"Well, neighbor, I sure did lie about that. I was back early from my doctor's, and feeling sad that I had to turn him down after he'd worked so hard at persuading me to take the chemo, and then I saw that ragbag of yours lying in a puddle of her own puke, panting, flies all around her, and I cheered right up. I thought, 'Goddam, there is justice. There is justice after all.' It was only a low-voltage, low-current cattle fence-I was absolutely honest about that-but it certainly did the job, didn't it?"
Curtis Johnson got the full sense of this after a moment of utter, perhaps willful, incomprehension. Then he started forward, rolling his hands into fists. He hadn't hit anyone since a playground scuffle when he was in the third grade, but he meant to hit someone now. He meant to hit The Motherfucker. The bugs still buzzed obliviously in the grass, and the sun still hammered down-nothing in the essential world had changed except for him. The uncaring listlessness was gone. He cared about at least one thing: beating Grunwald until he cried and bled and crawfished. And he thought he could do it. Grunwald was twenty years older, and not well. And when The Motherfucker was on the ground-hopefully with his newly broken nose in one of those nasty puddles-Curtis would say, That was for my ragbag. Neighbor.
Grunwald took one compensatory step backward. Then he brought his hand out from behind his back. In it was a large handgun. "Stop right there, neighbor, or I'll put an extra hole in your head."
Curtis almost didn't stop. The gun seemed unreal. Death, out of that black eyehole? Surely not possible. But-
"It's a.45 AMT Hardballer," Grunwald said, "loaded with soft-point ammo. I got it the last time I was in Vegas. At a gun show. Just after Ginny left, that was. I thought I might shoot her, but I find I've lost all interest in Ginny. Basically, she's just another anorexic Suncoast cunt with Styrofoam tits. You, however-you're something different. You're malevolent, Johnson. You're a f**king g*y witch."
Curtis stopped. He believed.
"But now you're in my power, as they say." The Motherfucker laughed, once more choking it off so it sounded strangely like a sob. "I don't even have to hit you dead on. This is a powerful gun, or so I was told. Even a hit in the hand would render you dead, because it would tear your hand right off. And in the midsection? Your guts'd fly forty feet. So do you want to try it? Do you feel lucky, punk?"
Curtis did not want to try it. He did not feel lucky. The truth was belated but obvious: he had been cozened out here by a complete barking lunatic.
"What do you want? I'll give you what you want." Curtis swallowed. There was an insectile click in his throat. "Do you want me to call off the suit about Betsy?"
"Don't call her Betsy," The Motherfucker said. He had the gun-the Hardballer, what a grotesque name-pointed at Curtis's face, and now the hole looked very big indeed. Curtis realized he would probably be dead before he heard the gun's report, although he might see flame-or the beginning of flame-spurt from the barrel. He also realized that he was perilously close to pissing himself. "Call her 'my ass-faced ragbag bitch.'"
"My ass-faced ragbag bitch," Curtis repeated at once, and didn't feel the slightest twinge of disloyalty to Betsy's memory.
"Now say, 'And how I loved to lick her smelly cunt,'" The Motherfucker further instructed.
Curtis was silent. He was relieved to discover there were still limits. Besides, if he said that, The Motherfucker would only want him to say something else.
Grunwald did not seem particularly disappointed. He waggled the gun. "Just joking about that one, anyway."
Curtis was silent. Part of his mind was roaring with panic and confusion, but another part seemed clearer than it had been since Betsy died. Maybe clearer than it had been in years. That part was musing on the fact that he really could die out here.
He thought, What if I never get to eat another slice of bread?, and for a moment his mind united-the confused part and the clear part-in a desire to live so strong it was terrible.
"What do you want, Grunwald?"
"For you to get into one of those Port-O-Sans. The one on the end." He waggled the gun again, this time to the left.
Curtis turned to look, feeling a small thread of hope. If Grunwald intended to lock him up...that was good, right? Maybe now that he'd scared Curtis and blown off a little steam, Grunwald intended to stash him and make his getaway. Or maybe he'll go home and shoot himself, Curtis thought. Take that old.45 Hardballer cancer cure. A well-known folk remedy.
He said, "All right. I can do that."
"But first I want you to empty your pockets. Dump them right out on the ground."
Curtis pulled out his wallet, then, reluctantly, his cell phone. A little sheaf of bills in a money clip. His dandruff-flecked comb.
"That it?"
"Yes."
"Turn those pocketses inside out, Precious. I want to see for myself."
Curtis turned out his left front pocket, then his right. A few coins and the key to his motor scooter fell to the ground, where they glittered in the hazy sun.
"Good," Grunwald said. "Now the back ones."
Curtis turned out his rear pockets. There was an old shopping list jotted on a scrap of paper. Nothing else.
Grunwald said, "Kick your cell phone over here."