No country for old men - By Cormac McCarthy Page 0,28

the lake. He took the pistol from beside the box and cocked and leveled it out the window, resting the barrel on the rearview mirror. The pistol had been fitted with a silencer sweated onto the end of the barrel. The silencer was made out of brass mapp-gas burners fitted into a hairspray can and the whole thing stuffed with fiberglass roofing insulation and painted flat black. He fired just as the bird crouched and spread its wings.

It flared wildly in the lights, very white, turning and lifting away into the darkness. The shot had hit the rail and caromed off into the night and the rail hummed dully in the slipstream and ceased. Chigurh laid the pistol in the seat and put the window back up again.

Moss paid the driver and stepped out into the lights in front of the motel office and slung the bag over his shoulder and shut the cab door and turned and went in. The woman was already behind the counter. He set the bag in the floor and leaned on the counter. She looked a little flustered. Hi, she said. You fixin to stay a while?

I need another room.

You want to change rooms or you want another one besides the one you’ve got?

I want to keep the one I got and get another one.

All right.

Have you got a map of the motel?

She looked under the counter. There used to be a sort of a one. Wait a minute. I think this is it.

She laid an old brochure on the counter. It showed a car from the fifties parked in front. He unfolded it and flattened it out and studied it.

What about one forty-two?

You can have one next to yours if you want it. One-twenty aint took.

That’s all right. What about one forty-two?

She reached and got the key off the board behind her. You’ll owe for two nights, she said.

He paid and picked up the bag and walked out and turned down the walkway at the rear of the motel. She leaned over the counter watching him go.

In the room he sat on the bed with the map spread out. He got up and went into the bathroom and stood in the tub with his ear to the wall. A TV was playing somewhere. He went back and sat and unzipped the bag and took out the shotgun and laid it to one side and then emptied the bag out onto the bed.

He took the screwdriver and got the chair from the desk and stood on it and unscrewed the airduct grille and stepped down and laid it dustside up on the cheap chenille bedspread. Then he climbed up and put his ear to the duct. He listened. He stood down and got the flashlight and climbed back up again.

There was a junction in the ductwork about ten feet down the shaft and he could see the end of the bag sticking out. He turned off the light and stood listening. He tried listening with his eyes shut.

He climbed down and got the shotgun and went to the door and turned off the light at the switch there and stood in the dark looking out through the curtain at the courtyard. Then he went back and laid the shotgun on the bed and turned on the flashlight.

He untied the little nylon bag and slid the poles out. They were lightweight aluminum tubes three feet long and he assembled three of them and taped the joints with duct tape so that they wouldnt pull apart. He went to the closet and came back with three wire hangers and sat on the bed and cut the hooks off with the sidecutters and wrapped them into one hook with the tape. Then he taped them to the end of the pole and stood up and slid the pole down the ductwork.

He turned the flashlight off and pitched it onto the bed and went back to the window and looked out. Drone of a truck passing out on the highway. He waited till it was gone. A cat that was crossing the courtyard stopped. Then it went on again.

He stood on the chair with the flashlight in his hand. He turned on the light and laid the lens up close against the galvanized metal wall of the duct so as to mute the beam and ran the hook down past the bag and turned it and brought it back. The hook caught and turned the bag slightly and