Oh dear Jesus, bring on the clowns, O’Mearah thought miserably, and when Fat Johnny asked again if O’Mearah would use the key on the counter to unlock the handcuffs, O’Mearah said, “I ought to . . .” He paused, because he’d been about to say I ought to shoot you in the guts instead, but he couldn’t very well shoot Fat Johnny, could he? The guns here were chained down, and the geek in the gold-rimmed glasses, the geek who had seemed so much like a solid citizen, had taken his and Carl’s as easily as O’Mearah himself might take a popgun from a kid.

Instead of finishing, he got the key and unlocked the cuffs. He spotted the .357 Magnum which Roland had kicked into the corner and picked it up. It wouldn’t fit in his holster, so he stuffed it in his belt.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Fat Johnny bleated.

“Yeah? You want it back?” O’Mearah had to speak slowly. His head really ached. At that moment all he wanted to do was find Mr. Gold-Rimmed Specs and nail him to a handy wall. With dull nails. “I hear they like fat guys like you up in Attica, Johnny. They got a saying: ‘The bigger the cushion, the better the pushin.’ You sure you want it back?”

Fat Johnny turned away without a word, but not before O’Mearah had seen the tears welling in his eyes and the wet patch on his pants. He felt no pity.

“Where is he?” Carl Delevan asked in a furry, buzzing voice.

“He left,” Fat Johnny said dully. “That’s all I know. He left. I thought he was gonna kill me.”

Delevan was getting slowly to his feet. He felt tacky wetness on the side of his face and looked at his fingers. Blood. Fuck. He groped for his gun and kept groping, groping and hoping, long after his fingers had assured him his gun and holster were gone. O’Mearah merely had a headache; Delevan felt as if someone had used the inside of his head as a nuclear weapons testing site.

“Guy took my gun,” he said to O’Mearah. His voice was so slurry the words were almost impossible to make out.

“Join the club.”

“He still here?” Delevan took a step toward O’Mearah, tilted to the left as if he were on the deck of a ship in a heavy sea, and then managed to right himself.

“No.”

“How long?” Delevan looked at Fat Johnny, who didn’t answer, perhaps because Fat Johnny, whose back was turned, thought Delevan was still talking to his partner. Delevan, not a man noted for even temper and restrained behavior under the best of circumstances, roared at the man, even though it made his head feel like it was going to crack into a thousand pieces: “I asked you a question, you fat shit! How long has that motherfucker been gone?”

“Five minutes, maybe,” Fat Johnny said dully. “Took his shells and your guns.” He paused. “Paid for the shells. I couldn’t believe it.”