Sudden prey

ATM.

Nobody real close. The banger put on a grin and wandered up, put his hand in his pocket and dropped the blade on a butterfly knife.

''How's it going, folks,'' he said to LaChaise. LaChaise bobbed his head, didn't look up, but the banger could see the smile. The victims usually smiled, at first, trying to pretend that the contact was friendly. ''Whyn't you just give it up? A few bucks,'' the banger said.

Now LaChaise looked up at him, his voice soft. ''If you don't go away, I'm gonna take that fuckin' blade and cut your nuts off.''

The banger took a step back. ''I oughta…''

''Fuck oughta. You want to do something, do it, pussy,'' LaChaise said. The banger looked at Martin, and the pale eyes fixed him like a bug.

The banger said, ''Fuck you,'' and walked away.

''We gotta get out of here, Dick,'' Sandy pleaded.

''Felt kinda good,'' LaChaise said to Martin, and Martin's head bobbed. ''Hey, c'mon; let's go see a movie.''

''Dick, please…''

LaChaise pulled her close. ''You shut up, huh? Quit whinin'. I haven't been outside in years, and goddamnit, I'm gonna enjoy myself one afternoon. Just one fuckin' afternoon, and you're coming along. So shut up.''

LACHAISE COULDN'T FOLLOW THE MOVIE: BUILDINGS blew up, cars got wrecked, and the cops seemed to have antitank missiles. All bullshit. Martin fell asleep halfway through, although he was awake when it ended.

''Let's get out of here,'' LaChaise muttered.

On the way out, they passed an electronics store with a bank of TVs lit up along one wall. As they were passing, the chief of police came up: they knew her face from the hours of news. ''Hold it,'' Martin said. They watched through the glass, and suddenly Martin's face came up.

''Shit,'' he said. ''They got me.''

''That means they got the truck,'' LaChaise said.

''We knew they would,'' Martin said.

LaChaise looked him over, then looked back at the TV, and said, ''You know, nobody'd recognize you in a million years. Nobody.''

Martin looked at Sandy, who looked at the TV picture, back to Martin, and nodded in reluctant agreement.

Martin watched until his picture disappeared, and then said, briskly, ''Let's get a beer.''

LaChaise nodded. ''We can do better'n that. Let's find a bar.'' And he turned to

Sandy and said, ''Not a fuckin' word.''

• • •

THEY FOUND A PLACE ACROSS FROM THE AIRPORT, A long, low, yellow log cabin with a

Lite Beer sign in the window, showing a neon palm tree. The sign looked out over a pile of dirty snow, freshly scraped from the parking lot. Above the door, a beat-up electric sign said either Leonard's or Leopard's, but the light bulbs in the fourth letter had burned out, along with the neon tubes on one side. Seven or eight cars and a few pickups, all large, old and American, were nosed toward the front door. Inside, they found a country jukebox, tall booths, a couple of coin-op pool tables and an antisocial bartender.

The bartender was drying glasses when they walked in, and twenty people were scattered around the bars, mostly in clumps, with a few lonely singles. Two men circled the pool table, cigarettes hanging from their lips. They checked

La-Chaise and Martin for a long pulse, and then started circling again.

LaChaise said, ''Hey, let's get some money in the jukebox, goddamnit. Sounds like a tomb in here.'' He held up his arms and wiggled his hips: ''Something hot.''

Martin muttered, ''You're an old man.''

LaChaise said, ''Yeah, well… let's get a beer.''

LaChaise got Waylon Jennings going on the jukebox, while Sandy found a booth.

LaChaise slipped in beside her, and Martin across from them. A waitress stopped, and LaChaise ordered three bottles of Bud and two packages of Marlboros and gave the waitress a twenty.

When the beer came back, LaChaise shoved one at Sandy and said, ''Drink it.''

She didn't care for beer, but she took it, and looked out of the booth, thinking: Most ladies' rooms had telephones nearby. After a couple of beers, she'd have to pee. She could call…

She was trying to work it through when the waitress cameby again, and LaChaise ordered another round. She tried to tune in on the conversation: LaChaise and

Martin started talking about some black dude in prison who spent all his time lifting weights.

