"Psychosis." He said it as if there was no other choice. "Who's yours? Don't tell me Little Guido." Lloyd grinned. "Not Booker T."
Bobby didn't know who he was talking about, but assumed they were wresters. "I'm between favorites right now," Bobby said.
"What kind of smartass answer is that? You making fun of me? Because if you are, you can go find another place to stay." Lloyd grinned then and said, "I got you. You should've seen your face."
Bobby figured Lloyd had slipped into one of his multiple personalities. But, which one? He'd identified at least three. Lloyd, the laid-back country boy; Lloyd the boastful con; Lloyd the bow hunting survivalist-and Bobby was sure this was another one. Oh yeah, he was also Floyd, the boozehound, who got dead drunk and turned into Avoid.
Bobby slept on the couch, a spring popping through, digging into his back, the.32 within easy reach. He couldn't believe the way his luck had soured-everything going wrong at the moment like a black cloud hanging over his head. That's what his mother, Zsuzsa, would've said, delivering the line in Magyar, the official language of Hungary and the Gal family.
Bobby felt the presence of his mother in the trailer and could've sworn he smelled onions cooking, the smell he associated with his mom and goulash, his favorite dish.
Bobby's mother believed bad things happened in threes. He could hear her saying:
"A baj haromig meg sem al."
And you had to get out of bed on the same side you got in on or you had bad luck. Bobby's bed was against the wall so that wasn't an issue. His mother also said if your left hand itched, you were going to be rich.
"Ha a ball kezed viszket, penzt kapsz."
And if your right hand itched, you were going to be poor.
"Ha ajobb kezed viszket, penzt kotesz."
He didn't believe in these crazy notions but at that moment he wanted his left hand to itch. He lifted his arm and stared at his hand. He'd take anything. But he didn't feel any unusual sensation and it bothered him.
He thought he heard a car, got up and looked out the window. It was a pickup truck parking in front of a trailer down the street. He went back to the couch. He heard a dog bark. In the odd silence the bark sounded like a guy calling someone named Ralph. "Raaaalph," a long bark followed by two short ones, "Ralph, Ralph." Maybe the dog was calling his buddy.
"Barney, shut the hell up, that's enough," a voice said.
The dog stopped barking. All Bobby could hear now were crickets and he wondered why they made that noise. When he was a kid someone said it was because the crickets were doing it, having sex and that's the sound they made. He started drifting off…
Next thing Bobby heard was the floor creaking. He opened his eyes and saw Lloyd moving toward him with the bow in his hand, an arrow ready to go. It was dark out. Lloyd put his index finger over his mouth and pointed toward the window. Bobby thought he heard the sound of a car door closing.
They went to the window, crouching, looking out. There was a guy standing next to a dark-colored Cadillac, an old Seville, the car was between the guy and Lloyd's trailer. Bobby thought he was the shylock who had grabbed him at the casino, and he was probably the one who trashed his apartment and followed him here. Bobby watched him coming around the car, holding a semi-automatic with a suppressor on the end of it that was almost as long as the barrel.
Lloyd slid the window open, pulled the bowstring back and let fly. The arrow sliced through the front passenger window like it was made out of paper, and now the guy was on his knees, scrambling to get on the other side of the car. Lloyd moved into the kitchen ready with another arrow. Bobby saw the shylock's head appear, looking over the hood of the Seville, and an arrow went through the windshield inches from him.
The shylock ducked behind the car again and then rose up and started firing. With the silencer, the big semi-automatic sounded like a BB gun. Rounds were punching holes in the thin aluminum walls across the front of the trailer. Bobby hit the deck, got on his belly and stayed as low as he could, and called to Lloyd, "You all right?" No response. "Lloyd…" Nothing. Bobby crawled the length of the trailer on his stomach. When he got to Lloyd's room he looked out the sliding door. There was a deck and beyond it, a grassy area and a pond. The shooting had stopped. He didn't see anyone. He slid the door open went out on the deck, moved down the stairs and started to run.
O'Clair'd gone back to Bobby's apartment and waited till Bobby showed up, knowing he'd open the door, take one look and make a run for it. And that's what he did. O'Clair followed Bobby to the trailer park-Chateau Estates-hanging back giving him plenty of room. He figured Bobby was going to the Diehl residence. Dumb- shit put his real address on the warehouse rental contract, a bone- head move that reminded O'Clair of dimwits he'd arrested over the years. The moron who robbed a Comerica Bank during a snowstorm came to mind. O'Clair followed his footsteps from the bank to his house three doors away. The man was at his kitchen table, counting the money, when O'Clair came through the door and drew down on him. Another good one was the guy who held up a liquor store and wanted all the money and a fifth of Jack Daniel's. The store owner said he couldn't give him the booze unless he was twenty-one. The guy took out his license and held it up and it was recorded by a security camera. O'Clair was first on the scene, got the guy's address, went there and arrested him. Unbelievable.
O'Clair pulled up in front of the trailer with his lights off and killed the engine. He picked up the Browning, racked it and opened the door. There was a glow on the eastern horizon, the sun starting to rise. He got out and pushed the door to close it, trying not to make noise, and started around the car. He heard it before he saw it, an arrow that blew through the front passenger window and took out the driver's side window too. He got down and crawled around to the other side of the car. He waited and peeked over the hood and another arrow just missed him, went through the windshield and through the front and rear seats and landed in the trunk.
O'Clair rose up and fired eight rounds across the front of the trailer, reloaded and grouped four more shots in a tight circle where the last arrow had come from. Now he made his move, running to the trailer and went in. It was the kitchen. There were bloodstains on the cabinet doors and more on the greasy linoleum floor, spots of blood and smears. He got one of them, he hoped the Indian, but it appeared as though he was still alive, the blood trail going across the floor of the kitchen into the main room. He followed it through the main room into the bedroom. Checked under the bed and in the closet, and went in the bathroom and slid the shower curtain open.
O'Clair went back in the bedroom and glanced out the sliding door, opened it and saw the blood trail continue across the deck. He went outside and looked around. There was a pond. He saw people staring at him from the windows of their trailers, and then he heard the wail of a siren in the distance.
Lloyd sat hunched under the deck holding the bow as best he could. He'd been hit in the thigh, the round had punched through the aluminum wall of the mobile home and slammed into the meaty center of his upper leg. The velocity had knocked him off his feet and probably saved his life as rounds continued to punch holes in the beige laminate cabinets above him. The pain was intense. There was no other word he could think of to describe it. The wound was through and through, a little hole in front, and the back of his thigh was blown out, blood and tissue on the cabinet door below the sink.
He'd heard Bobby call him, but he was in too much pain to open his mouth. The son of a bitch didn't even check to see if he was okay. Lloyd dragged himself the entire length of the trailer, thinking at the time, he should've rented a Vouv-ray model, which was a little shorter-five feet-but might make a difference if the guy came in and caught him.