“Naw, I don’t think Pinn Head’s Trooper Truth,” Possum voiced his opinion. “Not unless he write a lot better than he talk. I think Trooper Truth the po-lice just like his name say he is. ‘Cause he always talking about pirates and DNA and shit, and we better watch out he don’t come after us ’cause he sure do have a way of finding out things and you already been locked up before.” He looked at Smoke. “And there’s a ‘scription of you going around, so maybe we be better off just quittin’ being pirates and maybe go get jobs at the Foot Locker or Bojangles or something . . .”
“Shut up!” Smoke screamed at him as the RV’s aluminum door opened and Unique walked in carrying something in a plastic trash bag.
“I need some money,” she said to Smoke. “You still owe me.”
“Listen here, you concerned viewers out there.” Pinn was pointing his finger at the camera again, once more fixated on his own ordeal. The hell with Moses Custer or anyone else. “You see a plain-looking white boy with dreadlocks, you call me right now.”
“See, I told you there’s a ‘scription!” Possum exclaimed.
“He say anything about that queer girl who just got killed on Belle Island?” Unique asked as she stared at the TV.
“What queer girl?” Smoke asked with a yawn.
“No, but Trooper Truth did on his web, but he didn’t say nothing about her being queer,” Possum volunteered. “He’s asking the public for tips.”
Unique thought this was very funny. There were no tips. She had been invisible when she left the bar with T.T., so it wasn’t possible that anybody had seen Unique and could offer tips to Trooper Truth or anyone else. Of course, becoming invisible was not without its downside. Unique had finally realized that rearranging her molecules when she pursued her Purpose was probably the reason she didn’t remember much after the fact. And reliving her cruelities was the best part.
“Pick up the phone right this minute.” Pinn repeated the telephone number at the bottom of the screen. “You tell the truth and we get him, I send you five hundred dollars. This is A.P. Pinn for Head to Head with Pinn. Good night,” he beamed.
“Maybe we should go out and see what’s around,” Cat suggested, thoroughly bored by the TV show and the local news that followed. “1 get the car out from under the tarp and we can go huntin’.”
“Yeah,” grunted Cuda. “We’re almost out of beer and I got one smoke left. Man,” he got up, stretching and strutting. “Maybe we find that Custer son of a bitch and kill him in the hospital before he keep snitching on us.”
“He doesn’t know anything more about us,” Smoke snapped at Cuda. “And if you’d killed him to begin with,” he added to Possum, “we wouldn’t have to worry about it.”
Possum had drunk too many beers while they were out cruising for a prize the other night, and his aim had been a little off, much to his secret relief, and as best he knew, the bullet he had fired had struck Moses in the foot and knocked his boot off. “I still think we should find him,” he agreed, contrary to his true feelings. “I’ll get him smack in the head this time.” He pretended to be as coldblooded as Smoke by pulling a nine-millimeter pistol out of the back of his relaxed-leg jeans and pointing it at the TV, as if it were a hospital bed.
“You shoot the TV, you little shit, and you’re next. ” Smoke jumped up and grabbed the gun and pointed it at Possum’s head, snapping back the slide.
Possum swallowed hard, his eyes wide with terror as he begged, “Smoke, don’t. Please! I was just kidding, you know?”
“I need my money, ” Unique said in her quiet, soft voice as her eyes began to blaze and her Purpose began to create that unbearable tension inside her Darkness.
Smoke ignored her, laughing as he shot a hole in the floor. The ejected shell pinged against a lamp and he tossed the pistol back to Possum. “Or maybe I’ll shoot the damn dog, since you seem to like her so much. In fact, bring her in here. “