Bobby2

Sheila Drove. Bobby sat beside her, low in his seat, his knees propped against the dashboard. He smoked a cigarette and stared out the passenger window at the swampy marshland and the muddy canals running alongside Alligator Alley. He looked at his watch. They were 30 minutes from Immokalee. It was dusk. Hot and muggy. Already the mist was starting to form at the base of the palmetto palms and the cypress trees. By the time they reached Immokalee, everything would be shrouded in mist and darkness just the way Bobby had planned. A big semi, heading the other way, whooshed past them, almost blowing their little red Hyundai off the two-lane blacktop. Sheila struggled with the wheel, straightened the car and sped up again. She was a good driver, Bobby thought. He took a drag off his cigarette and fixed his eyes on the swamp speeding past them.

"Can you do it?" he said. Sheila said nothing. Bobby looked at her. "Can you?"

Sheila kept her eyes on the road. "I don't know."

"If you don't, I could go away for a long time."

"I said, I don't know." He hated that schoolteacher's tone when she was pissed at him. He let it slide.

Bobby looked back out the window and saw a gator slip into the muddy canal. A big mother, maybe 300 pounds. He took another drag on his cigarette and said, "Maybe you won't have to. He told me not to worry, in that shit-kicking drawl of his. 'Bobby, y'all know I'm a stand-up guy,' he said. 'I'll do my time like a man and I won't rat nobody out.'" Bobby laughed. "That was before he got ten years. I don't think that fuckin' redneck is that much of a stand-up guy."

Sheila said nothing. Bobby stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. "The piece is under your seat," he said. "When we get there, don't lock the car doors. If you can get at it, use it. If you can't...." He didn't want to tell her the next thing, but he had to. "One other thing, baby," he said. She knew that tone in his voice. She glanced at him, then turned back to the road. "I told him you were a hooker."

"Nice," she said.

"I had to, baby. He wouldn't trust my old lady. This way he's only gonna be watchin' me, not you."

"So that's why you had me dress like this," she said, smiling. "To meet a fucking redneck in the swamp." She shook her head. She was wearing rose spandex pants, a low-cut white top and stripper's pumps. She was still a good-looking chick, even at 45, ten years older than Bobby. Her bleached-blonde hair was cut so short that it stood up on top like spring grass. The guys at the gym called her Spike, partly because of her spiky do and partly because the name fit her. She didn't mind sweating under heavy weights and she didn't complain. She was a strong, tough chick and a lady, too. The guys respected that. So did Bobby. He respected her body even more, though. Lean and muscular and tanned, she had a body like those 14-year-old coon boys Bobby saw playing basketball at midnight in the park near their apartment. She had abs like them, too, all chiseled, because she could never have kids. Her breasts were small, but when she went to the beach in her G string bikini, there was no mistaking her for any coon boy.

•

Bobby had met her three years ago. He was stripping at the Crazy Horse in Miami Beach when she came in with a group of women who looked a lot older than she did. They were all teachers at the high school where she taught theater arts. She hadn't needed the money, she'd just wanted something to do to keep from going crazy from boredom. Her husband had been a corporate lawyer at CenTrust until it went bust. He'd taken good care of her--the big mission-style house in the Gables, the Jaguar Sovereign, the membership at Regine's, the face-lift--but without the money, there was literally nothing to the marriage. So she divorced him. That's why her teacher friends had brought her to the Crazy Horse that night, to celebrate her divorce. The next morning, she'd been prepared to settle down in a little apartment on South Beach, teach her theater course, maybe act a little at the Grove, character roles now, Blanche instead of Stella, and become the middle-aged woman with graying brown hair, severe suit and gray panty hose that she resembled that night. The group sat at a table close to the stage where Bobby was dancing. The other women laughed and shrieked as he began to strip off his tuxedo jacket, then his shirt. She just studied him. She put her elbow on the table, propped her chin on her hand and fixed him with her eyes. Even when he was down to his G string, her expression didn't change. She wasn't fixed on his muscular body as were the other women. She was fixed on him, on some place inside of him, as if she were looking for something she hoped to find. Bobby leaped off the stage and began to dance around the room, which was filled with shrieking, whistling women. He sat on their laps, kissed them, let them tuck dollar bills into his G string, let them cop a feel if it wasn't too obvious. All the while his back was turned to her, he could feel her eyes fixed on him.

