“All right, all right. Relax. I’ll get it.” Bob moves slowly to his left, keeping his eyes on the muzzle of the shotgun, as if planning to duck when it goes off. “I’ll get it.” He reaches under the counter by the cash register, gropes around, finds the gun and flicks the safety off with his thumb. He draws it slowly out, inch by inch, thinking, in a howl, Oh Jesus, Elaine, my poor babies, I’m going to die now. The man is going to kill me because I lied. But I had to lie, he wouldn’t believe me when I told the truth and he was going to kill me for that. So I lied. And now I’m going to die for lying. The man will kill me, and maybe I’ll kill him too. Oh, Elaine, oh, my babies, oh, Jesus, I love you, Elaine, I don’t love the nigger girl, I never did, I just love you, Elaine, you and my babies. I’m a good man.
He half faces the silhouetted figure of the man cradling the shotgun. Crouched over the pistol, as if shielding it from rain, Bob squeezes the trigger, hears the explosion, hears Silhouette’s roar of pain, then hears the deeper explosion as the shotgun goes off, hears glass behind him shatter, and suddenly notices the sweet taste of gin on his mouth, all over his face, or blood, he can’t tell, because it’s warm like blood and he’s never tasted warm gin, but there’s no pain, just a numbness in the hand that fired the.38 and a ringing in his ears, broken suddenly by the sound of the shotgun firing again, and at the same time there’s a yellow flash near the door, and smoke and the smell of gunpowder and burning cardboard and the clatter of broken glass above and behind him. Then silence, except for the slosh and trickle of liquor spilling from broken bottles down the shelves to the floor. He hears a noise from the stockroom — Cornrow bumping against cases in the dark — and from the front of the store, the sound of the door latch, Silhouette trying to unlock the door. Bob stands and holds the.38 out in front of him with both hands, the way he’s seen it done on TV. He aims through the rear sight and fires. Sihouette grunts and gurgles and slams against the door. The shotgun falls, and then the man falls too.
Bob races alongside the counter and darts across to the back of the store next to the open stockroom door, where he presses against the wall and listens to Cornrow on the other side struggling in the dark to escape, bumping walls, smacking against head-high stacks of beer, knocking over George Dill’s broom, panting, pushing, groping for an opening in the unpainted cinder-block wall, until, finally, there’s silence. Then Bob hears it. First a whimper, then the awful bawl of a child. And he smells it. Human shit.
He steps through the doorway, flicks on the overhead light and sees the shuddering boy huddled on the floor against the far wall, inches from the back door. The boy looks up, eyes wet, large mouth loosely open, his whole body trembling in terror. He looks around him and sees how close he is to the door, sees that one push on the crash bar would open it. Escape. Freedom. Gone from him now. “Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me!” he blubbers. “Let me go, please let me go! I didn’t do nothin’, honest. Please, mister, don’t kill me!”
Bob holds the gun out in front of him with both hands and aims it at the boy’s head. “You black sonofabitch. I oughta blow you away.”
“Aw-w-w!” the kid bawls.
“You’re disgusting.” Bob lowers the gun. He wrinkles his nose. “You stink like shit too.” He takes a step backwards. “Whew! Jesus H. Christ! You just lie there, shitpants. Lie there and stink. I don’t want your smell near me. And don’t move a muscle, or I’ll blow your fucking brains out. I’ll do you the same favor you wanted to do me.”
Slowly, Bob backs out to the counter and picks up the telephone, and laying the gun flat on the counter, punches the number for the police. “This’s Bob Dubois out at Friendly Spirits on Route 17,” he declares. “D-
Hanging up the telephone, Bob walks with a bouncy step back to the stockroom, and when he enters the room, he sees at once that the back door lies wide open, and the boy has fled. Bob stands there, shocked, looking at the wet spot against the wall where the boy lay, then at the open door, then at the parking lot beyond.
