Phil had dropped down beside his stool, sobbing, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. I don’t have any rod. For God’s sake, we were only kidding. Don’t shoot.”
Jess walked around the bar and stood looking down at him. He was crouched beside the stool, unable to keep his eyes from the body beside the booths.
“Get up,” Jess said.
Phil stood, muttering, “You didn’t have to level on us. Why the hell did you do it?”
Jess lowered the gun. “Don’t try nothing, punk. Just stand easy.” He went to the pay phone and put in a call to the police. All the time he was talking he did not take his eyes from the kid.
When he came back the kid had stopped sobbing. “Look, mister,” he pleaded. “You got to let me go. I never done nothing like this before. Honest to God. It will kill my folks.”
Jess looked at him. Punk kids, he thought, are what’s wrong with the world now. He’ll get a couple of years in the reformatory and be back out to bother innocent people.
“All right, kid,” Jess smiled. “Beat it.”
“You mean it?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
The kid stood in the doorway without moving, watching him coldly. Jess said: “What are you waiting for? I’m not going to tell the police anything about you.”
“You’re damn right you’re not,” the kid said thinly.
Jess never felt the bullet that smashed into his brain.