Naked Prey

would be if Gene were pressing a shell into a magazine.
    Carried the cartridge back inside and tossed it on the floor.
    His mother had one last idea. Gene had a home office . . .
    They went through a Rolodex, and inside found aKansas City phone number for Davis. He dialed the number and a woman answered, “Hello?”
    “My name’s Carl. We are asking Kansas City people for donations to the Missouri State Law Enforcement Association, which supports your local state, county, and municipal law enforcement officers—”
    “We gave some,” a woman’s voice said.
    “Our records don’t show that,” Singleton said. “We feel our law enforcement officers . . . ”
    He strung the conversation out another ten seconds, until an increasingly irate woman said, “Go away,” and the phone slammed down. There’d be a record that just before the Calbs disappeared, they’d called Shawn Davis in Kansas City.
    Good enough.
    In the garage, he got a shovel, and they climbed into Calb’s truck. He had three hours before he went on duty. Needed another pill, too.
    As they backed out of the driveway he thought, Goddamn, those pork chops were good. Then he thought, Katina.
    Margery said, “Watch out for the mailbox, you dumb shit.”
    T HE REST OF the evening was straight out of a horror film. By the time Singleton got home, he hurt so badly he could barely breathe. He peeled off his coat, peeled off the fleece under it, and found a three-inch bloodstain on his shirt. He took off the shirt, and his bloody undershirt, touched the bullet wound, and flinched. The scab over the hole had cracked open, and when he touched it, the pain flared through his rib cage, and ran around almost to his spine. At this rate, his arm would soon be useless.
    He began sobbing as he looked at himself in the bathroommirror. Katina. What about Katina? Was she in heaven? Was she looking down at him, knowing what he’d done?
    He braced himself on the sink with both hands, and tipped his head down, and tried to cry, something more than the gasping sobs . . . nothing came out. After a moment, he pulled himself back together and began looking at the wound again. Something had to be done.
    He carefully manipulated the bruised skin with his fingers, squeezing it, like a pimple, fighting the pain. The skin and fat wasn’t particularly thick at the entry point, and he thought—could it be his imagination?—that he felt a lump. The lump didn’t move, though.
    Hurt. But he couldn’t help himself. He went to the dresser and dug out a sewing kit, took out a needle, ran hot water on it for a moment, and then, using the eye end, probed the bullet hole. The probe hurt, but not as much as squeezing the wound. Holding his breath, he moved the needle around, then down a bit, maneuvered, felt as though he were pushing muscle aside—and hit something hard.
    Didn’t feel like bone. He moved the needle carefully now, judging the characteristics of the lump. Found the edges. “That’s it,” he muttered to himself. He found what he believed to be the center of the slug, and pushed on it. A little pain, but the lump didn’t move. He found the edge of it, explored beside it. Brighter blood was coming out now, apparently from freshly pierced capillaries, and it made the exploration more difficult, the lump more slippery. But he found the side of it, and pushed with the end of the needle. It didn’t move. He explored some more; he was sweating now, from the pain, but the pain was still bearable.
    After a minute, he pulled the needle out and looked at it. The bullet, he thought, was stuck in a rib—hadn’t gone through, but had gotten into it. Every time he breathed, or flexed, the motion was transmitted through his rib cage, and that was where the spasms of pain came from. Hethought about it for a moment, then pulled on a sweatshirt and went out to the garage.
    If he hadn’t had just the right thing to work with, he might not have tried. But he did have the right thing, or what seemed like the right thing, in his tool box: a pair of tiny, needle-nosed pliers used to do automotive electrical work.
    This was going to hurt, he thought. But if it worked . . .
    He carried them back into the house, took two pills, scrubbed the pliers with antibacterial soap, and then, still not happy with their condition, dropped them in a saucepan, covered them with water, and put them on the stove. He let them boil for a while, then cool down underwater, as he waited for