In the truck everybody talked at once, except for Squire. He was gazing out the passenger-side window, having himself a fine vacation. Ava and Leeli fussed over Carl in the back seat, and I drove fast toward Ocala. I hadn’t put a face on the wrongness of what happened, but it nibbled at the edges of a fucked-up angry fear that raised a red shadow in my brain and jammed spikes into my bone-holes, making all my limbs want to stiffen and wiggle like a bug with a pin through its guts. Leeli urged me to drive faster and Ava said, Take us back to the motel! This all stirred in with Oh Gods and Carl repeating over and over in a sunny voice, Hands up who wants to die, shaping a child’s song of the line. I told them to shut the fuck up, then I yelled it. For half a minute it was quiet. A big shopping mall come floating up on our left. I slowed and swung the car into it. Ava screeched, What’re you doing? as I swerved into a parking slot away from the buildings, hidden by other cars from the highway. I switched off the engine. She clawed at my shoulder, cursing and giving orders.
I turned to her and saw that the manager’s bullet had dug a furrow along Carl’s jawline. The wound was oozing blood, yet he didn’t seem to mind. I’m gonna find us another car, I said. But we ain’t going back to no motel.
Ava objected to this and I said, Here’s your keys. Go where the fuck you want. I’m getting the hell gone.
I climbed out and told Leeli to come along with me.
Ava caught Leeli’s arm. I need her here!
—Well, I need a lookout, so fuck what you need!
—Take Squire, she said.
—Yeah, that’ll help. Come on, Leeli.
Leeli hesitated.
A cop car whipped past on the highway, howling like a devil with a hotfoot.
—Goddamn it! Now! I said. You wanna wait around ’til he comes back for us?
Leeli hopped out and glanced uncertainly between me and Ava. She blinked and shivered as if the sun was killing her.
For the first time ever I saw a distinct lack of confidence in Ava’s face. You better not leave us here! she said. I swear to God!
—I wasn’t thinking on it, I said.
There was some sort of promotion going on within the mall. The lot was more crowded than you’d expect. Jolly old farts wearing gaudy sport coats and blue Shriner-type hats were holding bunches of balloons on strings, handing them out to children and mommies, collecting money to cure some great evil that would never die, and two lanes of parking were used up by a carnival with a little Ferris wheel, kiddie rides, game and snack stalls. Some high school girls strolled in a small pod, twelve tits in a row, those belonging to a hefty redhead nosing out a close race. They were eyed by a pack of high school boys whose thoughts of rape had likely gotten sly and civilized during hygiene class. Senior citizens dressed in peppy colors gazed soberly at the wheel. I reckon they were recalling greater wheels from the big glorious world that had died out from under them. Treacly music played—the same, it seemed, that played everywhere I traveled.
Ava’s gun was stuck in my belt, under my shirt. Its weight made me walk taller than I should have felt. I held hands with Leeli, hoping to persuade folks we were a young couple hot for some corn dogs or whatever hell meat they were pushing at the carnival. We skirted the more populated area of the lot. I spotted a newish Ford van with smoked windows. We snuck up on it from the rear. Just as I was ready to pounce, Leeli warned me off. Standing a few cars over was a huddle of men in blue hats. These old fellows had ridded themselves of balloons. They were laughing, the nudge-nudge laughing men do when they hear a real good smutty joke. The fattest of them had a two-handed grip on his belly, like he was about to lift up a slab of fat and show them something even funnier. Of a sudden the men rested hands on each other’s shoulders, forming a circle, and bowed their heads, praying, I supposed, for more balloons or for Jesus to cover the point spread against Satan or that one of the high school girls would lose her mind and fuck them.
Out front of the Home Depot was an old Chevy panel van. I busted the driver’s window with the gun butt and hotwired it. The engine shook like the mounts were loose and made a tired, trebly noise until I got it idling. Leeli brushed glass off her seat and jumped in. I headed the van toward the nearest exit and she dug her fingers into my thigh and asked where I was going.
—South fucking America if we can get that far, I said.
A pinch of time zipped by. Turn it around, she said.
—That’s not gonna happen.
—I mean it! You turn this thing right around!
—Fuck you going on about?
—I’m serious! She reached out with her left foot and stomped on the brake, nearly swerving me into a parked Camry. I’m not running out on my friends.
She kind of hiccuped over the word friends, but kept her gaze firm and determined.
—Your friends? You talking about the Munsters back there?
Her eyes flicked away.
—Oh, okay. You’re talking about those twenty thousand friends. This ain’t about twenty thousand dollars no more, Leeli. This here’s about twenty-to-life.
—I don’t care!
—You’ll care when those lifer bitches with the tattooed mustaches start wanting to get cozy.
She opened the door, planted one foot on the asphalt. I’m not staying ‘less you go back for Ava and them.
—Those motherfuckers gonna get us killed! They almost got us killed! —Way I see it, you didn’t act such a fool with that preacher, Carl wouldn’t never done nothing!
I put my eyes out the windshield. A lost balloon was sailing off into the blue—it vanished as it crossed the sun. Damn it, Leeli! Get your ass back in here!
She slid down from the seat and stood in the glare, defiant as a dog off its chain.
I gunned the engine. I’m leaving!
She slammed the door shut.
—Something wrong with those people, I said. Man’s shot in the face and it don’t even phase him? Fuck is that? This ain’t nothing we should be messing with.
She took off walking. Her round little butt looked real tasty in those shorts.
—Aw, Leeli! Come on back here, girl!
I’m not a complete fool. I understand it’s all about pussy, but pussy must be a sickness with me, otherwise I cannot explain why I let myself get pulled back into a situation I knew was a dead loser. A psychiatrist might say I was hunting for just such a situation, but if Leeli had been one of the reverend’s old gals, I wouldn’t have wasted a second before putting her in the rear view. I admit self-destruction is the way of my life. The way of every life, maybe. But the style Leeli brought to her walk-off scene, switching her hips and arching her back and giving a sad, pouty look over her shoulder, psychology wasn’t that huge a factor.
I told her to drive and funneled Ava, Carl, and Squire into the rear of the van, then climbed in behind the passenger seat so I could keep an eye on everybody. Squire was by the doors, legs kicked out, his head wobbling like he was listening to private music. Ava was next to the wheel hub, comforting Carl, who rested his good cheek on her shoulder.
—Get east, I said to Leeli. Use the interstate and keep it under the limit.
Ava asked, Where we going? It was loud in the van and she had to shout it.
—Friend of mine’s place in South Daytona!
She thought about this and nodded gloomily.
—Wanna tell me what’s going on? I pointed to Squire and then Carl.