Cutter wrenched his body to the right, a move thatshould have taken Eugene by surprise and secured his freedom, but it didn’t.Eugene hung on tight.
“Got him,” Judd gasped, coming around the corner at the fastest his gimpy left leg would allow.“Who—Cutter Reid, you no-good thug!”
Cutter wrenched to the left, but Eugene’s hand was like steel around the collar of his drenched jacket and shirt.Still he struggled, trying to head-butt his way free, and when that didn’t work, he kicked.But Eugene’s superior size and bulk—and cunning, it seemed—had him down in the mud again before Cutter knew what had happened.This time, a knee was pressed sharply to his groin, holding him still.Eugene fished inside Cutter’s soggy clothes and came up with the cash that Cutter would have denied he’d taken.
As if all that weren’t bad enough, the trash alley was suddenly filled with more people than it had seen in days.Most notable among them was Verne Walker, Timiny Cove’s police department.
One look at Cutter’s muddy face and he said wearily, “What’s he done this time?”
There was nothing weary in the way Judd held up the money Eugene had recovered.“He stole from me, the dirty rotten thief!You gotta do somethin’, Verne.He’s gettin’ bolder ’n’ bolder.Just walked in and took the money from the cash drawer.If it hadn’t been for Eugene, he’d a got away.”
Cutter wanted to argue, but his balls were hurting something fierce.It was all he could do to take one breath after another and make like he was fine, and he was determinedto do just that.He wasn’t about to let them think him a sissy on top of everything else.
“He been eyein’ that gas station for a while,” someone behind Verne said, calling out to be heard above the rap of rain on a rusted tin gutter nearby.
Someone else called, “Last time was the supply store.Couldn’a been more ’n two months ago.”
A third voice said: “He’s trouble.Been trouble since the day he was born.No wonder his daddy drunk so much.”
Cutter turned a deaf ear to the talk.He’d heard it before.His eyes were on Eugene, whose eyes were on him.He was starting to feel dizzy.
Verne bent over at the waist, rain dripping off the visor of his cap.“So what you got to say for yourself, sonny?Just can’t keep your nose clean, can ya?I’m gonna have to lock ya up again, and if Judd presses charges, you gotta go to Portland.Got yourself a lawyer?Ya may need one this time.”
“He doesn’t have any lawyer,” Eugene muttered.He was looking closely at Cutter, who had broken out in a cold sweat and was ash white.“Doesn’t have any parents, doesn’t have any money, doesn’t have any food from the looks of him.”The knee came off his groin.In a helpless reflex, Cutter rolled to his side and curled up.Eugene’s hand went to his shoulder, ostensibly restraining.“Deep breath,” he murmured in a low voice.
Cutter took a deep breath, then a second when the first one was ragged.After a third the dizziness began to ease.In the next instant Eugene released the pressure on his shoulder and helped him sit up.With all eyes on him, Cutter shrugged off the helping hand.
“So what you got to say for yourself, sonny?”Verne repeated.
“To you, nuthin’,” Cutter answered in a voice deliberately made deep.
“You want to say it to the judge?”
“It don’t much matter.He ain’t gonna give any more of a damn about me ’n you do.”
“Then we might as well give it a try,” Verne concluded and straightened.“Okay, folks.Back to what you was doin’ before Cutter Reid got you out in the rain.”He watched while the first of the onlookers turned to leave.“Judd, you gonna press charges?”
“Damn right I am.He got no right lookin’ to wipe me out that way.I work hard for my money.He ought to try doin’ that for a change.”
Verne turned back to Cutter, who was gingerly pushing himself to his feet.Upright, he was taller than the police chief.He knew that from experience and wanted the advantage it gave.
“You hear that, sonny?You’re in trouble this time.Judd’s gonna press charges, an’ what with everythin’ else you done in the past, it ain’t gonna be good.”
“Nuthin’s good,” Cutter said, in the grip of a familiar bleakness.“Tell me somethin’ I don’t already know.”
“You know what it’s like in prison?”Eugene asked.
Cutter looked off in the opposite direction, not caring what he saw as long as it wasn’t Eugene.He might have gained a physical superiority over Verne in the last year, but he had a way to go to catch up with the big man who owned half the town.
“It’s mean,” Eugene went on, “meaner than anything youever known.Meaner than anything you ever dreamed.It’s dark and hard and unforgivinimagine a hole withg, and once you’re in there, you’re a con, then an ex-con.You think it’s tough goin’ through life with your daddy’s name?Well, tack ex-con after it, and see how that feels.”
Cutter thought of Eugene’s big house and his big car and his big bankbook, and made a disparaging sound.“How would you know?”
“I had a friend once.Born right here, just like you.Alvie Joplin, remember him, Verne?No, I guess he was before your time.”He addressed Cutter again.“Car theft was his specialty, only he didn’t do it here, he did it down in Boston.After a time they caught him and put him away, and when he got out, he tried to find a job, only he was an ex-con, and people were nervous hiring an ex-con.Since he wasn’t good at much of anything but stealin’ cars, he tried it again, and they sent him away again.He was longer in gettin’ out that time, and he wasn’t a kid anymore, older and hardened, so when he needed money to eat, he took a job for some quick money.It was right down his alley, stealin’ a car, only he used the car to help his two buddies get away after they robbed a bank.”
“What happened to him?”Verne asked, fully taken with the tale.
But Eugene kept looking at Cutter, who was looking right back at him.“Cops got ’im.Shot ’im.I read that he was in serious condition, so I went to the hospital.Didn’t even recognize him.It had been ten years since I’d seen him.He looked thirty years older.But that was as old as he got.He died the next day.”