Hawley stood up, slivers of pain shooting from his knuckles to his wrists. At his feet King groaned and rolled to his side. There was pie all over the floor. Peaches and pineapple and blueberries and whipped cream were smeared across King’s suit. His hanging door-nose now swung in the opposite direction. Hawley kept his eyes on the cook. His nerves ached. He took a step closer to the duffel bag.
The waitress hung up the phone. “They’re coming,” she said, and went to stand behind the counter. The cook remained in the aisle between the counter and the tables, the shotgun poised.
“I don’t want any trouble,” said Hawley, “but I’m going to leave now. I’m going to walk out real slow. I won’t bother anybody.”
“You’ll stay and talk to the police,” said the cook.
“Sorry,” said Hawley. “I can’t do that.” He checked the mirrors, gave one quick glance at the parking lot. Then he reached down and picked up the duffel bag and the satchel with Jove’s money and took a step toward the old man.
“Stay where you are,” said the cook.
“I’m going to walk past you,” said Hawley, “and then I’ll be gone. You’ll never see me again. All I want is to go through that door.” He moved down the aisle. He could smell something burning on the stove. The neon clock was flickering overhead, the light bouncing off the edges of the chrome. It was so quiet he could hear the buzzing current that moved the hands of the clock, sweeping the thin black line past the numbers.
The cook did not lower the gun, but he backed into one of the booths and let Hawley pass. And as soon as he did, it was as if Hawley had entered a dream. Like he’d done all of this already in another life, and knew the cook was going to let him go because he had already let him go, long before. Hawley had never felt so certain, so clear of what would happen next. He reached for the handle. The bell rang as he pulled the door open. He could feel the sun warming the pavement outside, smell the gasoline, taste the exhaust of the highway, and beneath all of this he could hear a whirring. There was a grove of pine trees behind the diner, the entrance to a clutch of woods that traveled up a rocky ridge and then spread out across the hills into the distance. He had not noticed the trees on his way in but now they seemed to be hissing directly for him, the needles combing the wind. And then he heard something else. Hawley turned a fraction of an inch, just enough to see Ed King’s fist coming toward him.
The blow was the kind the boxer was known for, the kind that split men’s minds in two. Hawley could feel parts of himself pulling away from each other. Dividing the man he was from what he might be. I was almost there, he thought. I almost made it. And then there was an explosion of shimmering noise, and the world closed in like he was falling backward into water, the light far above the surface moving out of reach, and then darkness swept forth and extinguished the rest.
When Hawley came to, he was just inside the entrance to the diner. The glass door was smashed where he’d fallen against it. He shifted and felt all the tiny glimmering pieces roll off his chest. There was a pounding in his head and blood dripping from his ear. Somewhere behind him King was shouting at the cook. Hawley didn’t know how long he’d been out. He looked up through the broken door at the bright-blue sky. The wind had picked up and the clouds were passing quickly.
Hawley tried to stand. His vision spun, so he concentrated on the line of seats by the counter—red seats fixed in place and still. Over by the cash register, King and the cook were wrestling over the shotgun. The old man tried to keep the boxer off but King bent quickly and jabbed him in the guts. The shotgun went off and blasted a hole through one of the windows, sending more glass across the diner tables and a spray of shot that hit Hawley in the thigh as he turned away.
The waitress screamed and dropped behind the counter. With one hand King wrenched the gun from the old man, spun it around and cracked him on the side of the head with the barrel. Hawley’s leg burned. He pressed his fingers against the wound. It was birdshot but it was bleeding badly. He could hear the waitress sobbing. The old man groaned on the floor. The hairnet had slipped off. King leaned against the counter, breathing heavily, his suit covered in blood and eight different kinds of pie, his tongue moving inside his mouth like he’d tasted something sour. He turned the gun back around and pumped the handle. The empty shell flipped out of the chamber, hit the floor and rolled across the diner toward Hawley.
Flashing lights—red and blue—flooded the windows. Then a siren started up outside. King cursed and lowered the gun and crouched behind a booth. Hawley got to his hands and knees, his head still spinning, the glass crackling beneath his palms. The car he’d stolen in South Carolina was parked on the far side of the lot—there was no way he was going to make it past the police. Still he tried to crawl out the door, dragging the duffel bag and the satchel behind him.
A truck pulled up in front of the entrance, emergency lights spinning, siren blaring, and a giant snowplow attached to the grille. The driver’s side opened and the girl jumped out. Her feet were bare but she was wearing the same black dress and she still had the little hat pinned at the top of her head. She raced to Hawley and caught him under the arms and lifted him.
“Get up, asshole!” she said.
Hawley had to lean on her to get to the cab. She pressed her big hip against him. They moved quickly together across the lot and scrambled into the truck. Hawley glanced at the diner and saw King sighting the wheels from the window.
“He’ll get your tires.”
“They’ve got chains,” said the girl.
The shot blasted the cab but didn’t penetrate the metal. The girl threw the snow truck into gear and peeled out of the parking lot. Hawley turned to see King running after them. Then he tripped, the shotgun clattering out of his hands and into the street. The diner and its giant pig fell away into the distance. The girl turned off the siren. In three turns she had them on the highway and dropped the speed down. Two police cars sped by in the opposite direction, their lights going.
“I thought you’d left,” said Hawley.
“I was waiting for you to come out. Then I saw that guy clock you. You looked like you were dead.”
“I thought I was.” Hawley’s face was already starting to swell, his eye growing bigger by the minute. He watched her hands twist on the steering wheel, her bare foot circled by stars and pumping the clutch. “Why’d you wait for me?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes checked the rearview, then the side mirrors, before glancing over at him. “You’re bleeding.”
“He shot me,” said Hawley.
“Does it hurt?”
“Sure.”
She put on her blinker and got in the right lane and took the next exit. They drove off the highway and entered a suburban neighborhood, with schools and churches and supermarkets, normal streets and normal houses and families. The girl took a right and then pulled over under a maple tree and parked.
“Let me see.”
Hawley lifted his hand and a stream of blood washed over his jeans.
“You need to go to a hospital.”