That one went down with a thump to the floor that sounded comic against the huge reverberation of the two powerful revolver blasts in the closed-in space before he got his own gun up.
The second guy was not dumb and, even as he knew his partner was hit fatally and that they had been the victims of, not the perpetrators of, surprise, he moved laterally, disappearing behind the rank of shelved can goods before Bob could get a fatboy into him. Bob moved back, using the shelf island exactly as his opponent did, as a shield between them, aware it was not cover but only concealment, and suddenly red spray and diamonds filled the air-everybody’s ears had switched off so there was no noise-as the gunman fired three times on the oblique, guessing where Bob would be and hoping that blind shots would bring him down.
Bob was not where the fellow guessed, as he’d moved to his own left and meant to come around hard left, hunched over and just showing a little flesh along with the big piece of Hartford iron. The gunman saw his mistake and turned to correct it, when he was hit in the face with a large can of Crisco that arrived in a tight spiral and smacked him hard. He lost a step, then bent to fire, but Bob was too far ahead on the trigger curve, firing another controlled pair that sounded like one, these a little more widely spaced, one emptying quarts of coffee, Coke, and fried eggs as it tore through his stomach, exiting against the instant coffee in a puff of brown dust, the other blowing out even more lung tissue and spinal fluid as it took him on a dead central angle. He went to his knees, dropped his silver 1911, vomited blood copiously, and fell forward, his butt up in the air, in a comic kick-me pose, and in that frozen joke settled and died.
“Jesus Christ,” said the boy.
“Good throw,” said Bob.
“I never hit anything I threw at before in my whole life.”
“Well for one second, you were Peyton Manning. Thank God it was the right second.”
“I have to sit down.”
“Don’t have time. You listen to me. I have stood and fought with many brave men in my time, which includes three tours in Vietnam and a whole lot of other crazed stuff. You can fight with me any time and you belong with those brave friends.”
“I-I-We did it.”
“Yes, we did. Now quick, you take this gun, and fire the last two shots out the door.”
The boy took the gun, it seemed heavy for him, and tremblingly, he struggled with the heavy trigger and finally managed to get one, and then another shot off.
“Good work. Now you have powder residue on your hands and the police will take note of that. You see how it happened. They came in, guns out, but you drew and fired, hit the first one twice out of your first three shots, then the other one fired from behind the shelf, missed, you scooted to your left and fired three more times. Then you called the police. You got that?”
“You-”
“Me, I wasn’t here. You don’t know jack about anyone else. You saw masked men heavily armed, and you shot. These two may turn out to be wanted or to have paper on ’em. Any reward is yours, and anything you can get off this deal, you go ahead. You deserve it. You stood and fought. I’d pick up that can of whatever you threw, wipe it off, and put it back on the shelf. Don’t need to tell nobody about that. They shot, you shot, you won. End of story. Are we clear?”
“Yes sir.”
“You did good, young man. You’re a hero, okay?”
“Well, I-it’s, um, I-”
“Okay, I am out of here. You can get through this. You just tell ’em the same thing over and over and nobody can doubt you. Just stick to the simple story. I know you can do this thing.”
“Yes sir.”
“So long, now. I will call you in a few days to check up.”
“Who are you?”
“It don’t matter. I’m the guy in the movie who leaves without explanation, okay.”
“You’re Clint Eastwood?”
“If that’s his name, then I guess I’m him. So long, son.”
EIGHTEEN
It took a while for the news to get there. Of course, since Lester’s Grocery was only four miles as the crow flies from the Piney Ridge Baptist Prayer Camp, the boys all heard the sirens wailing in the night as various police arrived at the scene. No one said a thing. It could be, it could not be. Who knew, who could tell?
But time passed and there was no news from Carmody and B.J. You’d have thought they’d call in right after, but maybe the boys went to town instead of beelining back toward the camp, and were even now carousing in some low crib they’d found out about, drinking and wailing and whoring because they knew that they’d done the Grumley work well.
But after two hours, the Reverend sent Vern and Ernie in Vern’s red Caddy down 167 to see what the ruckus was, whether or not it had anything to do with Carmody and B.J. The call came a few minutes later. The Reverend took it.
“Reverend, we are here at Lester’s.”
“Yes?”
“Whole mess of folks, all the cops in three counties, state boys, the works. Crime lab, that detective Thelma Fielding and Sheriff Reed Wells, maybe even FBI up from Knoxville, TV stations, newspaper and radio reporters from all three states, the whole shebang. Even civilians are pulling in, drawn by the light and the ruckus. They can smell the blood in the air. We can’t get close, they’ve cordoned it off, but quite a crowd has gathered.”
“What’s the word?”
There was silence, as if neither Vern nor Ernie wanted to bust the news. Finally it was Ernie, who said, “Rumor here in the crowd is that some punk kid shot it out with two armed, masked desperados. Killed ’em both deader n’ shit.”
The Reverend looked for other possibilities.
“Don’t mean a thing. No sir, first off, no punk kid is besting Carmody and B.J. Grumley, no sir, not now, not ever. It has to be coincidence, you know, that brought some Joe Blows into the kid’s gun sights, even if Carmody and B.J.’s off roaming around to make a job on someone so as to make it look robbery-like. I know the good Lord wouldn’t take two Grumleys from me, no sir, not with this big thing coming up two days off, and me needing every damn man. So you just-”
And then he sort of ran out of words.
“Sir,” Ernie finally said, “thing is, I think that’s Carmody’s car in the lot, I can make it out. And it’s impounded and they’re dusting it for prints even now and a tow truck is here.”
“Oh, damn. Damnation, hellish damnation, flame and spark, damnation. It just can’t be.”
“Sir, I am only telling you what I see.”
“Was there anything about another fellow? There’s a shootout, our two boys, they gone, but they got another fellow, right, tell me that’s what it’s about.”
“Sir, ain’t heard nothing about no other fellow. Only about this clerk, what a sad-sack shmo he was, only this time he came up aces, a mankiller of the first rank, chest to chest and muzzle to muzzle, he shot it out, and they’re down and gone and he’s a hero of the highest damned order.”
The Reverend let out an animal howl of rage and pain, deep soul ache, the blues, whatever you may call it. A Grumley-no, two Grumleys-had passed. His scream so rent the air that from the rec room, where they’d been lounging, playing cards, watching TV on fuzzy black and whites, drinking, just palavering, his progeny and kin came to see him and take the message of despair and vengeance he was putting out.
“You learn what you can, boys, then you head on home,” he told Vern and Ernie.
“Yes sir.”
The Reverend looked up at his flock.