Savages

234

Doc has radio streaming on his laptop.

Satellite reception.

He uses it to listen to Jim Rome.

Now he gets news of a Stanland-style shootout not so far from here and Doc is no idiot. He looks at Chon.

Chon hasn’t changed much since back in the day.

When Chon announced that AQ stood for

Asses Qicked.

And ass-kicked a whole unit of them barricaded inside a compound in Doha. It took him all day but Chon was patient, methodical, in no hurry at all. Came back, scoffed three MREs, and went horizontal. Slept like a sated baby. So a six-pack of narcos? Not a problem, piece o’ cake.

Chon and Ben watch Doc listen to the news report, add two plus two, and come up with Chon.

Doc says, “We’d better get rid of your car. You can take my Dodge.”

“Thank you, man.”

“Nada.”

They drive the work car up a ravine, Doc following in his pickup. He takes cans of gas out of the truck bed and douses the work car. Lights a book of matches and tosses it through the open passenger window.

No time for hot dogs or s’mores, though.

Instead, Doc hooks Chon up with some ampoules of morphine and a few syringes and wishes him

Godspeed.