“It’s a twenty-gauge,” Valentine said. “I wouldn’t be able to reach the trigger.”

Jenks set the book aside, came over to look at it. “It’s pretty.”

“My father gave it to me as a graduation present. We hunted duck quite often before I went off to New Haven.” He picked up the shotgun, cradled it lovingly, broke it in half, and looked down each barrel. “Still clean.”

The darkly polished wood gleamed, ornate silver scrollwork. An expensive firearm. Valentine had not held the weapon in over a year. The cold metal in his hand sparked a memory. A duck blind before dawn, the sun rising pink-orange over the lake. The last morning they’d gone hunting before Valentine had left for the East. His father had wanted him to be an engineer. Oklahoma oil had paid for the shotgun, the private lake, Valentine’s education. Father had been bitterly disappointed when his son turned poet. Poet. The word had struck his father like a tomahawk between the eyes. Poet was code for communist-faggot-slacker to an Oklahoma oil man. His father had died before the Pulitzer Prize, before the New York Times interview, before everything.

Jenks took the gun from his hand. “Cool. Let me see.”

Valentine let go reluctantly, watched Jenks sight along the barrel.

“What you shoot with this?”

“Ducks,” Valentine said. “Or geese.”

“What you use?” asked Jenks. “Slugs?”

“If you want to scatter the bird across the county.”

Jenks’s eyes shifted back to the bench seat. “Any shells in there?”

Valentine followed Jenks’s gaze to the bench seat. He looked back at Jenks and said, “I’ve made it a point not to pry into your business.”

“Good.”

“But maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on, eh? Perhaps I could even help.”

Jenks bit the end of his thumb, looked out the window. After a long pause, he shook his head. “I think you’d rather not know.”

Valentine lifted an eyebrow.

“But I appreciate it,” Jenks said. “Thanks for letting me and Wayne crash here. And thanks for trying to show me about the books, letting me look at Painted Bird. It’s wasted on me but thanks for trying.”

“Education is never a waste on anyone,” Valentine said.

Jenks smiled, shrugged. “Okay, man. Sure.”

Valentine nodded. He was a patient man. Perhaps he could pry some information out of DelPrego upon his return.

Wayne DelPrego left campus at a fast walk, looking over his shoulder as he slunk back into the knot of woods that bordered Eastern Oklahoma University. He didn’t venture deeply, not like when he and Jenks had hidden from Red Zach’s crew. He skirted the edge, stopped and knelt in a thick patch of shrubs when he saw his trailer.

He watched.

Be damned if these gangster shitbags would run him out of his home. He’d been wearing the same clothes-same underwear-for three days. And he wanted his truck. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had.

Watching the back of the trailer didn’t show him anything. Jenks was sure they’d watch the place, but how? Sit in a car on the street, or would somebody wait in the trailer for him with a loaded gun and the lights out? Or both? Maybe this was a mistake. He’d mentioned to Jenks he might try to sneak back for his truck, but Jenks had put his foot down. He’d said just to grab the cocaine and get back quick.

Fuck it.

DelPrego bolted from the shrubs, sprinted, his breaths huffing little clouds into the cold air. He dove under one of the trailer windows, pressed his back against the half-rusted wall. He listened.

Nothing.

He thought about crawling through the gap in the aluminum skirting and getting under the trailer, but shivered at the thought of what might be under there. Oklahoma was lousy with all kinds of spiders and scorpions. DelPrego hated the thought of escaping gangsters only to have a brown recluse scuttle up his jeans and bite him on the gnads.

Voices.

DelPrego held his breath, cocked an ear toward the open window above him. A conversation. He felt footsteps shaking the flimsy trailer, coming toward the window. DelPrego pressed himself as flat and as low as possible.

“What’re you doing?” The first voice.

“Mmmpgh Mmbf Mmmmmm.” The other.

“No, leave it open. It stinks in here.”

“Mmmph. Mmmm.”

“Then put your jacket back on, but leave it open.”

The footsteps retreated from the window. “Mmmph mmmmm?”

“Because Red Zach said so. If they come back, we grab ’em if possible or call his boys in for backup.”

The other voice uttered a string of garbled nonsense.

“I don’t like it either, Eddie. You think I want some coon giving me orders? But once we straighten this Jenks kid out, they’ll go back to St. Louis and we’ll be sitting on a gold mine. No more small-time.”

“Mmmm mmmph mmmm.”

“Me too. What you want?”

“Mmmph.”

“We had fucking Taco Bell yesterday.”

They argued five minutes about lunch. The first voice told the mumble voice he’d be back in thirty minutes. DelPrego heard the front door slam. A few seconds later an engine cranked, vehicle noise fading on the road out front. A second later the TV went on. DelPrego listened. It sounded like a game show.

Anger. Someone was in his home watching his damn television. Probably drank his last beer. He found himself getting up. Some remote bastion of intelligence shouted to the rest of his brain that a truck and a trailer and a ten-year-old RCA television were not worth dying for. But there he was crawling under the window, heading for the back door.

At the back door he stopped, took the little oilcan out of his jacket pocket. The old redneck janitor Brad Eubanks had gotten it for him last night. Even then, DelPrego had been thinking, putting the plan together in his mind. He squirted oil on the hinges, made sure to use plenty. He squirted oil into the lock, anyplace that might make a noise.

He took the back-door key from his pocket. He’d removed it from his key ring so it wouldn’t jingle against the other keys. He inserted it in the lock. Slowly. He pinched the key between thumb and forefinger, froze, listened. The game show drifted from the open window. DelPrego made himself breathe. Then he turned the key.

The lock slid back and DelPrego cracked the door an inch. No sound. He put his ear to the crack to make sure the game show was still going. It was. He looked inside but couldn’t see very far down the hall. The hall went past a little place where a washer and dryer would go if DelPrego had them. Then past the kitchen and opened up into the living room/dining room combo area. The TV was against the far wall in the living room. The whole trailer was like a cramped miniature version of a real house. A strong gust of wind would blow the whole thing over. It was a flimsy dwelling. The floor creaked. DelPrego would have to step lightly.

He opened the door, stepped into the trailer. He pulled the door closed behind him, each movement in exaggerated, agonizing slow motion. He took one step toward the kitchen and the floor groaned. He took his weight off the spot. He slipped out of his tennis shoes, set them aside. He walked along the side of the hall, inching forward until he saw the kitchen around the corner.

Beyond the kitchen, the living room and the TV.

Someone was in the easy chair, the battered La-Z-Boy he’d picked up from a junk heap and patched with duct tape. He couldn’t see who, only an elbow on the armrest, a hairy hand holding the remote control.

The hand was white.

DelPrego frowned. This didn’t make sense. He’d been expecting one of the gangsters who had chased him and Jenks into the woods. In his mind, he replayed the conversation he’d heard under the trailer window. One of the voices had specifically mentioned Red Zach.

Okay, never mind. White or black, this guy was in his house, waiting to kill him.