After he got dressed, he went over to her table. The other women were screaming at the new dancers onstage now. Bobby crouched like a football coach beside her chair. She looked down at him and, for the first time, smiled. "I was hoping you'd stop by," she said.

When he asked her what a lady like her was doing at the Crazy Horse, she laughed in a way that made Bobby feel stupid, as if he were one of her students. "Aren't you sweet?" she said and touched his face with her hand. "I thought so."

From the very first, Bobby had the feeling she knew things about him even he didn't know. He had always been with younger chicks, and it was starting to get boring. This older woman fascinated him. The mere fact that she was attracted to him fascinated him. It gave him weight. He asked again what she was doing here. She told him everything: the divorce, the husband who went broke. There would be no alimony, but she didn't care. She just wanted to change her life.

Bobby looked her in the eyes, not a little boy now but someone wise in ways she wasn't. "How much do you want to change your life?" he said. She knew what he meant.

"Listen," she said. "I'm forty-two. I've got no husband, no children. I've played by the rules all my life and this is what it's got me."

•

He took her back to his apartment in Fort Lauderdale and changed both of their lives that night. She made love like a virgin, filled with wonder, or maybe just an older woman who'd never had much sex. But she liked it. She was willing to do anything. "Anything?" Bobby grinned, looking down at her.

"Anything," she said, "as long as it's with you."

Sex wasn't the only thing she came late to, and it wasn't the only thing she was willing to let Bobby teach her. He told her about his business on the side. "A few keys now and then for a redneck cowboy out in Immokalee," he said.

"Keys?"

Bobby laughed. "Kilos, baby. Two-point-two pounds of Peruvian flake." He had to spell it out for her. "Cocaine. I bring it in from Barranquilla, Colombia, baby. In suitcases. It's more dangerous that way. That's the kick." She didn't look shocked, only thoughtful. "I could use a partner," he said. "Someone I can trust."

She frowned, as if thinking of a way to get out of his apartment without making him angry. Then she said, "Why only a few keys? And why do we need your redneck friend?"

Bobby shook his head and laughed. "I'll be a son of a bitch!" he said. "A fuckin' schoolteacher."

Now she was smiling. "That way, you can stop dancing," she said. She pressed her palm against his smooth, hairless chest. "This body," she said. "It's mine. And nobody else's."

•

They had been together ever since. They made more than 20 trips to Barranquilla and had never been caught. She loved it, the danger of it. It made her feel young, she said, just like she felt in bed with Bobby. Man, she was good at it. Bobby could trust her never to crack. That was the thing.

A lot of guys talk about being standup, but they are only up to a point. Ten years can make a guy think twice about not ratting out a buddy. Like Brad. They got him on a money-laundering charge, transporting $600,000 to Barranquilla to pay for the merchandise Bobby and Sheila would bring back. Brad laughed, thought it was a pissant charge. "Two to three, I'll be out in thirteen months," he said. But he didn't laugh when they hit him with ten years on a federal charge, which meant he could serve eight. They were trying to squeeze him to give up Bobby. If he did, the charge would be reduced to two to three. Now Brad, out on bond, had only three choices. Do his time stand-up. Run. Or rat Bobby out.

Brad was a tough guy, but Bobby didn't trust him. Not like he trusted Sheila. She had balls like watermelons, and she could think on her feet, like a great actress. One time, Bobby was carrying four keys in his suitcase through Customs at the Miami airport. He didn't even bother to hide them in the lining of his luggage. There was too much of it. That was the point. The sheer stupidity of it excited them both. So much, in fact, that halfway between Barranquilla and Miami, Sheila grabbed his hand and led him back to the bathroom at the rear of the plane. She opened the door, right in front of the stewardess, pushed him in, followed him and locked the door. She pulled up her skirt, peeled off her panties, then hoisted herself onto the little metal sink. She raised her legs, spread them, planted one foot on the door and the other on the wall. "Come on," she said, her face flushed. "Do it." Bobby entered her just as the stewardess began pounding on the door.

"You can't do that on my plane," the stewardess hissed through the door. "It's disgusting!"

Sheila threw back her head and came almost immediately; then Bobby came. They were both panting. The stewardess was still pounding on the door. "It's disgusting!"

