With Read Online Free Page A

shot at, and it was time to hang it up.
    They assumed that if the DOA perp had made a delivery in Tulsa and was on his way back to Memphis, he must have had a huge amount of cash on him, which maybe he could have dropped off somewhere or laundered or something. Why had the guy been so far off course, not taking I-40 but US 65? Maybe he’d taken the money to Branson and delivered it to one of the mob who hung out there. The case was closed, although some shady-looking characters had been reported sniffing around Harrison to see if they couldn’t find the money.
    The buried security chest had about four hundred thousand still left in it; he hadn’t counted, but he’d spent only about forty or fifty. He’d bought everything he could possibly want, including a real fine set of the best firearms, with enough ammo to last forever, but he had the sense not to do any conspicuous spending, like getting a new truck, which is why he hoped this old crate would hold out for just a few more trips, a couple more shopping trips and then a trip to take the davenport and chickens and a final trip to take the girl.
    And of course during those last shopping trips he’d also be shopping for the girl herself. Tomorrow he planned to park the truck alongside one or more of the elementary schools and maybe visit some of the playgrounds and parks. He registered what he had just thought, and realized the ambiguity: no, he wasn’t fixing to shop for the girl, meaning do some shopping on her behalf, which he had already finished. He was fixing to shop the available display of eligible girls and pick out one: shopping for a girl.
    He’d already got her whatever she’d be a-needing at the Harrison Wal-Mart, where he’d bought her a whole bunch of some clothes and shoes and stuff, telling the saleslady they were for his daughter and not knowing her exact sizes but only able to say what you’d expect a girl of seven or eight to wear, summer, fall, winter, spring. The saleslady had helped him load up three carts and just said, “Your girl is sure going to be thrilled with all this.” And he’d said, “I hope she will.” Then he’d gone to the toy department and filled three more carts with enough dolls and toys and games and stuffed animals to serve as birthday and Christmas presents for years to come.
    Sog Alan went on home to spend the night, had all the good bourbon he could handle, went to put Bitch out and realized she wasn’t in anymore, then went to sleep. Next day fairly late he took his truck and headed to Harrison for one more shopping trip, reflecting that one more ought to do it, and he’d better avoid visiting any of the places he’d already shopped, although he’d tried to spread his shopping out among as many different stores as possible. He’d already used almost all the various supermarkets in Harrison, Berryville, Huntsville, and driven down to Russellville for others, gone all the way to Eureka Springs for his huge hoard of good liquor, and picked up odds and ends at small stores all over creation, buying several cartons of cigarettes at each of maybe a dozen different places. He had enough smokes to last at least a couple of years, and then he’d just have to plant some tobacco and grow his own. He had seeds enough to grow anything in creation.
    Now this time he pulled into a discount supermarket up over on the east side of Harrison where he hadn’t been before, and, as usual, loaded up a couple of carts with all kinds of stuff he was buying by the case load or carton or gross.
    The check-out clerk, a real pretty but saucy gal, rang up his stuff and said, “Twenty-four quart jars of pickled pigs’ feet? You must really hanker after this stuff.”
    “I’m partial to it,” he admitted, and truly it was one of his concerns, that he might some day run out of them. He liked them on occasion, not every week or even every month but he liked them.
    “Are you going into hibernation in the early spring?” she asked.