Edie Marsh said, “Oh shit,” and slammed the hatch of the Jeep. She told Snapper not to say a damn word;/ she’d do the talking.
As the stranger approached, Snapper straightened on both legs. The pain in his injured knee caused him to grind his mismatched molars. He slipped a hand inside his suit jacket.
“Excuse us,” said the stranger. The woman, looking nervous, stood behind him.
Edie Marsh said, helpfully, “Are you lost?”
The stranger beamed-a striking smile, full of bright movie-star teeth. Snapper tensed; this was no interstate bum.
“What a fine question!” the man said to Edie. Then he turned to Snapper. “Sir, you and I have something in common.”
Snapper scowled. “The fuck you talkin’ about?”
“See here.” The stranger calmly pried out one of his eyeballs and held it up, like a polished gemstone, for Snapper to examine. Snapper felt himself keeling, and steadied himself against the truck. The sight of the shrunken socket was more sickening than that of the glistening prosthesis.
“It’s glass,” the man said. “A minor disability, just like your jaw. But we both struggle with the mirror, do we not?”
“I got no problems in that department,” Snapper said, though he could not look the stranger in the face. “Are you some fuckin’ preacher or what?”
Edie Marsh cut in: “Mister, I don’t mean to be rude, but we’ve got to be on our way. We’ve got an appointment downtown.”
The stranger had a darkly elusive charm, a dangerous and disorganized intelligence that put Edie on edge. He appeared content at the prospect of physical confrontation. The pretty young woman, tame and fine-featured, seemed an unlikely partner; Edie wondered if she was a captive.
The tall stranger cocked back his head and deftly reinserted the glass eye. Then, blinking for focus, he said, “OK, kids. Let’s have a peek in that snazzy Jeep.”
Snapper whipped out the .357 and pointed it at a button in the center of the man’s broad chest. “Get in,” he snarled.
Again the stranger grinned. “We thought you’d never ask!” The young woman clutched one of his arms and tried to suppress her trembling.
Augustine noticed a young towheaded boy, rigid in a shredded patio chair outside a battered house. Most of the roof was gone, so a skin of cheap blue plastic had been stapled to the beams for shade and shelter. It puckered and flapped in the breeze.
The towheaded boy looked only ten or eleven years old. He held a stainless-steel Ruger Mini-14, which he raised from his lap as Augustine passed on the sidewalk. In a thin high pitch, the boy yelled: “Looters will be shot!”
The warning matched a message spray-painted in two-foot letters on the front wall: lootersbewair!!
Augustine turned to face the child. “I’m not a looter. Where’s your father?”
“Out for lumber. He told me watch the place.”
“You’re doing a good job.” Augustine stared at the powerful rifle. A bank robber had used the same model to shoot down five FBI agents in Suniland, a few years back.
The boy explained: “We had looters, night after the hurry-cane. We were stayin’ with Uncle Rick, he lives somewheres called Dania. They came through while we’s gone.”
Augustine slowly stepped forward for a closer look. The clip was fitted flush in the Ruger; all systems Go. The boy wore a severe expression, squinting at Augustine as if he stood a hundred yards away. The boy fidgeted in the flimsy chair. One side of his mouth wormed into a creepy lopsided frown. Augustine half expected to hear banjo music.
The boy went on: “They got our TVs and CD player. My dad’s toolbox, top. I’m ‘posed to shoot the bastards they come back.”
“Did you ever fire that gun before?”
“All the time.” The child’s hard gray-blue eyes flickered with the lie. The Mini-14 was heavy. His little arms were tired from holding it. “You better go on now,” he advised.
Augustine nodded, backing away. “Just be careful, all right? You don’t want to hurt the wrong person.”
“My dad said he’s gone booby-trap everything so’s next time they’ll be damn sorry. He went to the hardware store. My mom and Debbie are still up at Uncle Rick’s. Debbie’s my half-sister, she’s seven.”