Sheila called through the door, "It's not disgusting. It's making love." Her term. She would do anything with (continued on page 134)Bobby2(continued from page 112) Bobby so long as he didn't call it screwing or a piece of ass. "That's what you did with the whores you knew before me," she said.

When they got off the plane, Sheila gave the stewardess a big smile, then went ahead of Bobby through Customs. Bobby waited behind the green line while the agent questioned Sheila. He went to open her suitcase. She grabbed it away from him. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she said.

That's all the Customs guy needed. He looked over at two DEA agents leaning against the wall, and they began walking toward Sheila.

"I have to inspect your luggage," one agent said.

"Fuck, you do!" Sheila said. She jerked a thumb toward Bobby. "Go check that asshole's luggage, not mine."

The two agents were on either side of her now. Each took a firm grip of an elbow. One leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Don't make a fuss, lady, or we'll have to cuff you."

Sheila, clutching the bag that had nothing in it but her clothes, let them lead her toward a door at the other end of the big room. Bobby heard one of the agents say, "Is that guy with you, lady?"

"Which guy?" she said.

He jerked his head toward Bobby. "That guy."

"Fuck him!" she said.

When Bobby got to the Customs agent with his suitcases, the agent was following Sheila with his eyes, until she disappeared with the two agents through the door. When he looked back to Bobby, he had that blank, suspicious stare of a bureaucrat. He checked Bobby out. A big, tanned, muscular guy with long blond hair tied back tight in a ponytail. Aqua Hawaiian shirt dotted with pink flamingos. Western jeans. Ostrich-skin pointy-toed boots. Bobby could have passed for an Immokalee cowboy--with his narrow eyes, high cheekbones and angular features--if his jeans and shirt hadn't been so neatly pressed. He might even have passed for a Seminole if not for his blond hair. But the pressed jeans and shirt were the giveaway as far as the Customs agent was concerned. Just another Lauderdale personal-injury lawyer dressing up like a smuggler.

The agent looked at Bobby's passport. "Mr. Roberts?" he said. "Robert Roberts?"

Bobby laughed. "Hell of a name, ain't it? My buddies just call me Bobby Squared." The agent didn't get it. Bobby forced himself to keep smiling until the agent looked at him again. Bobby looked toward the door where the agents had taken Sheila. She was probably being strip-searched by now. "That was some crazy lady," Bobby said.

Finally, the agent smiled. "We get all kinds," he said. He handed Bobby back his passport. "Do you have anything to declare, Mr. Roberts?"

"Not this trip."

The agent waved him through.

Bobby smiled at the swamp flashing by the car window. He looked at Sheila with admiration. She did have balls. She wasn't even pissed when the agents finally did release her. Bobby was waiting by the car in the lot when she came running toward him with a big smile on her face. "You're all right!" she said, throwing her arms around his neck. "Oh, baby, I was so worried for you!" Worried about me? Bobby thought. Jesus, if anyone can do it, she can.

•

"Turn here, baby!" he said.

Sheila jerked the wheel to her right without putting on the brakes. The tires squealed and the car almost tipped over as it swerved onto an even narrower, bumpier two-lane blacktop heading north.

"Christ, Sheila! You trying to kill us before we even get there?"

The canal was a lot narrower now, nothing more than a muddy stream, and the swamp was closer to the car. Bobby saw a dead cow being eaten by a flock of buzzards. "Nature's food chain," he said out loud.

"What?"

"Nothing, baby." They passed some Seminole burial mounds in the distance and then came into the small ramshackle reservation. "Slow down," Bobby said. "We don't want to get stopped by Seminole cops. They can be mean sons of bitches when they get a white person on the reservation." Bobby knew a lot about mean Indian cops. They had hassled him plenty when he was Robert Redfeather back in Cherokee, North Carolina. Before he'd dyed his hair blond, changed his name, gotten rid of his fucking redneck drawl and split for Fort Lauderdale, where everyone was brown.

