Buddy knew it was Foley, taking his time now to put on a show, standing with his hands on his hips like an honest-to-God hack, that serious cap down on his eyes. Buddy moved up to his headlights, raising his arm and waving at Foley to come on, and saw the girl turn enough to put the shotgun on him. Buddy raised the palm of his hand to her saying, "It's okay, honey, we're good guys." Buddy wanting to appear calm, wanting to believe he'd have no problem with this cute-looking blonde-maybe a probation officer, though he didn't think probation officers were ever armed.

She said, "What're you doing here?" Not so much asking, putting it to him the way cops did when they were already pretty sure of what you were doing. She glanced around to include Foley. She knew, all right, but with the two of them to watch was too late making her move. She saw Foley coming at her filthy dirty, like a creature out of the swamp, giving Buddy time to take her around the neck. She fought him, jabbing him in the gut with the butt end of the shotgun, before Foley got in there to wrench it from her grip. They dragged her to the rear end of the Chevy, the trunk lid still up, and crouched there as some hacks came running along the fence past the dark gun tower and crossed the road toward the orange grove. Pretty soon they heard bursts of gunfire, then silence.

Foley said, "I bet that's all the hacks they send out.

Otherwise nobody's left to mind the store."

Buddy said, "Why don't we talk about it later."

He turned his head to see Foley and the young woman staring at each other in the Cadillac headlights, neither one seeming mad or scared, Foley saying to her, "Why you're just a girl. What do you do for a living you pack a shotgun?"

She said to him, "I'm a federal marshal and you're under arrest, both of you guys."

Foley kept staring like he was giving the situation serious thought, deciding now what to do with her, Jesus, a U.S. marshal. But what he said was, "I bet I smell, don't I?" And then he said, "Listen, you hop in the trunk and we'll get out of here."

FIVE

Karen thought they'd put her inside and leave and she felt around to find her handgun, quick, the Sig Sauer, before they closed the trunk lid and she'd have to kick at it and yell until someone let her out.

There, she felt the holster, slipped the pistol out and closed her hand around the grip ready to go for it, six hollow points in the magazine and one in the throat, ready to come around shooting if she had to. But now the one in the filthy guard uniform gave her a shove and was getting in with her she couldn't believe it-crawling in to wedge her between the wall of the trunk and his body pressed against her back, like they were cuddled up in bed, the guy bringing his arm around now to hold her to him, and she didn't have room to turn and stick the gun in his face.

The trunk lid came down and they were in darkness, total, not a crack or pinpoint of light showing, dead silent until the engine came to life, the car moving now, turning out of the lot to the road that went out to the highway. Karen pictured it, remembering the orange grove and a maintenance building, then farther along the road frame houses and yards where some of the prison personnel lived.

His voice in the dark, breathing on her, said, "You comfy?"

The con acting cool, nothing to lose. Karen was holding the Sig Sauer between her thighs, protecting it, her skirt hiked up around her hips.

She said, "If I could have a little more room"

"There isn't any."

She wondered if she could get her feet against the front wall, push off hard and twist at the same time and shove the gun into him.

Maybe. But then what?

She said, "I'm not much of a hostage if no one knows I'm here."

She felt his hand move over her shoulder and down her arm.

"You aren't a hostage, you're my zoo-zoo, my treat after five months of servitude. Somebody pleasant and smells good for a change. I'm sorry if I smell like a sewer, it's the muck I had to crawl through, all that decayed matter."

She felt him moving, squirming around to get comfortable.

"You sure have a lot of shit in here. What's all this stuff?

Handcuffs, chains… What's this can?"

"For your breath," Karen said.

"You could use it. Squirt some in your mouth."

"You devil, it's Mace, huh? What've you got here, a billy?

Use it on poor unfortunate offenders… Where's your gun, your pistol?"

"In my bag, in the car." She felt his hand slip from her arm to her hip and rest there and she said, "You know you don't have a chance of making it. Guards are out here already, they'll stop the car."

"They're off in the cane by now chasing Cubans."

His tone quiet, unhurried, and it surprised her.

"I timed it to slip between the cracks, you might say. I was even gonna blow the whistle myself if I had to, send out the amber alert, get them running around in confusion for when I came out of the hole.

Boy, it stunk in there."

"I believe it," Karen said.

"You've ruined a thirty-five hundred-dollar suit my dad gave me."

She felt his hand move down her thigh, fingertips brushing her pantyhose, the way her skirt was pushed up.

"I bet you look great in it, too. Tell me why in the world you ever became a federal marshal, Jesus. My experience with marshals, they're all beefy guys, like your big-city dicks."

"The idea of going after guys like you," Karen said, "appealed to me."

"To prove something? What're you, one of those women's rights activists, out to bust some balls? I haven't been close to a woman like you in months, good-looking, smart… I think, man, here's my reward for doing without, leading a clean, celibate life in there, and you turn out to be a ball buster Tell me it ain't so."

"How would you know if I'm smart or not?"

"See? Putting me in my place, that's the same as ball busting I should've known you're a militant female, girl who packs, hauls all this crime-stopping equipment around… But, listen, just 'cause I've done without doesn't mean I'm gonna force myself on you. I've never done that in my life."

It amazed her, the guy trying to make a good impression.

"You wouldn't have time anyway," Karen said.

"We come to a roadblock they'll run the car, find out in about five seconds who it belongs to."

His voice breathing on her said, "If they get set up in time, which I doubt. Even if they do they'll be looking for Cubans, little fellas with black hair, not a big redneck driving a Chevy.

I'm leaving this trip in the hands of my Lord and Savior and my old pal Buddy. He's pure redneck. You know how you tell? He never takes his shirt off."

Feeling free and talkative. Karen kept quiet.

"I mean in the sun, like when we're in the yard. Joint out in sunny California only a few miles from the ocean, never once took his shirt off. Has one of those farmer tans. You see Buddy in the shower, his face and arms have color but his body's pure white. Good guy, though, wrote to his sister ever week without fail. He'd tell her what the weather was like. She'd write back and tell about her weather, which wasn't that different. His sister used to be one of those nuns who never spoke. Buddy says she still doesn't talk much, but now she drinks."

Riding in the trunk of a car with an escaped convict, chatting, passing the time, the car bumping over back roads, the floor beneath them hard, un giving Finally when they picked up speed and were moving in a straight line, Karen believed they were on 441 now, heading for West Palm and probably the interstate. Not the turnpike, you couldn't get on it from 441.

She felt his hand patting her thigh, inches from her hand gripping the Sig Sauer.

She said, "Buddy. That's his given name?"