Denis Johnson - Nobody Move

“For a person who doesn’t drink coffee,” Anita said, “you sure run your mouth.”

“It keeps me from thinking about things.”

“Like what?”

“Like who you are and what the fuck you want.”

Cigarette smoke in his nostrils woke Gambol, and he coughed, and the woman said, “Sorry,” waving it away.

“Lots of folks are quitting these days.”

“What century are you in, guy? I’m the last smoker on earth.”

“How long have I been here?”

“You don’t remember yesterday?”

“When was yesterday?”

“You were walking and talking.”

“Walking?”

“And swearing. In a real creative style. I poked my head into that culvert, and you hopped right up and walked right to my car. Then,” she said, “I couldn’t get you out of the car. I had to do the whole thing in the back seat. Debrided the wound and all the rest. The back seat of a Chevy Lumina is not the place for that.”

Gambol closed his eyes. “I feel like I weigh ten tons.”

“You lost a lot of blood. A lot. I scored one liter of plasma. Nothing else but glucose and water.”

“Feels like he shot me through the bone.”

“He missed the bone. Or you’d be in the ER right now getting your leg saved and probably talking to a detective.”

“I don’t talk to detectives.”

“And he missed the big artery, or you’d be dead.”

At the Time Out Lounge in the Oroville Mall they sat in the rearmost booth, and Jimmy who called himself Franklin only stared at her, never sipping once from his Coke. She

took a long swallow of vodka-and-Seven and said, “Oh, well. . was I on TV again?”

“How did you steal two-point-three million bucks?”

“Didn’t the TV tell you? You run a bond election for a new high school, you float the loan, turn on the computers, transfer it here and there — zip, all yours.”

“That’s greedy.”

“Then the money gets missed right away, and the list of suspects is extremely short. Then somebody gets arrested.”

“Well,” he said.

“Well, what?”

“I guess you were greedy enough to take it, but not mean enough to frame an asshole. Excuse my language,” he added, “but where I come from that’s what they call the guy who gets sacrificed — the asshole.”

She laughed without feeling amused. “There was definitely an asshole,” she said.

“If you’ve got it stashed, you’re doing it right, wandering around acting broke. That’s doing it right. But if you’ve got it, why don’t you just disappear?”

“For one thing, I’m due in court to enter a plea and take a deal. Probation and lifelong restitution. If I miss that date, the judge’ll void the deal and max me out. That’s six years at least.”

“Kind of a long time to wait to spend your two million.”

“Have you lost count already? Two-point-three.”

“What’s a point or three among friends?”

“I haven’t got any friends. And I’m flat broke.”

“Not according to the Federal Bureau of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

“I haven’t got the money. I just know who has it and how to get it.”

No more flip commentary from Mr. Jimmy.

“Doesn’t that interest you?”

“You’re interesting every way there is.”

This Jimmy was your basic bus-station javelina, but a nice enough guy. He insisted on handing her two Ben Franklin hundreds before they left the lounge. “You’re with me now.”

“That’s not established.”

“By ‘now’ I just mean now — right this second. That gets you at least a couple hundred.”

He led her into JCPenney’s, where he stacked generic-looking items on one of his arms and went into the dressing room wearing his shiny black pants and white tuxedo and came out in khaki chinos and a flannel Pendleton.

“Where’s your fancy threads?”

“On the floor in there. I shed those babies like a sunburn.”

“You’re fast.”

“These days, life is fast.”

She picked out a JCPenney pantsuit, a JCPenney blouse, a JCPenney skirt, and the best underwear they had, which wasn’t much. While Jimmy stood around waiting for her she

sat in the dressing room momentarily naked with these latest humiliations at her feet and rage in her heart. JCPenney.

She changed into the pantsuit, gray pinstripe, and made sure she had her shoulders back and her smile on before she swept aside the curtain. “Does it fit?”

He stared, and then he went for his Camels and put one between his lips, realized where he was, dropped the cigarette into his shopping bag. “It fits.”

“You’re sweet,” she said, and she sort of meant it. But not as a compliment. “You’re homeless, right?”

“I have a home. I’m just not going back there, is all.”

“So right in that shopping bag is everything you own.”

“Everything I need.”

“And your white canvas bag — what’s in that one?”

“Everything else I need.”

“I know what’s in it. A sawed-off shotgun.”

He seemed completely unsurprised. “It’s not a sawed-off. It’s a pistol-grip. And it isn’t mine.”

“I peeked in the bag while you were in the shower.”

“You zipped it up real nice,” he said. “Good for you.”

Jimmy Luntz drove the Caddy north. He watched the dial and kept under the limit. Again they passed through the blond country. Some vineyards here and there, lots of vineyards. Either vineyards, or orchards with very small trees. He asked her if those were vineyards.

“What do you care? Are you a wino?” Anita drank from an extra-large Sprite in a go-cup, doctoring it with vodka.

Orchards. A roadside stand selling Asian pears spelled ASIAIN PEARS. Then higher country, the road winding. They lost the jazz station. He found another, just geezer rock. Tight curves, tall pines, and geezer rock. “Is that the Feather River?”

By way of answer, she took a swig and coughed.

“Hell of a lot of trees,” he said.

“That’s why they call it the forest. I hope we’re not going camping.”

“We are if I can’t find this place before dark.”

“Look, Jimmy — who is this guy?”

“I knew him in Alhambra.”

“Is that a prison?”

“It’s a city a few hundred miles from here. In your state. California.”

She pushed the button and her window came down and the wind thudded in the car as she pitched her empty and listened for the small musical sound of the bottle shattering behind them.

“You’re nice,” he said, “when you’re sober.”

“Have you ever seen me sober?”

“I think I did for about a minute.”

She lay her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes.

Luntz turned down the radio and kept his eyes going left and right, looking for a building, a sign, anything.

After a while she opened her eyes. “What’s the plan?”

“So far the plan is I can’t go back and I can’t stay here. That’s the plan so far.”

“You know what I mean. What’s the plan?”

Luntz stalled for twenty seconds, starting a cigarette. He set his lighter between them on the console. “I think if you’re looking for a gunslinger, you better keep looking.”

“You said you shot Gambol.”

“Only in the leg. I should’ve put two more in his head, just in proper observance of the rules. Instead I took pity. You don’t want a guy with pity in his heart.”

“I’d like to know what the plan is.”

“I didn’t say yes yet. Let’s sit down with a paper and pen and map out the pros and cons.”

“Great.”

“Don’t say great yet. Say great when I say yes.”

“I just hope I chose the right guy.” When Luntz said nothing, she added, “Don’t be insulted.”