Bobby saw some moon-faced kids with that shiny black hair he used to have playing on the front lawns of government-issue redbrick houses. There was a rusted Chevy Super Sport propped on cinder blocks in a front yard. A redbrick church. A few more houses. An airplane hangar converted to a bingo parlor. The white man's gift of Indian welfare. Then a rotting wood building with a faded hand-painted sign: Authentic Seminole Souvenirs, and then nothing again but swamp. He was glad to get out of there. It reminded him of his own days on the reservation. Walking to school while the tourists slowed their cars and pointed out the window at the cute little Indian boys and girls, their mothers "squaws" and their fathers "chiefs." His father used to dress up in those cheap head-feathers, not even the ancestral ones, and stand in the hot sun all day, drinking Dickel from a paper bag, swaying and sweating in the heat in front of a phony tepee that sold Authentic Cherokee Souvenirs. They were probably made by the same fucking Koreans who made Seminole souvenirs, Bobby thought. But that was all behind him now. So far behind that he had never told Sheila. It was the only thing he kept from her. In bed one night she had asked why he dyed his hair. For the ladies at the Crazy Horse, he'd said. She had rubbed the flat of her palm over his smooth chest and said, "I never knew a man with black hair could be so hairless."

•

Brad was waiting for them in his open-air Jeep at the gate to the ranch. He signaled them in the darkness with blinking headlights. They followed him down a rutted dirt road past some cattle, then a cluster of buildings: a farmhouse, a trailer, a few barns and, farther back in the woods, a cabin. Brad's Porsche 928 was parked in front of the cabin. Brad stopped and got out. They parked behind him. "Don't forget," Bobby said, "the piece is under your seat." They got out, and from nowhere a pack of mangy dogs, trailed by a cloud of fleas, descended on them. Sheila grabbed Bobby's arm tight while the dogs stood a few feet from them, barking. They had old-looking red-rimmed eyes and tiny dark scars on their coats. Junkyard dogs put together with spare parts.

Brad was laughing. "Don'chall worry," he said. "They won't attack unless I tell 'em. Now Corky there, she don't even need an excuse." He pointed to a suspicious-looking white dog with hundreds of scars on her body and face.

(continued on page 158)Bobby2(continued from page 134)

Corky wasn't wagging her tail or barking. She just stood there eyeing Sheila and Bobby. "Old Corky can chew up a wild hog pretty quick," he said, and motioned them toward the cabin.

They followed him into a small kitchen. A big man with a .38 in a holster on his hip was waiting for them. "This is Charlie," Brad said, grinning. "He's jes' an ole Immokalee cowboy like me." Bobby smiled at him, but Charlie didn't smile back. He was a huge, soft-looking man, like an NFL tackle. He kept his hand close to his .38 and his eyes on Bobby. "This here is my bidness pardner, Bobby Squared," Brad said. "And his ladyfriend."

"Sheila," Bobby said. She smiled at them.

"Nice to meetcha, ma'am," Brad said. He was a wiry little guy about 30, with a deep scar down one cheek and an even deeper, more jagged scar on his arm. He wore a dirty white T-shirt and dirty jeans. He walked over to Bobby, smiling, and threw his arms around him in a hug. "Good to see ya, buddy," he said. He ran his hands down Bobby's back, patted his ass, then knelt down and patted his legs all the way to Bobby's boots. When he stood up, he said, "No offense, Bobby. Jes' checkin'."

Bobby smiled. "No offense, buddy."

Brad looked at Sheila. She spread her arms wide, inviting, and flashed him a smile Bobby had never seen on her before. "Oh, that's all right, ma'am," Brad said. "Y'all can't be hidin' nuthin' in that outfit." He looked her up and down. "So you're Bobby's old lady."

"I'm nobody's old lady," she said. "I thought Bobby told you."

"That's right. He did. A workin' girl, huh?" He shook his head. "I plum forgot. How'd ya like to see the rest of the cabin, ma'am? If it's all right with you, Bobby."

"Why not? That's why I brought her." Sheila looked at him as if he'd hit her in the face. She looked bruised, stunned, but only for a split second. She recovered her smile.

"Why not?" she said.

"Bobby, fix yerself some a that Crown Royal and 7UP," Brad said. "Charlie, be a little sociable, boy, while I show the lady around." He led Sheila down a narrow hallway into a room. She never looked back.

