Twenty-Seven

It took them nearly twenty minutes to get Charles onto the burn pile.

Crate stood panting, looking down at their handiwork while Bilbo Baggins paced around his feet.

Stacy was inside. Misty had urged her to stay in the back and to just take it easy. Mostly because she didn’t want to hear the silly bitch prattle on about karmic this, that, and the other, but also because she knew Stacy was soft and didn’t want her to see what was happening out here.

But she had seen things, and would see more. That was the world now. Stacy would harden up.

Misty stepped into the store to find Stacy standing beside the yellow rolling mop bucket, wrenching down the lever and wringing soapy pink water from the twisted mop. The air smelled of pine-scented cleanser.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said, surprised.

“I want to,” Stacy said. Her voice quivered as if she were holding back tears.

“Okay.”

“Why did Crate shoot Charles?”

Misty opened her mouth, unsure.

“It was his idea,” Misty said. “While you were asleep, he told them to do what they wanted with you instead of stealing our supplies.”

Stacy stood staring at Misty and clutching the mop handle. She didn’t bother with her crystal.

“He deserved it,” Misty said. “They all did. You’re doing a great job. Thank you.”

Stacy mumbled. Misty turned and left, stepped onto the porch and sat down. Crate leaned against one of the posts, his hands on his hips.

“Good going,” he said, his voice low. “That was smart.”

“It’s not far from the truth.”

“Mm.” He wiped his neck with a rag from his pocket. “That fat son of a bitch in there is going to kill us if I don’t find a chainsaw,” Crate said, settling his bony ass onto the bench. His dog lay nearby, watching.

“Want to light them up?” Misty asked. She was tired of seeing their faces, such as they were.

“Not until Moby Dick is ready,” he said, and laughed. Misty didn’t care much for the sound of it. “Goddammit. It’s going to be a fucking grease fire.”

A car raced by. Crate held the rifle across his lap, ready to spring into action like Jimmy Stewart in one of the old Westerns they played on Sunday afternoons. Winchester ’73 maybe.

“First one in over three hours,” he said, as if this suggested something. Maybe it did.

“Maybe they have the right idea.”

“Now, we’re going to sit tight. Wait and see what happens.” He shrugged. “What else can we do? We’re going to protect what’s ours. You should learn to use a gun. We got that Ruger now, that cop’s gun?”

That cop’s gun. As if he’d forgotten Eric Tasgal’s name.

“We’ll see,” she said, and Crate’s eyes widened.

“Cornwell has a chainsaw,” he said. Thomas Cornwell lived nearby, and came in every Sunday for sliced turkey and to talk about his wife, who’d been dead for seven years now. He and Crate got on well, once they got to drinking.

“He also has a shotgun,” Crate added, shaking his head. “He’s the shoot first type. Hell, I’m surprised we haven’t seen him yet. What about your knives?”

“What?”

“Your deli knives? Any of them up to butchering that hog back there?”

“God, Crate,” she said, shaking her head.

“Eh? Need something.”

“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “Maybe so, but who’s going to do it? You? I sure as hell won’t.”

“Eh,” Crate said, dismissive. His tired old arms weren’t up to the job, and he knew it. “I’ll be back then.”

Carrying his rifle, he got up and walked to the dead black man’s car. He whistled once, and his dog followed him.

“Where are you going?”

“To borrow Cornwell’s chainsaw,” he said, sliding behind the wheel of the old Ford. Bilbo Baggins hopped across his lap and into the passenger seat. “Go inside and lock that door.”

He started the engine, backed out of the parking lot, and was gone.

After a few minutes sitting alone, she went inside and locked up.

“Can I use the Lysol on the shelf? It would help.” Stacy asked, holding the mop handle. The floor looked significantly better.

Misty shrugged and flapped her hands. “Sure. Don’t finish up yet, though. The mess is about to get messier.”

“Huh?”

“Crate’s gone off to borrow someone’s chainsaw.” Misty said, and when she saw the confused look on Stacy’s face, she nodded to Haggarty’s massive form lying by the candy rack.

“Oh,” Stacy said, and Misty wasn’t sure it had really sunk in. Then Stacy’s eyes widened, and her mouth twisted into a sour knot. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Misty said. She left Stacy, walked into the back, into her bedroom, where she stood looking down at Tasgal’s gun. It lay on the bedside table, where Crate had left it. She picked it up. Not liking the feel of it, she put it down.

She got halfway to the bedroom door before she stopped, walked back to the bedside table, and picked up the gun once more.

Misty didn’t like the feel of it at all, not one damned bit, but she liked the idea of getting into trouble without it even less.