Savages

head.
    Ben does the same.
    Chon rips the tape off the girl’s mouth, then her wrists. He shoves her toward the Suburban. “Get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here now.”
    She staggers toward the car and gets in. A few seconds later the car rooster-tails out of the dirt and onto the highway.
    Chon walks over to Ben and O.
    Just as Ben
    Collapses.

287
     
    Chon kneels beside them, rolls Ben over as gently as he can but Ben screams in pain.
    Opening Ben’s jacket, Chon sees and knows.
    Gets the morphine and the syringe from his own pocket.
    He finds a vein in Ben’s arm and shoots him up.

288
     
    O asks,
    “He’s going to die anyway, isn’t he?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t want to leave him.”
    “No.”
    Chon breaks another ampoule and fills the syringe. O offers her arm. Chon finds a vein and shoots her up.
    Then he repeats the process on himself.

289
     
    O lies down and wraps her arms around Ben.
    He presses his back against her warm stomach.
    “You’d like Indo,” he mutters.
    “I’ll bet.”
    O strokes his cheek. Warm, soft Ben. She says, “Tell me about it.”
    Dreamily, Ben tells her about golden beaches edged in emerald necklaces of jungle. About water so green and blue that only a stoned God could have dreamed up the colors. Tells her about crazy, motley birds doing Charlie Parker riffs at the incitement of sunrise, about small-framed brown men and delicate brown women with smiles as white and pure as winter and hearts to match. About sunsets of gentle fire, warm but not burning, satin black nights lit only by starshine.
    “It sounds like heaven,” she says. Then, “I’m cold.”
    Chon lies down behind O and presses close. The warmth of his bodyfeels good to her. He reaches his arm over her and takes Ben’s hand.
    Ben grips it hard.

290
     
    O listens to the sounds in her head.
    Waves gently breaking on pebbles.
    She hears her heartbeat, and her men’s.
    Strong, but slowing.
    Warm now in the womb of her two men.
    O.
    We’ll live on the beach and eat the fish that we catch. We’ll pick fresh fruit and climb trees for coconuts. We’ll sleep together on palm frond mats and make love.
    Like savages.
    Beautiful, beautiful savages.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
     
    I have a lot of people to thank—my agent, Richard Pine, to whom I now owe dinner and a lot more; my buddy Shane Salerno for telling me to drop everything else and write this book; David Rosenthal for liking the pages; my editor, Sarah Hochman, for making it so much better; Matthew Snyder for getting it out there; and, with gratitude, Oliver Stone for really seeing it. And, as always, my wife, Jean, for putting up with it and me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
     
    Don Winslow, a former private investigator and consultant, is the author of twelve novels, including
The
Dawn Patrol, The Winter of Frankie Machine, The Power of the Dog, California Fire and Life
, and
The Death and Life of Bobby Z
. He lives in Southern California.