Bobby had to force himself not to look after her. He went over to the Crown Royal, poured some into a glass. "You want one?" he said to Charlie. Charlie shook his head and kept his eyes on Bobby. Bobby sat at the kitchen table and sipped his drink in silence. He felt weak in the knees, light-headed, hollowed out. He tried to concentrate on the kitchen, on the old white-enameled sink filled with dirty dishes, the bare light bulb hanging by a wire from the ceiling, the rickety card table he was sitting at, Charlie standing at the sink. That was it. Charlie. Big and mean, but stupid, too. Stupid guys like Charlie always thought they hid their stupidity with silence. I'll bet every one of them had a mother who told him, Better to be thought a fool than speak and prove it, Bobby thought. Charlie was the key. Brad would never make a slip. But Charlie, he could be had. If only Sheila saw it, too.

Bobby heard the sound of muffled voices from the room down the hallway, then a woman's laugh and the creaking of bedsprings. Charlie heard them, too. A slow grin passed across his face and was gone. Bobby drained his drink, poured another and sat down again. Maybe she liked it too much, he thought. He had another drink. Then he heard footsteps in the hallway. Brad came into the kitchen first.

"Whatever you payin' that girl, it ain't enough, Bobby," he said, grinning. Sheila appeared a moment later, carrying her pumps in her hand. Her face was flushed and her lipstick rubbed off, but she was smiling. Brad looked at Bobby looking at Sheila. "Anything wrong, buddy?" he said.

Bobby smiled at him. "Not a thing, buddy."

Brad tossed a head fake toward Sheila. "Maybe you oughtta get yerself a piece of that, too, Bobby. It's your money."

Bobby looked at Sheila and said, "I already had my piece." But it didn't wipe that smile off her face. He turned to Brad. "Now can we get down to business? We got some things to talk over."

"Sure we do," Brad said. "Why don't we do it while we go wild-hog huntin'? Catch us some pork you can take back to the city."

Bobby was stunned. Brad could see it on his face. It took Bobby a long moment to speak. "Brad, it's late, man. I got things to do. Let's just get this----"

Sheila's voice interrupted him. "I've never been wild-hog hunting," she said. "It sounds exciting." She had that same breathless tone in her voice she had before they went through Customs. Bobby glared at her. She ignored him and kept on talking to Brad. "Is it dangerous?"

"Jes' a little," Brad said. "Mostly for the dogs. A hog's tusk can tear up a pit bull pretty good." He looked at her with an amused grin. "You got a lotta surprises in you, lady."

"I'm willing to try anything," she said in a sexy voice. "Once, anyway."

"Good. Let's go."

•

They all went outside into the cool, damp darkness. Off in the black swamp, lighted by a full moon, the mist hovered low to the ground, wound itself around the bushes and the trunks of trees like a shroud. Brad called the dogs. They came running, yelping, and leaped onto the back of the Jeep. One dog hung back. Brad grabbed him by the loose skin of his neck and tossed him up like a sack of laundry.

"Just one minute," Sheila said, hugging herself in the cold. "I have to get my sweater in the car. I didn't exactly dress for a night in the swamp."

Brad looked at her and then at the car. "No need. Give me the keys and I'll get it for you."

"It's open," she said. "The sweater's in back. You might as well take these, too." She handed him her pumps.

Brad went over to the car, searched around in the back seat and came back empty-handed. "Couldn't find it," he said.

"Damn," she said. "I must have left it back at Bobby's place."

"Don't worry, little lady," Brad said. "A little hog huntin' will warm your blood right up."

Brad chained Corky to the gearshift lever in front, away from the other dogs. He patted the passenger seat beside Corky. "Sit right here, Bobby. Keep me company." Bobby sat beside Corky, while Charlie helped Sheila up in back. Charlie stood behind Bobby, his hand on his holster, looking down on him, while Sheila stood behind Brad as he started the Jeep. "It'll get a little bumpy back there," Brad said. "Best hold tight to that roll bar." Sheila wrapped her arms around the roll bar behind the front seat. It had a big spotlight mounted to it. Brad jammed the Jeep into gear and they took off.

He drove slowly, without lights, through the brush and fields. The mist parted before them, then closed behind them. Charlie and Sheila had to duck branches. The dogs squirmed around them with anticipation. Corky sat perfectly still and mean beside Bobby. Bobby tried to put it together in his mind. Why was Brad going to whack him out in the swamp? It didn't make sense. If he was going to rat Bobby out for a lighter sentence, he needed Bobby alive to do it. Or did he? Not if he already cut the deal. That's why he's been out on bond so long--the fuckin' redneck already ratted me out, Bobby thought. Alive, I'm a liability. Bobby knew too much. He knew that Brad wasn't just a redneck courier mule. Brad controlled it all, Brad and his big redneck family with their fingers in every piece of merchandise that came into south Florida, from Fort Lauderdale to Naples to Florida City. They were a tight bunch that didn't rat on their own. Bobby, now, was a different story. A freelancer. And worse. He was an Indian. He'd never owned up to it, but Brad knew. "If it wasn't for that blond ponytail, Bobby," he liked to say, "I swear you remind me of this big old Seminole buck I went to high school with."

