“I mean his signal shot hit me in the fuckin’ face!” Booker touched his tender cheek. Now that the Shiner Bock/Hombre Muchacho buzz had worn off, the wounds stung like hellfire.

Manny stepped in for a closer look. He shrugged. “Well, one good thing about your acne; it hides the pellet wounds. That’s in our favor. It’s important you don’t tell anybody about getting shot in the face. That could raise suspicion. Anyway, you’ll heal up in no time. Ain’t that right, Elray?”

Elray nodded and bit into his corn dog.

“So what’s the plan now, genius?” Tommy asked.

“It’s like this,” Booker said. “After you guys got out of there, me and Manny and Elray went about covering our tracks. Literally. We picked up all the busted chain links and we smoothed over the tire tracks from your daddy’s truck. Now seeing as how all the witnesses are sitting tight at the bottom of the river, the whole deal will look like an accident just like we planned. So y’all see now? Everything’s cool.”

“Cool?” Tommy threw his arms up, exasperated. “Are you kidding? Did you cover up your footprints, too?”

“Yes, Tommy, for chrissake. We stepped over every one of them,” Booker said.

“Oh, Jesus!”

“Calm down,” Manny said. “All we got to do now is come up with an alibi.”

“Right. We need an alibi.” Booker paced for a minute. “How ’bout this: we were quail hunting.”

“At night?” Manny asked.

“In the rain?” Tommy intoned.

“I’m not so sure our alibi should involve guns,” Manny said. “Especially seein’ as how Elray shot you in the face.”

A car turned into the parking lot. Headlights bathed the group.

“Everyone act happy,” Booker said through a false grin.

No one did.

The car passed by without incident.

It was just past midnight. The rain had let up to a soft drizzle, but the wind was still gusting and the temperature hovered just above freezing. News of the bus crash had spread quickly throughout the region. Television and radio bulletins ran on every station. The streets were virtually empty, save for emergency vehicles. Distant sirens screamed across town in every direction. Even The Shake and Scoop drive-in, usually a hot spot on Friday nights, was a ghost town except for the odd customer and a handful of employees.

“I got it,” Booker said, snapping his fingers. “We’ll just say we were having a study session for school.”

“You really don’t understand the strategy behind this whole alibi thing, do you?” Tommy said. “The idea is to make it actually believable.”

“Come on, fellas, this ain’t that hard.” Manny said. He asked who had parents out of town. Two of the players raised their hands. Manny pointed to Dougie Scagnetty.