Page 79 of Three-Inch Teeth

“Impossible,” Cates said, squeezing her. He nuzzled his face into her and wished her hair smelled better. While he did, he contemplated that, within the group, Soledad wanted Bobbi gone, Bobbi wanted Soledad gone now and LOR gone as soon as possible, and LOR wanted to go home to Jeffrey City and be rid of them all the minute his obligation was fulfilled. And how he held all the cards for the moment on not only keeping them all together, but completing his goal. He was grateful he was a natural leader of men—and women. But it couldn’t last forever. He was grateful Johnson couldn’t see his smile while he held her.

Then, looking up, Cates said, “Where is Axel, anyway?”

“He’s gone,” she said. “I saw him driving away in that dead couple’s car a few minutes after we got back.”

“Really? I wonder where he went.”

“Let’s hope he never comes back,” she said. “It would be all right with me if he just kept driving.”

“Maybe he went to get breakfast,” Cates said.

Johnson gently pushed away from Cates. She seemed reassured by him, and no longer at a breaking point. She caressed Cates’s left hand, but he flinched when her thumb made contact with the fresh X tattoo that filled box number four of his kill list. He’d made it using a needle and ink from a ballpoint pen.

“Just three more,” she said.

“Just three more,” he echoed.

“Please don’t tell him what we talked about,” she said.

“You mean, what you talked about,” Cates said with a chuckle, to confuse her.

“I mean, you have to agree with me, right? That we need to cut him loose as soon as we can?”

Cates whispered, “When the time is right.”

“Isn’t it right now?”

“Not yet,” he said, noting movement outside through the living room window. He let go of her and brushed the curtain back. Soledad was behind the wheel of the dead couple’s white SUV and he drove it into the open garage and parked it.

“Speak of the devil,” Cates said.

*

AXEL SOLEDAD GLIDED through the front door on his crutches, grasping a large greasy paper bag with BURG-O-PARDNER printed on the outside of it. Like a sniffing puppy, LOR appeared behind him.

“I got us some food,” he announced.

“Good, because I’m starved,” LOR said.

“I haven’t had a good breakfast sandwich from the Burg-O-Pardner for a long time,” Cates said.

They all gravitated toward the kitchen table, even Johnson. Soledad placed the bag on the tabletop.

“Is that it?” Cates asked Soledad, wondering if the man would offer more information on his recent whereabouts.

“I also got us coffees,” Soledad said, choosing not to understand Cates’s real question. “I couldn’t carry it all in one trip.”

“I’ve got it,” Cates said, going outside and walking toward the white SUV. He hadn’t noticed before that it still had California plates.

Inside the vehicle, Cates found the box filled with lidded coffees on the front passenger seat. The interior smelled of fried food, hot coffee, and something acrid. He recognized the smell of gunpowder.

As Cates leaned over to pick up the box, he noticed two small brass casings on the driver’s-side floor mat. And before he closed the car door with a bump from his right hip, he saw a semiautomatic .22 rifle laying across the rear bench seat.

*

HE TURNED TO find Soledad in front of him. Cates marveled once again how swiftly—and how silently—the man covered ground.

“I’m sure you saw the rifle,” Soledad said.

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