And the tire iron flamed, twice, followed by the sound of shots, twin explosions that set Hook’s ears ringing. He had read about people being shot or stabbed and not knowing it or feeling it till long afterwards, so as he stood there facing the gun not even fifteen feet from him he wondered if there could be an unfelt hole in his body even now spitting out his life’s blood. And once again his answer came from behind him, a sound very much like the one before, a shoe touching asphalt, scraping. And turning, he saw much the same sight as before—Parnelli standing in the road. Only this time it was the big Italian who looked surprised, not Hook, and he was holding his hands to his chest as if he were clutching something very dear to him, something he did not want to give up.

He went down like an old woman kneeling in church. At the edge of the blacktop, he rolled over on his back. The gunman, still holding his weapon, ran to him.

“Bo?” he cried. “Uncle Bo?”

Parnelli weakly shook his head. “You dumb guinea. You chickenshit guinea.” He coughed and his mouth bloomed blood.

In his shock Hook did not even think to seize the bloodied youth or take the gun from him. Instead he stood there like a passerby, some numb witness to violence and tragedy. The young man kept shaking his head, as if he were trying to convince his uncle that the thing had not happened. Then he gave up the argument. He turned and ran, leaped into the truck and threw it into gear and started off, not even waiting to close the door. In amazement, Hook watched him try to turn around on the narrow roadway. First he swerved left, up over some rocks and into a boulder on the inside of the road. Then he put the truck into reverse and swung backwards, smashing into Hook’s car and driving it off the road down into a gully, where it came to rest on its side, one headlight still burning. Again the truck surged forward, crashing into a small oak this time and losing a headlight; and then back again, tires screaming. And suddenly Hook got hold of himself, realized that in another few seconds the truck would go roaring down the monastery road toward the city—right over the spot where Parnelli was lying. Hook knew the big Italian had been shot in the chest and he was afraid that if he lifted him by the shoulders he might cause him further injury, so he took him by the ankles instead and hurriedly dragged him off the road—just as the truck came shooting past. It careened wildly around the first curve below, and Hook found himself standing and watching, like a spectator at an auto race, as the pickup continued down the mountainside, screaming around the hairpin curves one after another, smashing over rocks and through brush and then gaining the roadway again only to lose it on the next curve, until finally, almost at the end, it did not make it out of a curve but came to an abrupt and plangent stop in the trees growing there. And, oddly, as the truck’s one remaining headlight went out in the crash, its horn came on, like a timorous cry for help.