Lou Bates looked at everyone, trying to figure it out.
“Son of a bitch,” Ray said.
Bobby Andes gestured Lou to sit next to Ray on the cot. He stared at Susan. “What’s this, a goddamn party?”
“Leslie kicked me out again.”
He glared at Ingrid. “Did you invite her?”
“Where the hell have you been, Bobby?”
“I said, Did you invite her?”
“She came because she always comes.”
“Is it all right?” Susan’s voice was high and tiny.
Tony was wondering when Bobby would notice they had freed Ray from his leg irons.
“I had to go to town,” Bobby said. “Had to get him my-self.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I didn’t know. I thought George would be on duty. I thought George would bring him out.” He was full of irritation because other people were so stupid.
“This man?” Ingrid said. “Who’s he?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Why couldn’t one of those other guys bring him out?”
“They weren’t going back,” he said. He spoke with the contempt of a man talking to someone who had no business being there. He stood in the middle of the room looking around at the crowd, his face pale and full of disgust. “Jesus, I’m sick.” He sat down on the wicker chair. The look on Ray’s face was watchful and curious. Bobby never did notice Ray’s legs. He calmed down deliberately and looked at Susan. He said, “I’m sorry to be unhospitable but I’m doing some police work here. I wasn’t figuring on visitors.”
“Mr. Policeman—” Ray said.
“I count on you to maintain the confidentiality of what you see. I may have to send you women into the bedroom later on if you don’t mind.”
“Mr. Policeman, can I go to the bathroom?”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah, shit. That’s right, Mister Policeman, and pretty quick too.”
Bobby snarled. “Get up,” he said. He led Ray out the back. They heard them clumping across the leaves in the back.
Susan looked questioningly at Ingrid and Tony. Ingrid raised her eyebrows. Lou Bates stared at the floor. Finally Susan turned to him. “Can I ask who you are?” she said.
He didn’t answer. She repeated her question, and he still didn’t answer. Tony said, “That’s Lou Bates. He was the other one who killed my wife and daughter.”
Lou raised his eyes and looked gloomily at Tony, then back to the floor. Susan said, “Oh. I think I begin to get it.”
Ingrid had a book. “You better read,” she advised Susan.
After a while Ray and Bobby came back. Ray’s handcuffs were off now. He sat on the cot next to Lou, and Bobby sat in the wicker chair. Ray looked at Ingrid and said pleasantly, “What you need, lady, is more lime out there. It don’t smell too good for the women and children.”
“Shut up,” Bobby said. He turned to Susan and said, “So, can I trust you?” He was finishing the point he had been trying to make before Ray’s shit interrupted him.
“Who, me? Sure, I guess.”
“Hey,” Ray said. “This don’t sound legal to me. All this confidential shit, that don’t sound good at all, mister.”
“Ha,” Bobby said. “You worried about legality, are you?” His lips were the same color as his cheeks, he was breathing heavily, and he grinned. “I told you not to worry about it.” He leaned back in the wicker chair and looked at them as if enjoying the sight.
Tony looked at them too, Ray and Lou, the same Ray and Lou, prisoners here because of him, paying for what they did to him, since what happened last summer in the woods had not ended then but was still unfolding in ways he never imagined.
“Okay you guys,” Bobby said.
“Hey Lou,” Ray said. “What did you tell this guy?”
“I didn’t tell him nothing.”
“He says you implicated me in the murder of this guy’s wife and kid.”
“Shit man, that’s what he told me about you.”
Ingrid Hale clicked her tongue. She turned her back and read her book fiercely.
Ray laughed, meanly. “You think he was trying to play a trick on us, hey?”
Lou looked at Bobby, outraged, shocked. “You’re supposed to be the law, man. What kind of bullshit is that?”
Bobby Andes laughed. “Fuck off,” he said. “You fellas got anything to say to each other?”
“What’s to say? You told us a bunch of lies.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, an officer of the law,” Lou said. He sounded really aggrieved, disillusioned.
“Let that be a lesson to you.”
“What?”
“The lesson is, everybody in this room knows what you done, so it don’t make the slightest bit of fuckin difference who implicates who. I don’t give a shit what you tell me.”
Nobody said anything.
“I know. That’s all I need. Got that?”
Ray said, “So what are we doing here?”
“That’s what you’re doing here.”
“What?”
“Because I know what you done.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You will. I ain’t got anything to lose. Consider that.”
“You threatening us?”
Bobby Andes laughed again. The laugh was sickly and choked and nasty. “I’m dying of cancer but I expect you to die first.”
“Don’t take it out on us, man.”
“We’re going to have a party.”
Ray looked uneasy now, uneasy. “Man, you better watch it,” he said.
“Tell you something, babies. You thought you were free, Ray, but look at you now. Here you are. Imagine that. Jeeze I feel sorry for you.”
No answer.
Bobby Andes stretched himself, as if he had a belly ache, a kink in his middle. “You’re gonna be kind of sorry you bothered a guy with womenfolks in a car. You may prefer to die, guys. You’re kind of like garbage, you know, you kind of stink. Skunks, yeah, that’s you. Not exactly live skunks, more like dead skunks.” He was twisting and twisting.
Tony Hastings was embarrassed though Bobby was speaking for him, saying what he thought Tony was thinking. But Bobby was ill.
“What’s the matter, Bobby?” Ingrid said.
He looked at Ray Marcus and said, “Have you ever had the stomach flu? Have you ever had the stomach flu on top of cancer of the insides?”
Ingrid whispered, “Bobby?”
Bobby Andes to Ray Marcus: “Don’t you grin at me you fucking bastard.”
Ingrid to Bobby: “Maybe you ought to lie down a while, Bobby?”
Bobby Andes to Lou Bates, “You’re dead, you son a bitch.”
Ingrid touched Bobby’s shoulder.
“You ever had a bullet in your gut?”
He took deep breaths. She brought a wet washrag and put it on his forehead. “Ah shit,” he said. He shoved it aside and turned to Tony.
“I’m thinking of killing them now,” he said.
“Killing them?” Jolt for Tony, the two men too, who stiffened.
“I ain’t quite made up my mind. Do it now or catch them by surprise later on. You know what the law demands. They think they can lawyer their way out of it, but on that point they’re mistaken, the death sentence has been passed, it’s only a question of when it will be executed.” He looked at Ray and Lou. “You know the meaning of that word, don’t you, guys? ‘Executed,’ it means carried out, like when they carry out the body after the electric chair. I wish I could tell you your mode of execution, Ray my man, because it’s much worse not to know, but I’m afraid I can’t.” To Tony again as if to explain, while the two men listened. “You see, if I let them go, it’ll be rough on these poor guys, not knowing how it will come. The police are all around, they have a busy schedule of work. Ray could get killed resisting arrest, for instance. Or breaking into a jewelry store with some guy he thought was his pal. Coming home to his house late at night, he might get shot by a burglar in the kitchen. Who knows? No telling who you can trust, no telling at all.”