Cyrus walked over, breaking open the gun and jacking the spent rounds out, the brass ends catching the moonlight. He pulled two more rounds out of his jeans and snapped the gun together and stuck the barrel in Ray’s ribs and leaned on the stock. The pain shot across Ray’s stomach and down his legs and made him sick to his stomach.

“Run away.” Cyrus leaned down. “And don’t think about telling nobody what you seen here. You called this deal, and you and your gook buddy got just as much to lose as we do.” He straightened up and walked back toward the house, disappearing into the dark.

What was all this for? he kept thinking. How much money was in it? There must be millions somewhere, right? Was all of this about the kind of money stuffed in the duffel bag? It wasn’t enough. Not for all this. There wasn’t even enough money to buy a decent house.

Laying there spattered with blood under the white moon like a hull of bone, he saw that there was almost nothing in it and that all around him were the dogs that slinked under the table and chewed each other’s throats for scraps. These men, Scott and Cyrus, and him, too. Ray and Manny and their friends. Ripping at each other with teeth and black claws and the whole time dying themselves, worn thin and bleeding. Wandering away to die alone or killed for their weakness.

Ray pulled himself up painfully and ran without looking back. He could see men back by the line of cars, some carrying guns. He made for the Honda and had just reached it when the dark Charger rocketed up the drive and spun off the driveway at the turn, throwing gravel. Two men who had stayed back with the cars started firing shotguns at the long car as it missed the turn. Ray could hear the hard crack of glass shattering as whoever was inside stomped the accelerator and the big Dodge fishtailed and the tires whined and spun uselessly in the wet grass.

A third man ran close and threw one of the firebombs hard against the rear windshield. Already starred from the shotgun pellets, the glass bowed in, and the interior of the car filled with yellow light as the gasoline spilled across the rear seats. More shots hit the front windshield, and the wheels stopped spinning. Ray stood, transfixed by the sight of the car burning. It was blue, he could see now. Dark blue, midnight blue. The men who had been firing the shotguns ran back to the Taurus and slammed the doors. They pulled out, and the third man jumped into the rear seat while the car was still moving. It shot down the driveway, gravel spitting from under the wheels and clattering against the other cars.

Ray could hear sirens now and far away could see the red and white lights of fire trucks making their way up Forty Foot Road. There were distant pops and cracks from the direction of the farmhouse. Ray finally started jogging back toward the car, pulling his keys out of his pocket. When he got the Honda moving down the driveway, picking up speed, he kept looking back toward the Charger. The inside of the car filled with flame, and smoke spi-raled out from under the hood. The doors never opened, and no one got out.

CHAPTER TEN

RAY CALLED MANNY and started telling him everything that happened, his hands vibrating like broken machines. Manny stopped him, told him to meet him at the place where he was staying, in a room over a bar where they sometimes hung out in War-rington, a place owned by a guy who’d sold them guns a couple of times.

Ray parked in the dark reaches of the parking lot and walked across the asphalt, feeling a bass beat from inside that resonated in his chest before he even opened the door. Inside, the noise was deafening, the place packed with kids. Young guys with ball caps on at angles and gold chains around their necks, shoulders hunched, going for some kind of effect that eluded Ray. Did they think, with their freckled skin and wide eyes, to be taken for dangerous? He elbowed his way to the bar and asked for a beer and a shot. He downed the shot and carried the beer back out to the entrance to get to the stairs, waved to the bouncer, a friend of Harlan Max-imuck named Edgy.

At the top of the stairs he knocked, and Manny let him in with his right hand held behind him, poking his head through the door and looking up and down the hall. When Ray went by him Manny threw a baseball bat onto a mattress on the floor and dropped down beside it. The floor vibrated with the pulse of the beat from downstairs. Ray could feel it through his boots.

The place was a mess, a big empty space with extra tables for the bar, chairs stacked, cardboard cutouts of girls in swimsuits and cartoon pirates selling rum and beer. There was a little plastic fan sitting on the floor pointed at Manny, the box it had come in put into service as an end table holding Manny’s works, a bottle of peppermint schnapps, a package of bright orange peanut butter crackers. There was scattered trash, empty bags from Yum Yum Donuts down the street, empty green beer bottles, an ashtray and a pack of Marlboros.

Ray told as much of what had happened as he could remember, though he knew things were already getting confused, his memory distorted by intensity and his own fear. “They went fucking crazy. They burned the fucking place down, shot people. I never saw anything like that.”

Manny’s head bobbed. “Good. I hope they killed that fucker and his dog. I hope they killed everyone who ever met him or knew his name.” He scratched at a sore in the crook of his arm.

Ray said, “You’re high.”

“Fucking A, I am high.” He went to the peanut butter crackers, took one out with exaggerated care, and made large, approximate movements of his arm to get it to his mouth. “Why are they orange? ’Cause of the cheese?”

“Fuck, man.”

“I mean, is cheese really orange? Isn’t it white, or blue or something? I mean, it’s basically moldy milk.”

“Manny.”

“I’m just saying, why orange? I can’t have an opinion about orange?”

Ray squatted by the box and picked up the bottle of schnapps and swigged it.

“That is some nasty shit.”

“It’s sweet. I got a sweet tooth.”

“You got like three teeth, and you’re going to be losing them soon.” Ray went to the window and looked out through a hole in the shades. The lights in the parking lot glinted from pickup trucks and SUVs. He watched a boy kissing a girl sitting on the hood of a parked car. She was wearing a white top that stopped a few inches from her jeans.

“Where did you score?”

“Monk on Bristol Road. You going to give me shit about that, too?” Manny got to his feet, swaying. He pulled the bat off the bed and swung it wildly, losing his balance and backing into a wall, leaving a dimple in the wallboard where his elbow connected.

Ray waved his hand in front of his face. “Oh, fuck off. I just want to keep a low profile.” He shook his head. “Like I give a shit if you get high.”

“I know, I just…” Manny bobbed his head. “I can’t handle this shit. Sitting around. I’d rather get out in it than sit and wait.”

“Well, what the hell? Aren’t I out there trying to handle it? Rolling around in the fucking tumbleweeds with these hillbillies?”

“Okay.”

“I don’t need shit from you.”

“Okay, okay.” Manny held up his long arms and dropped his head, making peace, then went back to pacing, swinging the bat at flies. “Life goes on,” he said, his voice low. “A man becomes preeminent; he’s expected to have… enthusiasms.” This was a favorite of Manny’s, The Untouchables. De Niro a hulking animal in a gray suit. “Enthusiasms. Enthusiasms. What is that which gives me joy?”

“Smack?”

Manny dropped the bat and it bounced and knocked over some empty green beer bottles. “Not just that.” He looked around as if seeing the place new and rubbed his eyes with both hands, like a child. “Stealing shit. Money. Sherry.” He stared into the middle distance. “I gotta sleep.”