the fuck up,” Deese said. He waggled the gun at Gloria Harrelson. “Out to the car. And we need those keys.”
Harrelson said, “Don’t mess with her. I swear to God, I know people here, we’ll track you down. And I’ll pour a gallon of gas on your head and set you on fire.”
“You do anything but get that money to us, you won’t be doing that because you’ll be dead, along with your raped-ass old lady.”
Cole: “Jesus Christ.”
Harrelson to Cole: “Don’t let that motherfucker touch her.”
Cole opened one of the backpacks and told Deese, “Put your gun on him,” and to Harrelson: “I’m gonna put a chain around your waist. You fight me, the cannibal is going to kill you.”
Cole threw the chain around Harrelson’s waist, fastening it with a padlock. When the padlock was secure, he led Harrelson to a living room couch and looped the other end of the chain around the couch and locked it.
He showed the two padlock keys to Harrelson and said, “These’ll be on the kitchen table with your cell phone. You call the cops, the cannibal will kill your wife. Think about it. There won’t be any point in calling anyway because by the time you get the couch into the kitchen, we’ll be long gone.”
Cole got the other chain out of the pack, and Deese asked, “What’re you doing?”
“Got to chain up Dopey.”
“If Dopey’s alive, the asshole will call an ambulance, the cops’ll come in.”
“Goddamnit, Deese.”
Deese kicked Dopey’s wounded hip and said, “Fuck you,” and shot him in the head. To Harrelson: “There. Now you don’t got to call nobody.”
* * *
—
COLE, shocked deep in his heart, drove, Deese sat in the back with Gloria Harrelson. Nobody spoke until Cole backed the Lexus out of the garage and into the street. When they were rolling, Cole punched up his speed dial and called Cox and asked, “Where are you?”
“Hiding behind a pile of dirt.”
“How do I get there?”
“Take a left out of the gate, go about three blocks to a construction site. You’ll see a pile of dirt on the left side of the road as high as a house. I’m behind it . . . Did you get the money?”
“It’s complicated,” Cole said. “It’s fucking awful, is what it is.”
“Oh no.”
* * *
—
AT THE PILE of dirt, Cole told Cox what had happened, and she whispered, “He killed him? And we . . . We can’t kidnap her. This is terrible, this is awful. Oh, God, Cole, we gotta get away from this maniac.”
“I’m thinking about that,” Cole said.
“You got your gun?”
“Yeah. But I never shot anybody.”
* * *
—
COLE USED A DIME to unscrew the California plates on the Cadillac and transferred them to the Lexus. When Deese asked why, he said, “Because I don’t think the cops know the California plates, but they’ll know the plates on the Lexus if Harrelson calls them. Now we’re driving a Lexus with California plates, which is different from anything they know. Here in Vegas, driving a Lexus is like driving a Ford.”
Cox asked, “Should I erase my fingerprints? From the Caddy?”
“Too late for that, honey,” Cole said.
She tried anyway, using a sock to rub the steering wheel and the center console and door handles. As she did, she kept muttering, “Oh, God, Oh, Jesus,” and looking over at the Lexus, where Deese waited in the backseat with Gloria Harrelson.
When Cole was finished with the license plates, he pointed to the passenger side and then walked around to the driver’s-side door and got in. Cox got a sack out of the back of the Cadillac and said, “At least I saved some shoes.” In the car, she turned to look at Gloria in the back and asked, “You okay?”
Harrelson just sobbed.
“She’s bummed out because I’ve been feeling her up,” Deese said with a grin. “There’s some nice stuff under all them clothes.”
“Don’t do that,” Cox said. “Please don’t do that, I can’t stand it.” To Cole: “Where are we going? We can’t go back to the house.”
“Don’t know,” Cole said. “We got to figure that out.”
“I know where we’re going,” Deese said. “We need to head north on Highway 95. About two hours . . . We got gas?”
“We got gas. But if we’re gonna try to do this, we need to make another stop at a Walmart.”
Deese: “What for?”
“We need to buy a couple of metal file boxes.”
Deese: “Why?”
Cole told him. Deese said, “I didn’t think of that.”