Leonard had a lot of his stuff at my place, so we decided he could easily pack and go from there. Some of his clothes were dirty, though, so we put them in the washer, and while it churned, we sat and talked.
Sometime later, Leonard moved his clothes to the dryer and put on a fresh shirt and pants. He came back from changing, said, “I’m cravin’ more of that chili.”
“Help yourself,” I said. I was sitting on the couch with my feet on the coffee table, glancing at one of Brett’s magazines. It didn’t really have anything to do with anything I was interested in, but it killed a bit of time.
“No more crackers,” he said.
“Eat it without crackers.”
“I like crackers.”
“I like steak and baked potato, but what you have is chili, no crackers.”
“I’m gonna go get some.”
“You want crackers that bad?”
“It’s the way you eat chili.”
“You have a rule book?” I asked.
“I know things.”
Leonard got his coat. “And you’re out of vanilla cookies.”
“Wow, wonder where those went.”
Leonard put the coat on and took his deerstalker out of the pocket and put it on. I didn’t say anything, but I’m sure I sighed. Going out the door, he said, “I’ll be back in twenty or thirty.”
“Don’t screw around,” I said. “We need to pack and get gone. We have people to irritate.”
“I wouldn’t miss that,” he said.
Leonard was gone about five minutes when I realized Leonard had left his wallet on the table with his cell phone, and even his pistol. The sawed-off was there too. He had taken them out of his pants when he had changed clothes. He was driven to have those crackers and cookies and he didn’t think he needed a gun to get them. A wallet with money, though. He needed that. And frankly, the idea of him being out there, and Devil Red maybe being out there, and Leonard without a gun, it unnerved me a little. I was starting to get as paranoid as Bert was.
I got his wallet and phone and my own gun, and drove over to Wal-Mart. I knew that’s where he’d go. It’s where he always went.
As I drove over, it started to sleet and I could see that ice was cresting the grass in yards I passed.
When I got to the lot, I cruised around, looking for his car, and I saw it and I saw him. Leonard was in the lot walking. He had his hands in his coat pockets and his head down against the sleet.
I saw a black SUV turn down the row of cars where Leonard was walking, and when I did, my heart sank.
I drove faster, but the SUV was on him, and the back side window came down, and I saw a pistol poke out of it. I honked my horn at the same time Leonard was turning, reaching under his coat-
– for nothing.
His guns were at home, on the table.
There was a blast of fire from the open window. Snap. Snap. Snap.
Leonard went down.
I pulled over quick and got out and fired at the dark-windowed SUV and the glass popped and made a spider design but didn’t break. The SUV gunned in. They came by my position. I could see a shape inside, through the open window, but my main concentration was on the gun poking out at me. I fired once and leaped over the hood of my car. A bullet scraped something and I lay down tight behind my tire, peeked out and under.
The SUV was roaring away. I stood up and draped my gun over the roof of my car. Someone screamed. I saw a shopper pushing a cart go right behind the SUV. No shot there. No license plate either. Not that it would have mattered. They knew what they were doing. Those plates would be false.
I screamed because I couldn’t do anything else.
I put the gun away and ran toward Leonard.
It seemed to take me forever to get there.
He didn’t get up. He didn’t move.
The lights from Wal-Mart seemed to strobe.