The Jeep hit a rut and everyone bounced into the air. "Oooiieee!" Sheila yelled. "This is fun!" Bobby couldn't believe it. Where was her fucking mind? He looked back at her. She had her arm around Charlie's waist and her head close to his shoulder. "What's that?" she said. Far off in the woods, Bobby saw pairs of shining emeralds.

"Deer," Brad said. The Jeep flushed a covey of quail. They flapped their wings violently, then lighted down farther into the mist. "The man who owned that ranch was the one what rolled over on my daddy," said Brad, pointing at the top of a fence line emerging from the mist. "They caught him with a lousy two keys." Brad shook his head and laughed. "Course, nobody went away. The guy disappeared before the trial. Ain't that so, Charlie?"

Charlie spoke for the first time. "That's right." Bobby looked back at him. He was smiling. What a fucking moron, Bobby thought. And then he saw Sheila's hand massaging the base of Charlie's neck. Was she acting, or was she really getting off on it? Maybe she liked excitement too much. Maybe this whole deal was turning her on, just like in the plane coming back from Barranquilla. Fuck her, then, I'll have to do it myself.

Suddenly, a scream pierced the night.

"What was that?" Sheila said.

"Panther," Brad said. "Sounds jes' like a woman bein' raped, don't it? It's the only thang in these woods sends shivers down my spine."

The dogs stopped squirming and began to sniff the air. "They're on to some-thin'," Brad whispered, and slowed the Jeep. Corky sat bolt upright. Brad pulled to a halt in a clearing and pointed to the woods ahead. "There." Charlie held the dogs back in the Jeep till Brad said, "Turn 'em loose." Charlie threw them out and they landed on the run, only the top half of their bodies visible in the mist, heading for the woods. Corky was still chained to the gearshift.

The dogs raced back and forth. Suddenly, there was a piercing squeal, then a mad yelping from the dogs. The top half of a black hunchbacked hog burst out of the woods like a fullback breaking a tackle. It thundered past the Jeep, trailed by the yelping dogs, and headed across the open clearing toward woods on the other side. Brad jammed the Jeep into gear. "Hold on!" he shouted, and the Jeep leaped after the dogs and hog. Charlie flicked on the spotlight mounted on the roll bar. The dogs and hog were clearly lighted now as the Jeep bounced and rattled across the field. The beasts ran in and out of the spotlight as if they were being filmed by a hand-held camera. When the Jeep hit 60 mph, it passed the dogs, their tongues hanging out, and caught up to the hog. They raced him, side by side, like linebackers covering a fullback expecting a pass. They heard his heavy grunting above the noise of the Jeep's engine, could smell his filthy breath, could see it even, all steamy in the light as he ran in terror. He cut to his right. "Hot damn!" Brad shouted.

Sheila was smacking Brad on the shoulder, shouting, "Turn it! Turn it! Turn the goddamn wheel, you're gonna lose him!" Brad swerved the Jeep sharply to the right. Bobby started feeling sick to his stomach. The Crown Royal, the careening Jeep, the stench of the hog, Sheila's betrayal, his own impending death he could do nothing to stop--it was all too much. He leaned over the side of the speeding Jeep and vomited white bile.

"You all right, Bobby?" Brad shouted. "This all too much for ya?" He laughed just as they caught up to the hog again. The hog cut across the front of the Jeep, and for a split second Bobby could see the fear in eyes that were as red as hot coals. Then it disappeared into the woods.

Brad slammed on the brakes. Charlie and Sheila almost fell over the roll bar onto Corky, who was still sitting patiently, biding her time. The dogs disappeared into the woods after the hog, and then everything was quiet again, except for the thrashing in the thicket.

"God, that was exciting!" Sheila said. "I never had such fun." Bobby looked back at her. Her eyes were wide and glassy, her forehead damp with sweat. She was breathing heavily. "We're not gonna quit, are we, Brad?" she asked.

