Then another shot. His heart was a wild creature running in his chest. Hands shaking and all the while his voice filling the cab, the passenger window exploding into glittering dust and his hand scrabbling in the pocket of the gun case. One cartridge fell to the floor of the truck but he managed to grasp another and to jerk the lever down and press the shell into the breech and then lever it into position to fire.
He breathed and breathed and breathed and then reached for the door handle and pulled it as his foot kicked and his body came out of the cab, the cold rushing into him like a river and his feet slipping everywhere on the frozen road. He pointed the rifle in the general direction of the snowbank and pulled the trigger, the rifle emitting its loud sharp crack in the muffled frozen air, the kick in his cold hands, the stock striking his shoulder hard enough to bring him staggering backward against the truck again. Frantic. His panting breath sharp and terrible. He looked everywhere around him but all he could see was the afterimage of the muzzle flash that rode against his eyes. He ejected the spent shell. Already his hand searched for another in the pocket of the case. What have you done now? What have you gotten yourself into now? And then thinking that he should have just let Rick drive away. But it was too late for that. It was too late for anything but what was.
And then Rick’s voice from somewhere near the Honda. This what you want? he called.
Bill yelled in response but it seemed as if what words he called simply blew backward over his head and were gone. Snow blowing into his face like tiny needles, eyes squinting into the wind. He leaned into the cab, his hand fishing for another cartridge in the pocket of the case, but he could not find one now. The darts. The small black box that held the tranquilizer. And then at last a cartridge and then another.
That the old ninety-nine? Rick called to him from outside. Three shots came in quick succession then, each of which blasted a new hole through the shattered windshield, glass raining down upon his back as he lay facedown on the seat, his eyes closed tight at the sound. You hear that? Rick’s voice came. I’ve got a nine-millimeter with a twelve-round clip. Who you think’s gonna win this fight?
He had managed to open the breech of the rifle and to load the two shells with trembling hands and to pull the breech closed again, the pin sliding the shell into position to fire, the rifle seeming to jump everywhere in his hands.
Natty, Natty, Natty, Rick said. You’re really in it now.
And then his own voice, a bellowing scream: I just wanted you to leave me the fuck alone. And then he came leaping out of the cab with the rifle held to his shoulder, firing and ejecting and firing again, each bright flash of light freezing Rick, halfway up the snowbank, and then at its lip, and then gone.
17
HE KNEW THAT IT WAS CLOSE TO EIGHT NOW BECAUSE HE had been listening, for what seemed like a long while, to the various good-byes and see-you-tomorrows of the salesmen as they exited the building, the sounds of motion—footsteps and voices—decreasing until what remained was his own breath and heart and what sounded like a single remaining figure whistling tunelessly, the sound of it fading into and out of range like a distant television station. He hoped to god it was the sales manager and that his long wait in the darkness was coming to a close, the whistling rising and falling and then rising again and finally passing just beyond the door and down the hall toward the exit. The water heater next to him rippled with flame again and the soft growl of its ignition nearly made him gasp with surprise. From the floor came its faint orange glow. Then a moment of silence followed by a muffled and rhythmic beeping, after which the strip of light that had been illuminating the base of the door for as long as he had been secreted in the supply closet blinked out all at once. There was a loud metal bang . The alarm’s beeping continued for a few more seconds before it fell silent. Then nothing.
The phone panel opposite him had been flickering incessantly with green and red dashes and in the long two hours he had been hidden in that tiny space he had tried to find patterns amidst those constellations, imagining it a map, a game, a drawing of some kind, but failing to discover any meaning in the random blinking of the lights. Now the dashes had fallen to a single green row gapped by occasional empty spaces. He stood staring at it, listening for any movement beyond the closed door. Then he breathed once, twice, and finally reached for the handle, finding it in the new darkness, and slowly, so slowly, opening the door.
The hallway in shadow. At its nether end, the tight corridor opened into the broad glass-fronted showroom, the windows there reflecting a faint glow from the streetlamps that lit the main lot with its rows of sparkling new cars. He stood in that profound silence, watching, through the glass, as a great jumbo jet descended across the floor-to-ceiling windows, its engine roar muffled to a distant whispered hush. He stood listening for any sound from within but the showroom was empty and silent.
He knew they were on schedule and that Rick would arrive soon. The two of them had parked down the street for three consecutive nights, timing the final employee, the sales manager, as he drove out of the parking lot near eight o’clock each night. On the first night, a police cruiser had passed them slowly, its driver looking at them with care as it slid by, so when seven thirty came the second night, they were parked a quarter mile down the street, watching the black-and-white as it drifted by in the distance. They waited until nine o’clock but did not see another police car and apart from the few employee vehicles leaving the dealership between seven thirty and eight they did not see another car at all. What they had learned was that the movements ran like clockwork: police cruiser at seven thirty, sales manager at eight, and nothing but a ghost town after.
On that final night he had tried to speak to Rick about what he had done and had failed to do, but the words had become entangled. Out before them through the windshield, oval pools of light marked the road along the fence. I just want a clean slate, he had said. That’s all.
And Rick had broken his silence then. There are no clean slates, he had said.