He had forgotten about the chief deputy, the one called Pam Tibbs. In spite of her wounds, she had eased her .357 Magnum from her holster and stepped behind him and pointed the muzzle into a spot one inch above his hairline. He heard her cock the hammer into place.
“Put your weapon on the floor,” she said.
“What if I don’t?” he said.
“I’ll cut all your motors,” she replied.
“Do as she asks, Jack,” the sheriff said.
“He already has,” Pam said, ripping the Thompson from Jack’s grasp with her bad arm. A surge of pain twisted her mouth out of shape, and she let the Thompson clatter to the floor.
“Y’all don’t know who your friends are,” Jack said. “I’m fixing to torch the place and fry Josef’s bacon. He’s hiding up there on the roof someplace. If it hadn’t been for me, your heads would be on a pike.”
“You’re done. Get out,” Pam said.
Jack turned and looked at her numbly. “Do what?” he said.
“Be gone. Into the darkness, where you belong,” she said.
He continued to stare at her and at the smear of blood on her cheek and at the wounds in her arm that had painted her shirtsleeve red and at the steady rise and fall of her breasts and at the loathing in her eyes.
“I he’ped y’all,” he said. “I made up for—”
“For what?” Pam said.
“The past. All of it. I ate out of Dumpsters and bathed with ash and sand. I wore the rags I pulled off a scarecrow.”
“Lose your revolver and turn out all your pockets,” she said.
“Why?”
“I collect car keys,” she replied.
“That’s all you have to say, you fat bitch?” he said.
She pulled his revolver from its holster and slung it into the pile of empty cartons. “Don’t go near any uncapped tubes of roach paste,” she said.
HACKBERRY AND PAM watched Jack Collins walk into the rain, glancing back at them like an errant child being driven from the school yard. “Where to now, boss?” Pam said.
“We blow Dodge and head for the plane,” he replied. “I have a first-aid kit in my duffel. How are you doing?”
“I think the bullet that exited my shoulder didn’t hit any bone. Anyway, it’s numb now. Hack, you don’t look good.”
“I never do.”
“Is the round still in you?”
“No.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can’t. But it’s time to go home.”
“I think you’re bleeding inside. Maybe we ought to wait it out. R.C. must have a fix on us. He and Felix and the others might be coming any minute.”
“I think the Mexicans found the GPS,” Hackberry said.
“Why?”