''… they thought something must've popped in his brain 'cause they found him layin' on this mat, nothing wrong with him except he was dead,'' LaChaise said.

''Somebody said there was a hit on him and somebody stuck an ice pick in his ear.''

''Sounds like bullshit,'' Martin said.

''That's what I say. How're you gonna stick an ice pick in the ear of a guy who can press four hundred pounds or whatever it was? I mean, and not make a mess out of it?''

Martin thought it over: ''Well, you could spot for him, maybe. You're right there by his head if he's doin' presses, and when he finishes he sits up, and you're right there…''

LaChaise nodded. ''Okay, that gets it in his ear, but how come there's no blood?

That's the thing…''

Sandy closed her eyes. She was in a booth with two men trying to work out a way to kill a guy who'd wring your head off if the attempt failed-and how you'd do it with a weapon you'd have to sneak into the weight room.

Martin was tapping the table with the Bud bottle: ''The suspicious thing is, he was found alone. How many times do you see the weight room empty?''

''Well…''

WHEN SHE OPENED HER EYES, SHE FOUND HERSELF looking into the face of a cowboy-looking guy sitting with three friends in a booth across the room. He was about her age; she glanced away, but a moment later, looked back. They made eye contact a couple of times, and she saw him say something to one of his friends, who glanced at Sandy and then said something back, and they both laughed.

Nicelaughs, more or less; nothing too dirty. Sandy looked away, and thought about Elmore. Dead somewhere: she should be making funeral arrangements.

Sandy didn't cry, as a matter of principle. Now a tear trickled down her cheek, and she turned away from the men to wipe it away.

''If I absolutely had to do one of those guys, I might think about getting a piece of steel cable, like a piece of that cable off the come-alongs in the welding shop…''

She made eye contact with the cowboy-looking guy again, and he winked, and she blushed and turned back to Martin, who was saying, ''… two-hundred-grain

Federal soft-points. Busted right through its shoulder and took out a piece of the lung…''

Talking about hunting, now.

More beer came, and LaChaise was getting louder as Martin slipped into a permanent, silent grin.

''Let's dance,'' LaChaise said suddenly, pushing at her with an elbow. She'd had three beers, the two men maybe six each.

She flinched away. ''Dick, I don't think…''

LaChaise turned back to Martin and said, ''You know, goddamnit, this is what I missed, sitting around in that fuckin' place. I miss going out to the cowboy joints.''

LaChaise trailed off and looked up. The cowboy-looking guy, a Pabst in his hand, was leaning against the back of Martin's seat, looking at LaChaise. ''Mind if I take the lady out for a dance?''

LaChaise looked at him for a minute, then at the beer bottle in front of him.

''Better not,'' he said.

Sandy smiled at the cowboy and said, ''We're sort of having a talk here…''

''Ain't that, I just don't want him dancing with you,'' LaChaise said.

''Hey, no problem,'' the cowboy said, straightening up. Sandy realized he was as drunk as LaChaise, his long strawcolored hair falling over his forehead, his eyes vague and blue. ''Wasn't looking for trouble, just looking for a dance.''

''Look someplace else,'' LaChaise grunted.

''Well, I will,'' the cowboy said. ''But it'd be a goddamn pleasanter thing if you were one fuckin' inch polite about it.''

LaChaise looked up now, and smiled. ''I don't feel like I gotta be polite with trash.''

Talk in the bar suddenly turned off. Martin moved, just an inch or two, and

Sandy froze, realizing that he was clearing his gun hand. The cowboy stepped back, to give LaChaise room to get out of the booth. ''Come out here and say that, you ugly old dipshit,'' the cowboy said.

The bartender yelled, ''Hey, none of that. None of that in here.''

LaChaise spoke quietly to Martin, barely turning his head: ''Barkeep.''

''Yeah.''

Then LaChaise slipped out of the booth, uncoiling, keeping his distance from the cowboy. Sandy said, ''Dick, goddamnit…'' and LaChaise turned and pointed a finger at her and she shut up.

