"What was we supposed to do? The guy was calling the cops," Chapman said. Haines, who'd done the kicking, kept his mouth shut.

Honey Bee stared at them, as she worked through a wad of Juicy Fruit the size of a walnut. She said, around the gum, "You guys could screw up a wet dream."

Lyle Mack was sweating, scared, and thinking: Too many witnesses. Too many people knew that Joe Mack, Haines, and Chapman had raided the pharmacy. He and Honey Bee, the three of them, anyone they may have talked to-and there were probably a couple who'd taken some hints-plus the doc, and maybe the doc's pal, the square doc, whoever he was.

"Tell me about the woman in the Audi," Lyle Mack said.

"She rolled in as we were rolling out. She might not connect us," Joe Mack said. "She saw me, I think, but who knows? Our lights was in her eyes. She was blond, she was short, was driving an Audi. Could have been a nurse."

"She totally saw you, dude," said Haines, trying to take some pressure off himself. Christ, he'd kicked that dude to death. He didn't know what he thought about that. Shooter had once killed a spade out in Stockton, California, but that was different. "That dude that died, it was like totally a freak accident. They said so on TV, he was on some meds that made him bleed. Wasn't me. I kicked him a little."

"Punted the shit out of him," said Joe Mack, passing back the pressure.

"The old fuck scratched me," Haines said. "He was hanging on."

"That was after you kicked him," Joe Mack said.

Lyle Mack asked, "How bad you hurt?"

"Aw, just bled a little, it don't show," Mikey said.

"Let me see," Lyle Mack said.

Mikey pulled up his pant leg. "Nothing," he said. He looked like he'd been scraped with a screwdriver, a long thin scratch with some dried blood.

The TV went back to the morning show where some crazy woman was talking about making decorations for Martin Luther King Day from found art, which seemed to consist of beer-can pull-tabs and bottle caps. They all watched for a minute, then Joe Mack said, "She's gotta be on something bad. You couldn't do that, normal."

Lyle Mack pointed the remote at the TV and the picture got sucked into a white dot. He scratched his head and said, "Well, now."

Honey Bee cracked her gum. "What're we gonna do?"

"Lay low," Lyle Mack said. "Dump the dope at Dad's farm. Put the guns in with the dope-they could be identified, too. Nobody touches anything for a month. You three… no, Joe Mack, you better stay here. Honey Bee can give you a haircut. Cut it right down to a butch."

"Aw, no," Joe Mack groaned.

Lyle Mack rode over him: "Mikey and Shooter, you go out to Honey Bee's. When Joe's cleaned up, me'n him'll come over. I think the three of you better get the hell over to Eddie's. Hit a couple bars every night, let everybody see you, until nobody knows exactly when you got there, and then you can say you were over there a week before this shit happened."

"Man, it's fuckin' freezin' over there," Haines said. Eddie's was in Green Bay.

"It's fuckin' freezin' here, and we can trust Eddie, and this shit wouldn't have happened if you hadn't kicked that old man to death," Lyle Mack said. "So shut up and go on over to Eddie's. Wait until night. Get over to Honey Bee's right now, until it's dark. Don't stop for no food, don't get no beer, don't let anybody see your faces. We don't want anybody sayin', 'I saw him the day it happened.'"

"What about, you know…" Chapman glanced at the packs full of drugs. "This was supposed to pay us something."

Lyle Mack got to his feet, a short heavy man in a black fleece and jeans. He went out to the front of the bar and came back three minutes later with a thin pile of fifty-dollar bills. He cut the pile more or less in half and gave one stack each to Haines and Chapman. "You go on, now. That's two thousand for each of you. It'll keep you for a month, at Eddie's. After we sell the shit, you'll get the rest."

"Green Bay, dude," Haines moaned.

"Better'n Oak Park Heights," Chapman said. Oak Park Heights was the state's supermax prison.

They all looked at each other for a moment, no sound other than a hum from a refrigeration unit, and Honey Bee's gum-chewing, and then Lyle Mack said to Haines and Chapman, "So-take off. I'll get over there soon as I can. You can get some pizzas from the freezer and take a couple cases of beer."

"Biggest score we ever did," Haines said.

"Yeah, but you had to go and fuck it up," Lyle said. HAINES AND CHAPMAN got four pizzas and two cases of Miller, and shuffled out through the back, off the loading dock. Their 2002 Trans Am was leaning against a snowdrift, and Lyle Mack stood on tiptoe, looking out of the garage door windows, watching as the two got inside, still watching until the car turned the corner.

Then he turned back to Joe Mack and Honey Bee and said, "Honey, go get me a hot fudge sundae."

"What?" Her jaw hung open, and he could see the wad of gum; it looked like a piece of zombie flesh. She was a goodlookin' woman, Lyle Mack thought, who ruined it all when she did something like that, and she did something like that all the time.

"A fuckin' hot fudge sundae," he said, patiently. "Get me a hot fudge sundae. Put the hot fudge in the microwave so it's really hot."

She shook her head, looked at her watch-it was five minutes after eight o'clock in the morning, a weird time for a hot fudge sundae, but she got up and wandered off to the front of the bar. Lyle Mack walked behind her, shut the door, and turned back to Joe.

"You crazy fuckers," he said, shaking his head. "You couldn't have done worse if you'd shot a cop. You dumb sonsofbitches."

"That fuckin' Mikey," Joe Mack said. "And I don't think sendin' us to Eddie's is gonna do much good. How many times have you heard about Shooter killing the colored dude out in California?"

Lyle Mack shook a finger at him. "That's why they aren't going to Eddie's."

"They aren't?"

"We got no choice, Joe. That old fart scratched Mikey," Lyle Mack said. "That means the cops got DNA on him. You remember when Mikey fucked that high school chick over in Edina and the cops came and made him brush his gums? That was DNA. About two minutes from now, they're going to come looking for him, and they'll give us up bigger'n shit."

Joe Mack thought about that for a few seconds, then a frown slowly crawled over his face. "If you're talking about killing them, I mean, fuck you. I'm not killing anybody," Joe Mack said. "I mean, I couldn't do it. I'd mess it up."

Lyle Mack was nodding. "Me and you both, Joe Mack. We gotta get hold of Cappy."

"Ah, man." Joe thought about Cappy for a minute, and then thought about getting a drink.

"Got no choice," Lyle Mack said. He listened toward the front of the bar for a minute, then said, "Don't tell Honey Bee about this. She likes those boys, and she'd get upset."

"What if Cappy… I mean, Shooter and Mikey is his pals."

"I don't think anybody is Cappy's pals," Lyle Mack said. "Cappy is his own pal." OUT IN THE Trans Am, Haines said, "Hope Honey Bee's got Home Box Office."

"Gotta stop at the house first," Shooter said.

"Lyle said-"

"It's Lyle that worries me," Chapman said. "I could see him thinkin'. He's worried about us."

"About us?" Haines didn't understand.

"About us givin' him up. I could see his beady little eyes thinkin' it over. So he sends us out to Honey Bee's, which is so far out in the country a goddamn John Deere salesman couldn't find us. Why is that? Maybe he wants to get us alone and do us."

"But he said we can't be seen," Haines whined. "He said we're going to Eddie's."

"Well, he's sorta right about not bein' seen, but we gotta take the chance," Chapman said. "We gotta run by the house, grab the guns, and then we can take off. Turn the furnace down. If we was going to Eddie's for a month, we'd at least turn the furnace down. Take the shit out of the refrigerator. Take us two minutes."