Dark of the Moon

shouting, a long way away, but no horn honking. Williamson had bailed. Could hear crickets, could hear the crinkle of grass in the breeze, could hear the rasping szzzikks of nighthawks. Listened as hard as he could, heard nothing more.
    Moved on.
     
    W ILLIAMSON RAN AWAY from the car, into the dark, clutching the shotgun, no particular destination in mind. He’d fucked up, and this was what happened when you fucked up.
    He’d known that Flowers would be out there on the street, watching the Dairy Queen. What he’d thought was, “How stupid does he think I am?”—that dumb little bitch Jesse Laymon calling him up, laying all that past-history stuff on him, like she thought it up herself. The meeting had to be a setup.
    Had to be.
    So he’d come up with a counterstroke: it was possible that Flowers had kept his investigation to himself, because Stryker and the others were also suspects. And if the newspaper were under surveillance, and if he showed himself there, and then, if he went over the roof, down the whole block, and came down the fire escape on the back of Hartbry’s, and wired it down…and if he nailed Flowers as he waited in his truck, and then cut behind Sherwin-Williams and made it down the alley and back up the fire escape…
    Hell, it was a big risk, but the jig was almost up anyway. Flowers was pushing him, and if he knew about the Williamsons and the way they died…
    But if he pulled it off—he was good.
    Flowers killed, while he was under surveillance.
    The shotgun was Judd Jr.’s and old enough that they’d probably never trace it to him. He could drop it in the street after he fired it…
    He’d worked through it, frightened himself, worked through it again, rehearsed it, had, at the last minute, gone to the roof and spotted two watchers—he knew every car in town, certainly knew Stryker’s and Jensen’s—and convinced himself it would work.
    Scared, sweating, pulling on the black turtleneck, hot in the night, the gloves, his regular black slacks.
     
    H E ’ D RUN the turtleneck and the gloves through the shredder when he got back, he thought, flush them down the toilet…
    Jesus, what a risk.
    Jesus, what a rush.
    End it. End it.
     
    H E ’ D ALMOST DONE IT.
    He’d been sure he had Flowers, if nothing else. Had seen the head in the window of the truck, from the back. Had come up just right, had hardly heard the boom of the shotgun, had felt the most intense joy at the impact in the glass, and started to run, and then somebody called his name and he finished turning and saw movement and fired the gun and realized he’d been had…
    “How stupid does he think I am?”
     
    T HE REST of it all passed in a panic flash. He was on foot, he could hear the cop cars all around, then the lights came around a corner, and Carr was coming up the alley. He stepped into a hedge, simply pressed back into it, and when she came up…
    Boom/Flash.
     
    H E HAD the car; he could hear them screaming on Carr’s radio as he dumped her into the street, and then he was around the corner; and then more lights, and a flasher bar behind him. He hadn’t thought about where to go, but he happened to be going north. He heard more cars calling in, heard them calling out his location, felt the squeeze.
    He wouldn’t go far in the car.
    A last stand wasn’t his style.
    He turned without thinking down the county road that led to the park road, then up the park road to the Judd turnoff, radio blasting, lights behind him, more lights on the road below…and he turned down the crease in the hill that had taken his mother, and thought to follow her over, get it done with.
    No guts.
    Bailed at the last moment, grabbing the shotgun as he went.
    Found himself rolling across the rocks, in the dark, as Margo Carr’s vehicle rolled down the hill and over the bluff, like a GMC Buffalo.
     
    H E CRAWLED, got up, started to run. Fell, hurt himself. Take it slower.
    Slower. The car disappeared and he dropped into the knee-high prairie grass and began to crawl, the shotgun clattering over the surface rocks, and he crawled and shuffled and duckwalked and hopped, away from the lights, below the pit of the Judd house, along the bluff, to get away, to get anywhere…
    And he heard a rock rolling; a footstep. Froze.
    Lights down the hill, men shouting, but here, it was as black as a coal bin, and quiet.
    Another rock. He wasn’t alone. Buffalo? There was a fence, couldn’t be a buffalo. Could be a deer…
    Could be that