“Which is beside the point,” Hawkes said.
“I know, but . . . might as well take it,” Duran said. “Money is money.”
* * *
After a gas-and-snacks stop on I-20, they made it into Midland at five-forty on a hot blue-sky afternoon that would have been insufferable if not for the truck’s air-conditioning. They pulled into an empty church parking lot on Midland Drive, a block from Cardinal Lane, and waited.
At six o’clock, Hawkes said, “If he doesn’t make it home soon, I’m gonna give up. I’m getting kind of screwed up here.”
“Well, he will make it home at six,” Low said. “Because, there he is. Everybody: gloves.”
A dark blue F-150 went by on Midland Drive and Low put his truck in gear and followed. In the backseat, Sawyer pulled a Beretta out of a pouch he’d pushed under Low’s seat. Duran had his Glock wrapped in a jacket between them, and he took it out and checked it, jacked a shell into the chamber. Sawyer said, “Don’t wave that fuckin’ thing in my face.”
“Getting a little tense there, Maxie?” Duran asked.
“Just not professional,” Sawyer said. “Put your gloves on.”
Low had turned down Cardinal Lane, a block behind Blackburn’s truck. They went past the kind of white board fences that horse people build, the men in the backseat hunched forward to watch as Blackburn slowed, turned into his driveway, waited as a garage door rolled up.
Low said, quietly, “Here we go, boys and girls. Max, stay behind me until I get to him . . .”
“I know, I know . . .”
Low said, “Janie, you just sit. We’ll call you if we need you.”
Duran: “Rand, where’s the tape?”
“Under my feet, I’ll bring it,” Low said. “Everybody ready?”
* * *
Low swung the truck into Blackburn’s driveway, and Hawkes said, “Oh my Lord, oh my . . .”
Blackburn was getting out of his truck, shut the door, and then stopped to look at them, the garage door still open. He didn’t recognize them, but Low said, “Hey, Boxie!”
Blackburn, Texas-polite, said, “Can I help you folks?”
Low had been walking toward Blackburn, with Sawyer a step behind, and as they came up to him, Low stepped aside, as though doing a two-step, and Sawyer stepped past him and pressed his heavy black Beretta into Blackburn’s belly.
Low, working from a script written in Hawkes’s kitchen, said, “Yeah. You can help us. You’re a rich guy and we need us some money. We need us some jewelry. Get in the house. You don’t fight us, you don’t get hurt.”
Blackburn was stunned, and scared, staring down at the gun. “I don’t have much, I got some, go away, don’t hurt anyone . . .”
“Get in the house, motherfucker,” Sawyer said. He was also working from the script. He added, “Nobody can see us here.”
Blackburn, thinking about his wife inside: “Man, don’t . . .”
“Get in the house,” Low said, letting some anger out, some crazy. “Get the fuck in the house.”
Blackburn led them through the interior garage door into the house, where his wife called: “Boxie? Is that you?”
* * *
Hawkes sat in the truck as the men all went inside the house. She cupped her hands over her cheeks and eyes, rocked back and forth in the truck. The men were in there killing them, killing the husband and wife who she’d never met, about whom she knew almost nothing except that the husband had made a phone call to Roscoe Winks, panicking him.