jewel told me the other day how they got real nice beaches. But dingoes too. Big Bobby said people’re starting to bitch about what’s happening here, asking where Rover is and such, and anyway, ain’t too many dogs left dumb enough to come this way anymore. Australia,” he said, “they never run out of dog. Sooner or later, here, I’m gonna run out of dog.”
Elgin nodded. Sooner or later, Blue would run out of dog. He wondered if Big Bobby’d thought that one through, if he had a contingency plan, if he had access to the National Guard.
“The boy’s just, what you call it, zealous,” Big Bobby told Elgin.
They were sitting in Phil’s Barbershop on Main. Phil had gone to lunch, and Big Bobby’d drawn the shades so people’d think he was making some important decision of state.
Elgin said, “He ain’t zealous, Big Bobby. He’s losing it. Thinks he’s in love with Jewel Lut.”
“He’s always thought that.”
“Yeah, but now maybe he’s thinking she might like him a bit too.”
Big Bobby said, “How come you never call me Mayor?”
Elgin sighed.
“All right, all right. Look,” Big Bobby said, picking up one of the hair-tonic bottles on Phil’s counter and sniffing it, “so Blue likes his job a little bit.”
Elgin said, “There’s more to it and you know it.”
Playing with combs now. “I do?”
“Bobby, he’s got a taste for shooting things now.”
“Wait.” He held up a pair of fat, stubby hands. “Blue always liked to shoot things. Everyone knows that. Shit, if he wasn’t so short and didn’t have six or seven million little health problems, he’d a been the first guy in this town to go to The ’Nam. ’Stead, he had to sit back here while you boys had all the fun.”
Calling it The ’Nam. Like Big Bobby had any idea. Calling it fun. Shit.
“Dingoes,” Elgin said.
“Dingoes?”
“Dingoes. He’s saying he’s going to Australia to shoot dingoes.”
“Do him a world of good too.” Big Bobby sat back down in the barber’s chair beside Elgin. “He can see the sights, that sort of thing.”
“Bobby, he ain’t going to Australia and you know it. Hell, Blue ain’t never stepped over the county line in his life.”
Big Bobby polished his belt buckle with the cuff of his sleeve. “Well, what you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t know. I’m just telling you. Next time you see him, Bobby, you look in his fucking eyes.”
“Yeah. What’ll I see?”
Elgin turned his head, looked at him. “Nothing.”
Bobby said, “He’s your buddy.”
Elgin thought of the small panties curling out of the dust under Blue’s bed. “Yeah, but he’s your problem.”
Big Bobby put his hands behind his head, stretched in the chair. “Well, people getting suspicious about all the dogs disappearing, so I’m going to have to shut this operation down immediately anyway.”
He wasn’t getting it. “Bobby, you shut this operation down, someone’s gonna get a world’s worth of that nothing in Blue’s eyes.”
Big Bobby shrugged, a man who’d made a career out of knowing what was beyond him.
The first time Perkin Lut struck Jewel in public was at Chuck’s Diner.
Elgin and Shelley were sitting just three booths away when they heard a racket of falling glasses and plates, and by the time they came out of their booth, Jewel was lying on the tile floor with shattered glass and chunks of bone china by her elbows and Perkin standing over her, his arms shaking, a look in his eyes that said he’d surprised himself as much as anyone else.
Elgin looked at Jewel, on her knees, the hem of her dress getting stained by the spilled food, and he looked away before she caught his eye, because if that happened he just might do something stupid, fuck Perkin up a couple-three ways.
“Aw, Perkin,” Chuck Blade said, coming from behind the counter to help Jewel up, wiping gravy off his hands against his apron.
“We don’t respect that kind of behavior ’round here, Mr. Lut,” Clara Blade said. “Won’t have it neither.”
Chuck Blade helped Jewel to her feet, his eyes cast down at his broken plates, the half a steak lying in a soup of beans by his shoe. Jewel had a welt growing on her right cheek, turning a bright red as she placed her hand on the table for support.
“I didn’t mean it,” Perkin said.
Clara Blade snorted and pulled the pen from behind her ear, began itemizing the damage on a cocktail napkin.
“I didn’t.” Perkin noticed Elgin and Shelley. He locked eyes with Elgin, held out his hands. “I swear.”
Elgin turned away and that’s when he saw Blue coming through the door. He had no idea where he’d come from, though it ran through his head that Blue could have just been standing outside looking in, could have been standing there for an hour.
Like a lot of small guys, Blue had speed, and he never seemed to walk in a straight line. He moved as if he were constantly sidestepping tackles or land mines — with sudden, unpredictable pivots that left you watching the space where he’d been, instead of the place he’d ended up.