…as full of piss and vinegar as any kid I’ve ever seen…

“I shot him in the head. I missed the first time, but the second I did okay. You’d be surprised how much blood there is in a kid.”

The nine millimeter under my left arm was talking to me. I could feel it like some part of me that ached.

Somehow I said, “What did you do then?”

“Well, I had this plastic sheeting I brought. Wrapped him up in that and put him in the back of the station wagon. Covered him with a comforter Doc sleeps on. We stopped for a drink. I had to send Bonnie in because I had too much blood on me. We just sat and drank in the car. I got out once and walked around the station wagon to make sure it wasn’t leaking blood. It got on the floorboard in front, you see. When we finished our whiskey, I drove us home.”

“To St. Joe.”

That surprised him. “Yes. Bonnie has a little house there. We buried him near the back porch. She put flowers in on it and it looked nice. Seemed like the right thing to do.”

The Browning talked to me. Do it. Do it. Was that my father’s voice?

I said, just filling the air, “Must have taken a while to dig that hole.”

“Oh, yeah. I’d dig an hour, then go inside and lie down and rest a while…you know, drink a little…then go out and dig some more. Wasn’t much of a hole, though. Three feet deep, maybe. Five feet long?”

Was he asking me?

I said, burying the sarcasm deeper than the boy, “You must have been beat after such a busy day.”

“Oh, no. I dug the hole in advance.”

I backhanded him.

Then I got the nine millimeter out and his little mouth opened big, trailing blood from one corner but not enough blood to suit me, and the dead eyes got wide and afraid.

A bang followed, but it was a fist on the door—it banged three times, twice fast, once slow, and Hagan’s voice said, “Steve, this is Johnny.”

A key worked in the door and Lt. Lou Shoulders and a young patrolman came in with their guns out and ready. I put mine away. Hagan was out in the hall, glimpsed for a moment, before he slipped away.

Still just sitting there, trickling blood, Carl looked at me in tragic disappointment. “I can’t believe Johnny Boy betrayed me…”

“There are worse sins,” I said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lt. Shoulders kept his revolver trained on a dazed Carl Hall as the young uniformed officer shuttled me into my room next door. Oddly, the patrolman might have been a junior version of Shoulders: dark hair, high forehead, dark bushy eyebrows, prominent nose over a small but full mouth. The difference was Shoulders’ fleshy face, which had seen considerable wear and tear, while this crossing guard of a cop seemed like his had barely been used yet.