"We ain't done yet, honey."

They sat in darkness, catching their breath. Bobby knew what Sheila was up to now. She knew Brad and Charlie were gonna kill them both out here in the swamp. Nothing Bobby could do about it. Sheila was doing everything she could to keep Brad and Charlie from killing her, too.

The thicket exploded with more terrified squeals and mad yelping. "They got him!" Brad shouted. He unchained Corky and said, "Go get 'em now, baby." Corky leaped out of the Jeep and ran into the woods. The squealing grew even shriller and then it began to die down, go silent, and all they could hear was the heavy grunting of Corky as she tore the dead hog to pieces.

"We better go in there and pull Corky off," Brad said, "or there won't be nuthin' left for you to take back, Bobby." He got out of the Jeep. When Bobby didn't follow him, he waved him on. "Come on, Bobby. It's all over now." Bobby glanced back at Sheila one last time. She looked flushed, excited, like before sex. She had her arm tight around Charlie's neck and her face buried against his chest. Bobby stepped onto the ground, his legs shaking, and followed Brad into the woods. The dogs were tearing at the hog's bloody carcass. Brad pulled them off, one by one, and shooed them back to the Jeep. "Gimme a hand here, Bobby," he said. If Bobby was going to take him out, now was the chance. He was a lot bigger and stronger than Brad, but there were still the dogs. And Sheila, back in the Jeep with Charlie. "Come on, Bobby!" Brad was holding the hog's front legs, waiting for Bobby. Bobby grabbed it by the back legs and they dragged it out of the thicket into the open field. Bobby's back was to the Jeep. The spotlight had been turned off. "Hold it a minute, Bobby," Brad said. He was grinning. "Let old Charlie finish. He's a bashful boy." Bobby turned around to see the Jeep half covered in mist again. The dogs stood around it, panting. Charlie, illuminated by the moon, was leaning back against the roll bar, his head thrown back like a wild animal howling at the moon. He was naked from the waist down. For a second, Bobby couldn't see Sheila; then he saw her dark form kneeling on the floor of the Jeep, her face buried in Charlie's waist.

They waited until Charlie came with a low animal moan they could hear. Sheila began groping around the floor of the Jeep with her hands. She handed Charlie's pants to him. Then she pushed herself up with her hands and leaned back against the side of the Jeep.

"Come on," Brad said. They dragged the dead hog to the back of the Jeep and tossed it in. The dogs leaped after it, snorted around it for a moment, then lost interest.

"Y'all had yerselves a time, didn't ya?" Brad said. "While poor Bobby and me was working our ass off." Charlie just grinned his moron's grin while he buckled his pants. Sheila was against the side of the Jeep, her hands behind her back, breathing heavily. She reached one hand around to wipe off her mouth. Then she smiled at them, a hard smile that scared Bobby.

Brad chained Corky, her snout bloody, to the gearshift again, and they both got in. Brad started the engine. He let it idle, then turned toward Bobby. "I'm sorry it had to go down like this, buddy."

"Can't we talk about it?"

"It's too late for that, Bobby. I'm sorry." Then, still looking at Bobby, Brad said, "Do it now, Charlie."

•

Bobby heard an explosion in his ear, felt a hot flash, but nothing else. He looked back and saw Charlie's body half-slumped over the side of the Jeep. Sheila had Charlie's .38 held tightly in both hands. She swung the gun toward Brad, who was still smiling at Bobby until it dawned on him that Bobby hadn't been shot. He whirled around toward Sheila, saw the gun aimed at his forehead, opened his mouth as if to speak. Sheila shot him once between the eyes. His head jerked back, hit the front window, then fell over the door of the Jeep. Corky began to growl and pull at her chain.

"Oh, baby!" Bobby said. "I didn't think you could do it."

Sheila swung the .38 toward his face now. She held the gun so tightly in both hands that they shook. She glared at Bobby for a long moment, her breath coming in gasps that made her body shudder. "You fucking bastard!" she said, and fired the last four bullets into Corky's brain.

"'Don'chall worry,' Brad said. 'Dogs won't attack unless I tell 'em. Corky there don't need an excuse.'"

"'I've never been wild-hog hunting,' she said. 'It sounds exciting.' She had that breathless tone."