There was nowhere to walk to, no hiding place. It was going to have to be here.
East closed his eyes and gave Walter a moment to catch up.
“We got to go gunning, right?”
“We could call,” said Walter, wheezing.
“And say what?” said East. “Ask for some Superman shit?”
“You’re right,” said Walter. “Calling’s no good.”
“We got to go gunning.”
“Yes,” Walter agreed.
—
The time. In flight you used it. The space. Like a gunner checking a house. They examined the drive-throughs. The first was burgers. Hopping: two lanes in the drive-through, each one backed up. Nice, fast cars there: a sport Lexus. But any move you made, there’d be ten people watching.
The next was doughnuts. They studied the building, ugly and square, a little box of concrete with painted-on stripes. One asphalt snake around the back and up to the window. And a brawny green hedge five feet high all around.
“Let’s look,” East said.
They cut along the outside of the hedge until they stood across it from the black-eyed window. There was a gap a foot or two wide where the lane drained into a steel grate in the pavement.
“Come right through there,” East said. “Wait till it thins out and a car comes. One of us blocks, one talks. Climb in and go. But time it right.”
“Did you ever carjack before?”
“Never done it,” East said. “I’m a yard man.”
“And a proud one,” said Walter. “How we keep the girl in the window from seeing?”
“Get it before the window, maybe,” said East. “In the back.”
“What about the driver?”
“What do you mean?”
“Take them or leave them? Ty was gonna put that dude in the trunk. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” East said. “I guess I don’t know.”
Glumly they examined the hedge. “It ain’t perfect,” Walter decided.
“Keep looking?”
“I don’t know,” said Walter. “We ain’t gonna find anything perfect. Not on this side. We can’t go shooting no matter what. It’s gotta be quiet.”
“If we have to,” East began.
“East. We ain’t in the woods anymore. There’s a hundred cops right over there. And the longer we stay here, the blacker we get.” He gave East a worried look.
“All right,” East said. “What? You think I’m trigger happy?”
“You shot your brother,” Walter said bleakly.
“He was losing his shit.”
“When we shot that judge, what, six hours ago, I didn’t think we were going to jail. Now I do. For a while, everything that got in our way, we were on top of. But now it’s a losing streak. And we ain’t got your lucky brother to fall back on.”
“He ain’t lucky.”
Walter said, “You can say that again.”
—
They took up spots behind the hedge. Through the gap, they could watch the cars coming, look without being looked at.
Two cars came at once. First a van, tinted out, green, heavy, anonymous. Ideal, East thought, but impossible, for right behind it was a little Suzuki or Isuzu or something, a woman at the wheel, some sort of earring glinting near her ear. Right up smack behind the van, a witness. She missed seeing them entirely. But her child, a stout little thing with red on its chin, stared them through.
“I don’t think this joint got a camera,” Walter said. “I think we could stand right up in the back if we wanted.”
“And what?” said East. “Just turn around and go out the way we went in?”
“That might work.”
The next, a pickup, held two men and a boy. A full gun rack in the cab. “Not that one,” Walter said.
“No.”
The following car showed up so suddenly, it seemed as if East had been sleeping on his feet. Impossible, but maybe. Walter touched his arm, and he saw. Light brown Ford with after-market mud guards and golden seat covers. An old black lady, alone.
“She looks nice,” said Walter.
“I ain’t making that lady get in a trunk,” East muttered.
The Ford pulled abreast and waited at the window. Suddenly Walter pushed through the hedge, the trimmed branches plowing at his clothes. He straightened his sweater and held his hand up in greeting. Like this was his great-aunt.
Crazy. East shivered. He had half a mind to run.
The old lady turned her head. Pouted, appraising him, through gold-trimmed glasses. Slowly her old power window whined down, and she said, in a high, chipped voice, painstakingly clear, “Do you two young men need some sort of rod somewhere?”
“Ma’am?” said Walter.
“I said, are you young men waiting for a ride?”
Walter said, “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
The lady’s sunny expression dimmed a bit as she peered around Walter at East, still hiding in the hedge.
“You with him?”
“He’s my cousin, yes.”
A silent humph. “Well, come on.”
Walter pivoted, shaking his face at East. “Come on.”
East wavered, then squeezed through the hedge. Squeezed his eyes shut like a kid jumping into water. The little branches tugged and ripped at him. Walter was twice as wide, but he’d come through easier.
“One black lady in the whole state,” he whispered, “and you gonna steal her car.”
“She offered,” Walter hissed.
Across the roof of the car, the drive-through window folded open on a white girl with a round, pimpled face. “Good morning, Martha!” she hollered. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine, fine,” said the old woman. The cashier girl took the lady’s money cheerfully and handed her down a dozen-doughnuts box with a gold seal on top. “Have a nice weekend — till next time!” she shouted. Sparing Walter and East one odd glance.
East stood at the back door, and the locks hammered up. The old lady set the box of doughnuts next to her on the seat, and she peered out at Walter again.
“Was you coming?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Walter nodded vigorously. “Let me talk,” he murmured at East.
“You better,” East said.
Already Walter was taking the front seat, chirping his thanks. East lowered himself into the clean-swept interior. Extra rubber mats, one floral umbrella on the seat. The faint smell of lubricating oil. He reached for the belt; it clunked as he unrolled it. The old spring was soft and would barely click in.
In his pants, Ty’s gun. A spur.
“What is your name?” the lady inquired, not going anywhere, not quite yet.
“Walter, ma’am.”
Just like that, thought East, real name. Why not?
“A,” said East. “For Andre.”
“My name is Martha Jefferson,” the lady said. “And where are you two headed today?”
“We’ll just ride, ma’am,” Walter said. “If it’s all right.”
The lady paused. She had that grandmotherly pout for thinking. “In my experience, a young person doesn’t just ride. A young person has a good idea where he’s going.”
“We’ve been going, but we’re just stuck here,” Walter said. “We need to get along.”
“You in trouble?” said the woman, narrowing her eyes. “Or are you trouble?”
“We hope we’re not in trouble,” Walter said.
She laughed. This pleased her. “Are you runaways?”
“No, ma’am,” Walter said.
“Hoboes?” Her giggle a creak, like an old wooden chair.