The Killing Moon: A Novel

She nodded and turned to smile at Donny. "Hi."

Pinty said, "You know Donny, right?"

"I know Donny," she said, and they shook hands, a loose-gripped, formal up-and-down. Donny was the first to let go, but Tracy was the first to look away.

Paula waved for Pinty's attention. A deaf woman, she signed angrily, hands picking apart the air as though arranging her words letter by letter on an invisible board.

Pinty turned to Tracy, who looked sheepish and almost teenager-disappointed in her mother. She translated flatly: "'Aren't you going to do something about this?'"

Pinty looked back at Paula. "About what?"

Then he heard the Indian cry. It was the Black Falls Police Department come marching. Bucky Pail led the way, showing off an antique musket to the crowd and exhorting their cheers, while brother Eddie and the three others followed in tow, each gripping one handle on a rescue stretcher bearing a cigar store Indian. It was the wooden statue that greeted customers at Big Bobby's Gas-Gulp-'N-Go, adorned now with a headdress of turkey feathers and bandaged in ketchup-stained gauze.

Some spectators joined in the jeering salute, though most, like Pinty, watched in stunned silence. He felt Donny stiffen next to him and reached out to hook his arm just as Donny started to move, holding him back.

"Don't," Pinty said.

Maddox held still, watched them pass. Pinty released his arm and returned both hands to the grip of his walking stick. He absorbed the ridiculous display because he had to, using it to feed his inner resolve, as he knew it was feeding Donny's.

How had things gone so wrong since his retirement? The police department's troubles began in earnest with the passing of Pinty's successor, Cecil Pail, who looked like Johnny Cash but died like Elvis Presley, of a massive coronary inside the station john three years ago. Pail was by and large a good man, but foolish and half blind when it came to his sons, Bucky and Eddie, whom he indulged. He had elevated his boys to the only remaining full-time positions on the shrinking force, in part to keep a closer eye on them. Pinty and the other selectmen refused to promote from within, yet were unable to attract a suitable replacement at the salary offered, to a town with no budget for police uniforms. So the chief 's position remained vacant, and into this vacuum of power had risen Bucky Pail, with his brother at his right hand.

They stopped to rest in the middle of the intersection of Main and Mill, standing the bloodied Indian right out in front of the station, below the flag. Stokes swapped his ball cap and sunglasses for the headdress of turkey feathers, and the rest of them amused themselves posing for pictures like jackasses.

Pinty saw parents turning their kids away from the vulgar effigy.

"Pinty," said Donny.

Pinty squeezed the handle of his walking stick and shook his head. "If I can take it," he said, "you can too."

Tracy Mithers looked at them, confused. Her mother signed something, her daughter refusing to translate it until Paula Mithers clapped and pointed angrily at Pinty and Donny.

Tracy could not look at either of them. "My mother says to say that…you are both a disgrace."

Pinty watched Donny's eyes go dead. Pinty tried to grab his arm again, but it was too much for Donny, seeing Pinty's honor suffer like that. He pulled away and started off the curb toward the jackasses, Pinty calling after him, "Donny," and then once again, as loud as he dared, "Donald."

If Donny had one weakness, it was him: it was Pinty. What he felt he owed the old man. But Pinty didn't mind playing possum, now that the plan was in action and there was finally some hope. The town had abided these overgrown punks for too long now. Pinty only hoped that Donny didn't let them push him too far too soon.

6

MADDOX

MADDOX WAS TUNNELED IN. Bucky stood a few steps away from the spectacle, eyeballing the parade crowd through his dark shades, the old musket in his hands. Maddox remembered something from a college survey course on twentieth-century history about all despots having in common an innate knack for symbolism.

Maddox still carried pressure on his elbow from Pinty's surprisingly strong grip as he went up to Bucky and said, "That's enough."

Bucky looked at him. Maddox was close enough to see his buzzard eyes through the tinted shades. Pure amusement. "You say something, rookie?"

Bucky's intimidation came less from his size—he was big enough, but no bigger than Maddox—than from his eyes. Carny eyes, Maddox thought, assessing you while his dirty hands ripped your ticket, a guy with nothing in his life except dark thoughts. As a sergeant, Bucky outranked him, Maddox being just an auxiliary patrolman with the minimum 120 hours of in-house training. But Maddox could not stop himself. He could not stand by and let Pinty suffer this indignity. "I said it's time to break it up. Move on."