“Oh sure,” I said. “Who doesn’t like dogs?” To be honest, I had some bad, fairly recent memories concerning dogs, but I didn’t see much sense in getting into that. “Dogs are great. And I think I know something else about you, Leo. You wouldn’t even join in, would you, when Gary and others, back at the Kickstart years ago, were raping Candace. The woman I know as Trixie.”

“That was mean,” Leo said. “She’s actually pretty nice, you know?”

“I know. And her daughter, she’s nice too, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. So where did she go, exactly?”

“She went off with my wife. She’s going to be fine.”

“That’s good.”

I felt I didn’t have much more time. “Leo, you have to let me go. It’s the right thing to do. And you should go too. Just get out of the car and get out of here.”

“Gary’d be really pissed if I did that. He’d say—”

And then we heard the shots from inside the Burger Crisp. Five, it sounded like, in quick succession.

Bang. Then bang bang. And then one more. Bang.

There were screams inside the restaurant, people throwing themselves to the floor, it looked like, through the window.

And then the door burst open and Gary came running out, gun in one hand, gym bag in the other.

Looking like a crazy person.

He set the bag on the roof, opened the door, grabbed the bag and tossed it into the back seat with Leo, got in and closed the door.

“Whoa!” he shouted, nose twitching. “Holy shit!”

I didn’t want to ask what had happened.

In the back, Leo said, “There any chance I still might be able to use the washroom?”

CHAPTER 41

41

MERKER SLAMMED THE CONSOLE SHIFTER into drive and sped out of the Burger Crisp parking lot without considering Leo’s request for a pit stop. As the car fishtailed onto the street, I tried to keep my upper body from whipping about too severely to avoid being choked by the belt around my neck. I had one hand gripped onto the door armrest, my nails digging into the plastic, the other onto the edge of the leather bucket seat. It helped a bit that once Merker got back into the car, Leo released his grip on the belt, so I had a bit of slack.

I turned my head enough to see a few people running out of the Burger Crisp, screaming. I did not see, however, any of the Gorkin ladies among those fleeing.

“Did you see Ludmilla?” Leo asked.

“I saw them all,” Merker said, weaving from one lane to another, trying to put a lot of distance between us and the Burger Crisp as quickly as possible.

“I know this is crazy, after being sick and all,” Leo said, “but all of a sudden I feel a little bit hungry.”