“What’s the problem, officer?”

“You’ve got a busted taillight.”

That old bitch had a busted taillight and she didn’t fix it? Stupid old cow. Victor swallowed his bile. “Thank you, Officer. I’ll get it fixed in Fort Pessel.”

Davie Franks shined his flashlight over on the girl, whose head was back against the lowered seat, her eyes closed. He said, “She sick?”

Victor said, “A case of the summer flu. She’s been puking, but she’ll be okay now.”

“May I see your driver’s license?”

Deputy Franks watched the young man hesitate, then reach for his wallet. He glanced again over at the young girl. Her eyes were open now and she was staring at him, her eyes sort of glazed. Was she really sick or high on drugs?

As he took the driver’s license, he asked, “Where are you kids going?”

“I’m not a kid. I’m twenty-one,” said Victor. “My cousin and I were visiting relatives in Richmond and we’re going home now. Like I said, she’s got a touch of the flu.”

“Where’s home?”

“Fort Pessel. Look, Officer, I’ll get the taillight fixed as soon as I get home.”

Davie shined his flashlight on the license, read the name, checked the photo, then said aloud, “Victor Alessio Nesser. You from the Middle East?”

Now the jerkface thinks I’m a terrorist? He said, all stiff, desperate to get this guy out of his face, “I am an American. It is my father who is from the Middle East—Jordan, to be exact.”

“You don’t look Jordanian—I guess your mom was the blond, passed it on to you. Good thing for you. Always lots of trouble over there—” Davie glanced once again at the girl, then back down at the driver’s license photo; his eyes snapped alert with recognition and he jumped back, his hand going for his gun. “Get out of the car—”

But Davie didn’t have time to get his gun clear of its holster or to finish his sentence. Lissy brought her hand up smooth and fast and shot him between the eyes. He was grabbing for the door, but he was dead before his fingers touched the handle.

“Hey, what’s going on? Davie!”

“Well, look at this—another one,” Lissy said.

Victor opened the driver’s-side door, leaned down low, and waited for the female deputy to get close. She was talking into a cell phone, her voice urgent and her gun out. She saw his gun and yelled, “Stop!”

Victor shot her in the chest.

She dropped her gun and grabbed her chest, blood oozing out between her fingers, looked down at her partner staring back at her, a hole in his forehead, and said, “Why’d you shoot us?”

“You got in my face,” Victor said, and watched her collapse to the ground, maybe two feet from her partner.

“Check her, Victor. Make sure she’s dead.”

Victor got out of the car, looked down into the glazed eyes of the young freckle-faced woman who lay at his feet, her chest covered with her blood, blood snaking out of her mouth. Her cell phone was on the ground beside her, and he heard a man’s voice yelling, “What’s happening? Talk to me, Gail!”

Victor kicked the cell phone across the road.

“Is she dead?”

Deputy Gail Lynd tried to look for her gun but couldn’t move. She stared at the man—a boy, really—who’d shot her. She watched him turn and yell to someone in the car, “Shut your yap, Lissy. She’s not quite dead yet, but she will be soon.”

He looked back down at her, met her eyes, dumb with pain. She saw the buzz of excitement in him and doubted there was mercy there.

Lissy called out, “Pay attention, Victor. My mama said you gotta shoot ’em between the eyes, put their lights out right away. That way there’s no one hanging around, surviving, telling stories about you before they take their boat ride to hell. So stop your hee-hawing and put out her damned lights!”

“Yeah, yeah, all right.” Victor leaned down close and winked at the deputy as she whispered, “No, please, don’t kill—”

He fired. A chunk of concrete flew into the air not six inches from her face. She stared up at him.

He winked at her again.

Gail heard a mad cheer come from the car, then a yell: “Put a notch in that boy’s belt!”

22

VICTOR PULLED THE IMPALA into the Amesey gas station on High Street, just inside the Fort Pessel city limits, one he’d never used before because his aunt Jennifer hated Loony Old Amesey, as she called him. Some city, he thought, nothing but a dippy loser town that had nothing going for it except a long-ago dumb little Civil War battle that had passed over the grounds of city hall, an ugly gray stone heap built back in the thirties. He’d hated the place for the year and a half he’d had to plunk his butt down with his crazy Aunt Jennifer. He hated breathing the air that always smelled like old cigarette smoke. But it was better than traveling to Jordan with his parents, meeting his father’s family, who were probably just as crazy-mean as he was, maybe getting shot for just existing. You couldn’t even drink or smoke pot there, and they’d chop your hands or your nose off for selling drugs, or even your head.