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.There would be a mushroom cloud over Blacklin County to rival those he used to see in the old black-and-white science fiction movies he watched on TV.And there would be a great big crater right about where he was standing.It wasn’t an appealing prospect, but Rhodes wasn’t especially worried.People who talked as much as Yvonne was talking didn’t generally shoot anyone.After they’d let off enough steam, they were ready to forgive and forget and move on to something else.“Yvonne,” he said, “you’re wrong about this whole thing.Ms.Fenton didn’t do anything, and we’re not even sure that Grat’s dead.We talked about that, remember?”Yvonne kept her eyes on Linda Fenton when she spoke.“I remember.But Grat’s still missing, and there’s a dead body at the funeral parlor.This bitch here’s the one who did it, too.She likes to play with fire.”“What about your husband’s girlfriend?” Linda asked.“You better shut your mouth about that,” Yvonne said.“Grat didn’t like anybody but me.”Rhodes was interested in hearing what Linda had to say.He hadn’t known about any girlfriend, and neither had Hack.For that matter, Hack didn’t seem to have known about Linda Fenton, either.It wasn’t usual for Hack to be so far out of the loop.Rhodes would have to ask him about that, if he ever got the chance.Yvonne was getting worked up again.“I don’t know why you think he didn’t have a girlfriend,” Linda said.“After all, you were runnin’ around on him with half the men in the county.”“You better stop talking like that about me,” Yvonne said.“I’m going to blow the both of us up if you don’t.”With that, she stopped pointing the pistol at the Roman candles.She moved it up in line with the firecrackers.Rhodes didn’t like the way things were going.He risked walking up to the fireworks stand until he was standing in the scant shade of the canopy.It was still hot, but at least the sun wasn’t burning a hole in the top of his head.“Why don’t you just give me the pistol, Yvonne,” he said.“We can talk this over a lot better without that gun being in the way.”“I don’t think so,” Yvonne said.“And I’m tired of talking, anyway.This bitch has started lying about Grat.”She looked at all the firecrackers, smiled, and said, “I wonder what’ll happen when I pull the trigger?”“You don’t really want to find out,” Rhodes said.“Oh yes I do,” Yvonne said, and fired the pistol.14RHODES HIT THE DIRT AND ROLLED UNDER THE PLYWOOD COUNTER that jutted out from the front of the fireworks stand.From where he was lying, he couldn’t really see everything that happened, but he could see quite a bit more than he wanted to.And he could hear it all.There were explosions, of course.Lots of them.They started with a string of firecrackers going off.After that everything ran together, pop-pop-pop-pop, like the.22 shots that Hack had described, only in far greater numbers.Through their rapid reports Rhodes could distinguish the much noisier blasts of the M-80s, the cherry bombs, and the larger silver salutes.He’d never been in a foxhole during wartime, but he thought the sound might be something like what he was experiencing now.Besides the firecrackers and the bigger, louder devices, he could hear the keening of the rockets as they took off in a straight line over the counter and whistled toward the road before exploding.Rhodes hoped that Jennifer had stayed in her car.The helicopters and spinning disks went off in all directions, gyrating and revolving as they made whirring and buzzing sounds.Some of them wobbled across the parking lot, pinged off the hood and roof of the county car, and landed on the ground, where they kept right on rotating madly, as if attempting to drill a hole in the hard-packed dirt.The volcanoes and cones were spewing colors and noise, and balls of fire were bouncing off the underside of the roof of the stand and falling back down.Rhodes was all right under the counter, but he didn’t know about Linda Fenton and Yvonne on the other side.He thought for a second about getting up, but there was a whoomping sound like a thousand tiny mortars firing, and the Roman candles started to discharge colored balls of flame that flew out toward the road and bounced around on the dirt and gravel.Rhodes had to admit that it was a spectacular sight, even from his vantage point.Even in the daylight.There were explosions of every color of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.Well, maybe no indigo and violet, but plenty of the others.All the burned powder smelled like the aftermath of a gun battle, and Rhodes could smell something else, too.The fireworks stand was burning.Rhodes didn’t much feel like standing up, since the fireworks were still detonating fairly rapidly, but he supposed he didn’t have a choice.He had to see if Linda and Yvonne were all right.He rolled forward, stood up, and eased his head above the counter.Sparklers were fizzing and sputtering brilliantly, but Rhodes didn’t have time to admire them.A Roman candle ball nearly took out his right eye, and a rocket whizzed by his left shoulder pulling a tail of sparks behind it.He ducked back down and waited a few seconds longer while the volcanoes erupted, the candles shot fire, the rockets glared red, and the firecrackers popped and blasted.Finally things seemed to get a bit quieter.Rhodes wasn’t sure whether it was just his imagination or whether his hearing was permanently damaged, but he decided to take another look.The sparklers had about fizzled out, and there were only a few random bursts of noise.To Rhodes’s surprise, there were still quite a few unexploded fireworks left on the shelves.He’d thought the entire contents of the stand had gone off, but only a couple of feet were missing.Yvonne and Linda were huddled facedown on the ground, their hands over their heads.The roof of the stand was burning.Linda Fenton wasn’t moving, and neither was Yvonne.Rhodes couldn’t see the pistol.He turned to look for Jennifer.The reporter was sitting in her car with her cell phone at her ear.She waved with her free hand to let Rhodes know she was all right.The back of the stand was open behind the shelves, and some of the fireworks had gone out that way.Not many, but enough to set the dead johnsongrass on fire.Rhodes hoped Jennifer was calling the fire department instead of trying to find a wire service that wanted a story about the big explosion in Blacklin County.He walked around the end of the counter to check on the two women.Linda Fenton sat up and looked around.The backs of her shirt and pants were scorched, but she seemed all right otherwise.“What the hell happened?” she said, or something like that.Rhodes wasn’t quite sure.His ears still weren’t working properly.Yvonne Bilson didn’t say a word, not that Rhodes could hear.She just jumped up and started running toward the burning field.Rhodes didn’t think she’d get far, but she surprised him.She went through the barbed-wire fence as if she’d been practicing for the back-country Olympics and took off through the blazing grass like it wasn’t even on fire.Rhodes considered yelling, “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” but he knew Yvonne wouldn’t stop, even if she could hear him, which he doubted, so there was nothing he could do but go after her.He didn’t get through the fence nearly as quickly as Yvonne had.He’d never been extremely agile, and the barbs snagged first in the back of his shirt and then on the leg of his pants.He finally got through, but he knew the rip in his shirt couldn’t be repaired.He could probably save the pants, however.Running through a grassfire on a hot day wasn’t Rhodes’s idea of a good time [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]