Richie stared through his window. “God, am I thirsty! Let’s go over there and get a six-pack.”
He was referring to a convenience store that could be seen, looking between a darkened commercial building and a parking lot full of school buses, out on the far side of the highway. It was all the brighter for being the only local source of illumination except for a self-service gas station, at the moment devoid of cars, an eighth of a mile to the west.
“Okay,” said John. “But I’ll be the one who goes in for the beer.”
Richie whined. “I might see something else I want! I like to look around those places. You don’t know what it is, being cooped up for a couple of years, not able to buy snacks except from a machine, and you couldn’t always get out to the lounge area. You might be under restraint. Have a heart, Brother!”
He turned onto the next cross street, drove to the highway, and waited submissively at the traffic light there, even though it stayed red forever and during this time there was but one vehicle, a battered pickup truck, that passed on the main road. John himself would have been tempted, having determined that the coast was clear of police, finally to run the light or anyway make a right turn on the red, illegal in city limits, and then a quick, sneaky, equally illegal U-turn, but he was suffering from an anxiety in which everything crawled in slow motion. Whereas Richie seemed to have all the time in the world.
Eventually the light changed and Richie drove across to the parking lot alongside the convenience store. Only two other cars were there. At least one must belong to whoever was working in the place at this hour. Such businesses were notoriously attractive to criminals, open as they were at all hours, and often, as was true of this one, in an area that at night was remote from all humanity but those persons who might pause in transit to buy tomorrow’s breakfast or a late-night snack. The clerks must worry about each new arrival. What a job. John instinctively viewed such matters from the perspective of an employee and not that of whoever made a profit from the franchise, still less the absentee licensing firm. He could too easily see himself behind the counter when some Richie entered. Richie was incapable of that sort of imagination. He answered only to his own urges. The initiative was always his. Everyone else in the world must wait for what he chose to do, and therefore, as long as he was alive, no one could be protected from him.
Richie parked the car at a significant distance from the other two vehicles and, without shutting off the engine, opened his door.
John reached over and turned the ignition key. The noise of the engine had not been loud, but the utter silence was startling.
Richie stayed in his seat. “Why did you do that?”
“You’re not going to make a quick getaway, if that’s what you had in mind.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” said Richie. “I wasn’t thinking at all.”
“That’s what people do when they get out of a car: turn off the motor.” John put out his hand. “Let’s have the gun.”
“John, I can’t do it. I just can’t. Don’t ask me.”
“Then you sit tight. I’ll go in for the beer.” John had formulated a new plan, the old one (to get the pistol away from Richie and kill him with it) having now been revealed as pitifully impracticable for a real-estate man, father of two young children, husband to a woman who was his superior in moral strength. With Richie alone in the car, in an almost deserted parking lot at this hour, there could be no objection to an all-out assault by the police. He would ask the store clerk to call them and, with him and whatever other customers were at hand, take refuge in a locked office or storeroom until they arrived. There was sure to be a gunfight, in which Richie might well be slain. Of course, if he was not killed outright, he would be patched up and eventually sent back to Barnes Psychiatric. But it was the best plan John could devise. He was not a professional at this sort of thing, and he was all alone with the problem.
“I can’t stay out here,” Richie said. “I’ll go nuts. You come along, John. We ought to do things together, then we can stick up for one another if anybody tries to give us crap.” He left the car.
John had no choice but to accompany him into the store. A husky black man in early middle age stood at the register, totting up the bill for several items assembled by a corpulent white fellow in his late twenties: packaged doughnuts and a carton of milk among them. The clerk glanced at the new arrivals, and John ritualistically nodded at him, looking quickly away lest his fear be visible.
Richie loped swiftly to the rear of the store, where tiers of six-packs and ranks of stout plastic bottles could be seen through the glass doors of the refrigerated showcase. John stopped halfway along the aisle. All he could hope for was that they got out of there without incident. Apprising the clerk obviously could not be done in the time available.
Richie came back with two packs of beer, one under each arm, so that both his hands remained free. “Go get whatever else we need, John. Nuts, corn chips, or whatever.”
John looked around, as if seriously considering the request.
The fat customer went out the door. The clerk asked, in a strong enough voice to carry to them, “Something you’re looking for, gentlemen?”
“Chips,” John said quickly.
“Next aisle, right side.”
“Do we really need any?” John asked Richie. “I’m not hungry. Let’s just hit the road.”
“You’re the boss,” Richie said with verve and strode past the clerk toward the door.
John stopped at the counter as if to pay the tab, though of course he could not have done so, having no money on him. The clerk wore a short-sleeved blue shirt and a neat bow tie. With his heavy graying head and self-possessed expression, he looked as if he might be one of the retired cops who sometimes took such employment.
John made the situation clear by calling to Richie, “You got all the money.”
“Let’s go,” Richie said.
“No,” said John. “We’ve got to pay.”
Richie put his back against the door and pushed it open with his rump. “Hell with that. Did you see the prices these crooks are asking? They’re highway robbers.”
“Just bring the stuff back here,” said the clerk, in a voice of calm authority. John had not been looking at him, but he did so now. The man brought a large handgun up from beneath the counter.
Richie stopped where he was and produced an exaggerated grin. “Well, if you’re going to get nasty about it.”
“That’s right,” the clerk said. “I am going to. It’s happened once too often around here.” He included John in the gestures he made with the barrel of the weapon.
Richie came back to the counter and carefully, working one side at a time, deposited the cartons of beer in front of the clerk. While the second six-pack, which had been under his left elbow, was descending to the counter, he swept his jacket back and from the right side of his waistband drew the revolver he had taken from Officer Swanson. He fired twice.
The big man’s body jerked, as if from the blow of a fist, when each of the slugs hit him. He lost the support of his knees and went down.
“There you are, John,” said Richie. “You saw what happened. It wasn’t me who drew first.”
John felt himself shudder so violently that he could hardly maintain his balance, though perhaps that was only an illusion brought on by terror, for he quite competently went behind the counter and crouched to attend to the victim.
The man was alive. He sat there as his shirtfront turned red. Though struggling for breath, he managed to raise his bloodshot eyes and lift his gun to point at John. But he proved too weak to fire it. John had to exert very little force to take the weapon away. It was an automatic—ready to fire, he hoped, for he had never held one except in the form of a plastic childhood toy and would not have known what to do other than simply pull the trigger.
He came up behind the counter. He was conscious of the Band-Aid on his thumb and the wound under it, which was stinging and had probably sta
rted to bleed again.
Richie smiled disarmingly, his own weapon at his side, muzzle pointing at the floor. “Now you got yourself a gun, John. What in the world are you going to do with it?”
John never again looked at Richie’s face. He continued to pull the trigger after the pistol was empty; the shots were still echoing across the aisles of shelved food. When he was finished, he tried to return the weapon to the fallen clerk, whose property it was, but by now the man was unconscious, yet still alive. Without looking at Richie, John knew that he was dead: they had had a connection.
He located the phone and called 911 for an ambulance. Then he dragged himself back to sit alongside the wounded clerk. Killing Richie in what was really cold blood had not yet horrified or sickened him, but he assumed that both reactions, and worse, might come when his sense of self returned. Perhaps he would not survive.
But when he heard the approaching wail of the ambulance, he felt affirmative enough to climb to his feet and wait standing up.
About the Author
THOMAS BERGER is the author of twenty-two novels. His previous novels include Regiment of Women, Neighbors, and The Feud, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His Little Big Man is known throughout the world.
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