I said, “Your sister and Don. You’ve told them this story?”
Trixie nodded. “They know.” She ran her hands through her hair, gave her head a shake. “Fletcher puts his hand on my shoulder, spins my chair around, puts my face up to his crotch. The others, they’re starting to laugh.”
She rolled the chair back so she could get her purse, get the gun.
Fletcher took a couple of steps back, couldn’t believe it, barely had a chance to say “What the fuck” before the first shot went into him.
“Then Smith and Heighton, they were on their feet, not sure whether to get the hell out of the room or come at me, but I was between them and the door, so they pretty much had to run at me regardless. I fired again, got Smith, then Heighton, and they both fell, almost on top of each other. I’d managed to shoot all three of them square in the chest. Eldon, he’d taught me a few things, and one of them was how to use a gun, and how to aim it. They were moaning, telling me to call an ambulance, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I knew I had to get out of there as fast as I could, pick up Katie from the sitter’s, get out of town as fast as I could. Gary and Leo, they’d already been gone half an hour, they’d be coming back at any moment, and someone might have heard the shots, already called the police.”
She put her hands on her hips, took in a deep breath. I saw the hawk swoop down; a moment later it was back in the air, something small and lifeless in its talons.
“But you weren’t quite done, were you?” I said.
Trixie’s eyebrows went up a notch.
“There was something about the way you shot them,” I said. “Something…distinctive.”
Trixie smiled. “Fletcher was already on his back, so it was easy to shoot him in the balls. Payne was on his side, so I had to push him over with my foot, and then I shot him there too. Heighton, he was crawling for the door, reaching up for the knob, and then he just kind of flipped over on his own. And I shot him in the balls too. And then I walked out, thought I could hear Merker and Leo coming up the stairs, and I snuck out the back way, down the fire escape.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“But I feel bad, you know?” Trixie said.
“Sure,” I said. “Of course you do. Even though it was self-defense, even though they deserved it, even though they had it coming, you can’t take people’s lives away from them and not, I don’t know, live with the regret, one way or another.”
Trixie smiled at me, patted my shoulder. “Oh, Zack, you’re just so sweet. That’s not why I feel bad. I feel bad because I didn’t get Gary. I play it over in my head, over and over and over again, and I see myself shooting him, then leaving a little get-well card for him, with a hundred and ten dollars tucked into the envelope.”
Those stolen Milky Way bars didn’t seem like that big a deal anymore.
29
HEADING BACK TO THE HOUSE, I said, “A couple of years back, when I came to your house unexpectedly one night, in a bit of a pickle, you sent me to a neighbor when I needed a gun.”
“I remember,” Trixie said.
“But I’m guessing you already had one.”
“Yeah. And if you’d used it, and if they ever matched the bullets you fired to the ones that killed those three in Canborough, by now one of us would have already served a year or two in jail for that.”
“Well, thanks for that, then.”
Katie was on the porch, cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting, “Dinner!”
Trixie smiled. “Coming!”
“It’s chicken!”
“Okay!”
Katie ran back into the house.
“She’s beautiful,” I said.
“Yeah. I might be able to take some of the credit for her looks, but it’s Claire and Don who are raising her. And they’re doing a hell of a job. She’s in kindergarten now, smart as a whip.”
We were taking our time walking back, allowing ourselves more time to talk things out. But I didn’t know what to say. I was feeling a little shell-shocked.
“So, now what?” Trixie asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You still think I should go to the police, tell them everything?”
“I don’t know.” I paused. “But you can’t keep running. You can’t live this way. Maybe, I don’t know, you’ve got something to trade? What do you know about the drug trade, that other biker gang in Canborough? Maybe, you tell the cops everything you know, help them clear some cases, you can cut some sort of deal.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll have to give that some sort of thought. Regardless, I have to move on. I stay here one more night, and I’m gone.”
“Trixie,” I said, stopping and taking her elbow, looking her in the eye. “Face up to it. Do what you have to do, try to start over.”