Tony shook her head, but she knew Leroy was probably right. Mrs. Martin was a squirrely, middle-aged woman who chain-smoked and flirted with the guy who drove the gasoline truck. She would just shit her pants and cower behind the counter where she belonged. She would remember enough details for the police and news reporters who would show up in the wake of the crime so the Hot Heads would find their way into the papers and maybe onto the evening news. “Oh,” Tony could hear her squeal. “It was a hideous gang! Five of them, teenagers, tough talking, armed! They didn’t take no for an answer, and they took every penny from the cash register.” No fucking pennies, Tony thought. In her mind Mrs. Martin backed up, started again. “They took every dollar from the cash register and shot up the place! Just look at this place! I’m lucky to have come out with my life. And they’re out there, they’ll do it again, you can bet on it! You have to warm everybody! What did they look like? Well, I can’t say exactly, they had disguises. Sorry. They just seemed too smart to let anyone know who they were!” Maybe she would get fired, that would be good. But remembering the dread on her face and the smell of pee in her panties was the best reward of all.
Bitch’d never call Tony a little girl again.
Buddy took a sharp left onto the main drag, Route 58, that led to the Exxon. Everyone in the car flopped to the left. Everybody cussed. Buddy muttered, “Oops.”
The car passed another cotton field, a cattle field, and then the huge house on the hill that belonged to the McDolen family. Then a couple farmhouses and pockets of trees. The trees were coated with sleet, and the small ones at roadside shimmered like glass in the passing wake of the Chevelle.
“What are we gonna do after we rob the Exxon?” asked Little Joe.
“Celebrate,” said Tony. “Take what we got and celebrate in the old barn. Listen to the car radio for when they start talking about it on the news. Plan our next robbery. We can’t just do one and let it go. We’ll have a reputation we gotta keep. We’re grown up now.”
“Fuck,” said Little Joe. His voice sounded higher now, like something was squeezing his diaphragm and pushing the air up through his windpipe before he was ready for it.
The Exxon was ahead on the left side of the road, sitting at the back of a graveled, grassy parking lot and a single aisle of pumps. The tall glass sign for the price of gas had been blown out in a wind last week, throwing shards everywhere, and was still not repaired. The metal plates with the numbers were propped up against the door to the station bathroom along with some stray two-by-fours. Didn’t matter; nobody ever used the Exxon bathroom because it had snakes in it. A lone car sat in the gravel, not near the pumps but near the plate glass window of the building. Tony didn’t know the car; it was a white, new-looking four door. She didn’t care who it was, though. One more witness to enjoy the fun with Mrs. Martin.
Buddy made a deep sound in his throat, then coughed. Tony figured he was scared shitless. Her own heart had picked up a painful rhythm that she knew as pure joy. Any chill she’d felt for not having a coat was long gone. “Go around the Dumpsters,” she said, leaning forward to Buddy’s ear. “You’re the get-away. You stay in the car.”
Buddy let out a long breath. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He tried to look pissed. It didn’t work. “Well, okay, then, shit, just leave me behind.”
Leroy was already pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up around his head and drawing the strings in until very little of his face showed. He slammed an old knit hat down over top of the hood.
The Chevelle was steered across the gravel lot and around the back of the Dumpsters. There were four of them, painted sky blue and stenciled in bold white, “Property of Brown’s Waste Management. No Trespassing.” There was a tight squeeze between the Dumpsters and the scrub pines behind them — there was a high-pitched scraping sound as several low branches took a bite out of the Chevelle’s coat — but Buddy eased into position so it would take a simple heel to the gas pedal to get the car across the edge of the gravel and back onto the road.
The engine died, but Buddy left the key in.
“Okay, now wait,” said Tony. She retrieved the tubes of lipstick. Wrenching down the rearview so she could see, she covered her face in a sunburst pattern of stripes, starting at her nose and moving outward. “Now you,” she said to Whitey. She kneeled over Little Joe and covered Whitey’s scarred face with big polka dots. Whitey held still and silent, as if he were being blessed. It made Tony feel strange, the way they suddenly trusted her so close to them. Little Joe was given zigzags with the second tube. He worked around to see himself in the rearview.
“Cool,” he said. “I like that!”
Tony almost smiled.
Leroy turned without being asked. Tony gave him random swirls. Tony, Leroy, Little Joe, Buddy, and Whitey looked at each other. For the most fleeting moment Tony thought she should say something to them, like they were the best, or they were cool, but it was too fucking personal. She pulled the revolver out of her trousers and handed it to Whitey.
“Trade you,” she said.
“What? Why?” Whitey looked excited to have the chance to hold the larger gun, but there was an edge of suspicion to his voice.
Tony shrugged. “So I’m trying to be nice for once. Want it or not, Scarface?”
Whitey gave Tony his pistol in exchange for the revolver. He slid it into the pocket of his trench coat. “Cool,” he said. Then, “But I don’t wanna shoot nobody.”
“Don’t have to,” said Tony. “We’ll scare ‘em to death, just looking at us. Scare the living shit out of ‘em.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Tony let her finger slide along the trigger for a moment then she turned away and cracked it open. This baby was loaded. The itching beneath her hat flared hot and insistent. She grinned. “Take whatever you want, but don’t shoot less you have to,” she said. “Save the ammo for next time. But fuck the place up good.”
Leroy snatched up the bb gun from the floor and slid it inside the sweatshirt. The tip of the barrel poked out at the bottom.
Three doors popped open. The gang stepped out into the cold December sleet.
14
Mistie Henderson groaned suddenly, a throaty sound that was more canine than human.
Kate’s foot lifted instinctively from the accelerator. “Oh, God,” Kate whispered. Then, “Mistie, you okay?”
The groan again, followed by a soft whimper.
Kate had just steered from her driveway back onto Route 58, heading west. Fifteen miles ahead was the intersection for Interstate 95 at Emporia. The sleet was harder now and the tarmac was already covered with a slushy sheen. She would have to drive more slowly than she’d imagined to get to Interstate 95 heading north. With some luck the sleet would not follow her very far. It was her turn for luck. It was way past her turn for luck.
“Mistie?” repeated Kate. The car slowed.
God, don’t let anything be wrong with this child. Not now, not when I’m getting ready to help her, please just this once help me, just this once, okay? Hear me?
“Mistie, do I need to pull over? Are you sick? You aren’t sick, are you?”
Mistie was silent. Kate licked her top lip. “Are you sick?”
Silence.
“Are you hurt?”
Nothing.
“Scared?”
Silence. The car stopped in the middle of the sleet-covered road. Kate could see no one coming in either direction. The windshield wipers plopped back and forth.
“Hungry? Are you hungry, Mistie?”
This brought on a small whimper and a whine.