The cowboy said, ''Here you are, old man, what've you got?''

The bartender yelled, ''Not in here, goddamnit, I'll have the cops on you.''

LaChaise said to the cowboy, ''Fuck you, faggot motherfucker, your faggot cowboy boots…''

The cowboy took a poke at him. He coiled his arm, pulled his shoulder back, uncoiled his arm: to LaChaise, the punch seemed to take a hundred years to get going. LaChaisebrushed it with the back of his left hand, stepped inside, and with the heel of his right palm, smashed the cowboy under his nose. The cowboy went down and rolled, struggled to his hands and knees.

Sandy called, ''Dick, stop now.''

The bartender yelled, ''That's all; I'm callin' the cops…''

Martin was out of the booth and he stepped toward the bartender as LaChaise circled to the right and kicked the cowboy in the ribs, nearly lifting him from the floor. The cowboy collapsed, groaning, and blood poured from his face. The other patrons were on their feet, and an older man yelled, ''Hey, that's enough.''

Sandy was out of the booth. ''Dick…'' she wailed.

LaChaise looked at the old man and said, ''Fuck you.'' The cowboy was crawling on his stomach, a kind of military low-crawl, leaving a snail's track of purple blood, and La-Chaise walked around and kicked him in the side of the head and the cowboy stopped crawling.

''Jesus Christ, you're gonna kill him,'' the old man yelled, and a few other men yelled, ''Yeah…''

The bartender picked up the phone and Martin was suddenly there with his pistol:

''Don't touch that dial.''

LaChaise was walking around the cowboy, and the old man yelled, ''Give him a break, for Christ's sake,'' and LaChaise pointed at him and said, ''If you don't shut up, I'm gonna kick your ass.''

And moving behind the cowboy, he kicked him in the crotch. Sandy caught his shirtsleeve: ''Dick, c'mon, no more, Dick, please, please, let's go, he's hurt. ..''

''Get the fuck away from me,'' LaChaise growled.

Martin, his gun now hanging by his side, said, ''She's right, man. We better get going.''

The cowboy was not moving. He lay with one hand under his chest, the other thrown to the side. LaChaise said, ''Allright,'' and picked up one booted foot and stomped on the outstretched hand, the bones audibly crunching in the silent room. ''Let's go.''

On the way past the bar, he took a ten out of his pocket: ''Four Buds to go: just crack the top.''

And Martin said, ''Don't nobody come running out to look at our tags, y' hear?

I'd have to go and shoot you. So you just stay here inside and talk on the telephone, and don't get shot.''

As they were going out the door, LaChaise with the four bottles of Bud, the old man shouted, ''Crazy fuckers!''

SANDY HUDDLED IN THE BACK AS THEY TOOK I-494 west, then north up I-35W into town, LaChaise laughing aloud, Martin serious but pleased: ''The hair was what done it,'' he said over and over. ''He thought you was an old fuck, and he just sort of lobbed at you…''

They felt good, Sandy realized. This was what they liked.

''You know what we shoulda done with the truck? We shoulda driven it over to this Davenport's place, his house, and drove it right through the front of the place. Up the porch and right through the front, and left it there.''

''Might be a lot of cops hanging around,'' Martin said, now a bit more sober.

''And they could pick us up on the way…''

''Well, shit… we oughta do something.''

Sandy said, ''You oughta take the car and start driving. If you're careful, you could be in Mexico the day after tomorrow.''

LaChaise said, ''You know what? I bet if we tore up that apartment, I bet we'd find some more cash. I bet he's got a stash around somewhere. I can't believe a dealer wouldn't.''

''Maybe in the car…'' Martin said, and they started talking about money.

Sandy sank back into her seat: at least they weren't talking about Davenport anymore.

A minute later, LaChaise said, ''I think I got a leak in my side.'' Sandy sat up. ''What?''

''It was itching, so I just reached in there to move the bandage, and got a little blood.''

''Probably pulled a stitch in the fight,'' Martin said.

''So let's get back and take a look,'' LaChaise said. The ebullience left him, and, deflated, he stared morosely out the window. ''Fuckin' place,'' he said.