Dirty White Boys by Stephen Hunter Page A

to see: no surprises at all. Fear. The eyes were stone bright, like the rabbit had been high on crank, but the drug that made him so mad was just the fear. You could now do anything to Willard the Rabbit. You could fuck him, fuck his daughters, kill his wife, set his house a-fire, and he’d just look at you like that, baby lips aquiver. He wasn’t no man, goddammit. He was a rabbit. Even a nigger will fight you, you push him hard enough or corner him. But not a rabbit. Rabbit just look you over while you decide which part of him to bite on. He may even help you make that decision. And he will sell you anything, anything at all.
    “Now, Willard, listen here, I need some more help.”
    “W-what?” said Willard.
    “Guns. I need some guns. Man like me, man with enemies, got to have a gun, you know. Not to hurt, to protect. Now, Willard, you got any guns?”
    “I hate guns,” said Willard.
    “Gwus,” said Odell. “Bangy like bangy.”
    “Son, that doesn’t surprise me.”
    “I know where there’s a gun store,” said Willard, trying to help.
    “Now, Willard, I can see you’re trying to get with it. But a gun store don’t fill the bill. How can I rob a gun store if I don’t got no guns? And if I had a gun, I wouldn’t need to rob no gun store. Plus, these days, you run into your scumin gun stores. Them boys all pack and they just looking for excuses to shoot a man. Read about it in gun magazines, they want to blow someone away. Peckerwoods, trashy boys, your basic Okabilly scum. No sir, gun store ain’t no place at all. I need a citizen with guns. A man who keeps guns, a hunter, something like that. Willard, I know if you think real hard, you’ll be knowing somebody who’s got guns.”
    Willard scrunched up his face in despair until at last a little light came on behind his eyes.
    “Mr. Stepford says his father hunts,” he said. “Says his old man sends him a haunch of venison every fall.”
    “Hmm,” said Lamar. “Now who would Mr. Stepford be?”
    “Mr. Bill Stepford, regional vice-president for Hostess Baking Division of Oklahoma. My boss’s boss. He give me the job. He said his father been up in Canada hunting elk, been to Mexico to shoot them doves, wants to go to Maine to hunt bear before he dies.”
    “Where his father live?”
    “Uh, he’s a big farmer. Owns a spread out near Ratliff City.”
    “Do this old man have a first name?”
    “Sir, I don’t—You’re not going to hurt him, are you? He’s an old man. Fought in World War II as a bomber pilot. He was a hero. He was a—”
    “Do he have a first name?”
    “I don’t know,” said Willard. “Except that now that I think it over, I kind of think Mr. Bill Stepford is a Mr. Bill Stepford, Jr. You’re not going to hurt that old man, are you?”
    “Now, Willard,” said Lamar. “I cut a square deal. You helped me, I didn’t hurt you. Would I hurt that old man? DoI look like that sort? Odell, don’t hurt him none. Makie still.”
    “Yoppa-yoppa,” said Odell.
    And Odell didn’t hurt Willard. He strangled the young man to death as peacefully as he could, though the young man squirmed and bucked.
    The van accelerated to close to ninety. Lamar turned and yelled, “Goddammit, Richard, you slow this thing down, you stupid little cocksucker, you get us chased by the police and I will have your ass for breakfast.”
    Richard tried to get control of himself. The boy’s struggle had at last ceased. He checked the mirror as he dropped back down under sixty-five, and saw no red flashing light. He was all right. He tried to breathe slowly.
    “Dink-ie,” said Odell.

CHAPTER
4
    T he world had ceased to make sense back in the seventies, and it just got worse and worse and worse: crazed kids with automatic weapons, crimes against children and women, these nutcase whiteboys who thought they were God’s chosen, niggers gone plumb screwball on delusions of victimization and fearfully nursed grudges. Sometimes he believed the communists or