Shallow Graves

can or two into the air and Sam, sweating with the effort, would calculate the lead. Pellam noticed the determination on the boy’s face. Once he overheard Sam mutter something as he fired. “Ned” was what it sounded like. Pellam had asked him what he’d said but he just shook his head and said, “Can you throw another one please?”
    “Got to call it quits, son,” Pellam now said. “I’ve got an errand back in town.”
    Inside the kitchen Sam said, “Mom, you should’ve seen me.”
    “I did. I was watching out the window.”
    “How’d I do, Mr. Pellam?”
    “Did good, really good,” Pellam said. “You’ve got to clean your weapon, Sam. But I’ve got to run to town.We’ll do it when I get back.” He looked at Meg and there must have been something in his words or—goddamn it, was he blushing? He looked at her coy smile and said, “You mind dropping me in town and I’ll bring the camper back?”
    “Hey,” Sam said, his high voice cracking into an even higher register. “Can I come?”
    Meg smiled sweetly, “Oh, and can I come too?”
    “Probably better if you didn’t.”
    She let him swing for a minute then said, “Maybe you’ve got some other friends in town. Some people I don’t know.”
    “Shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes.”
    Meg smiled innocently. “Fifteen? That’s pretty fast.”
    He gave her an exasperated glance.
    The phone rang.
    Meg kept her eyes on Pellam as she made a slow turn and walked to it.
    “Hi, hon. . . . Aw, no. Come on. What? Problems?”
    “Hi, Daddy!” Sam shrieked, jumping for the phone. “I shot a hundred cans . . .”
    Meg winced and waved him down. “I’m making a roast. You can’t make it?” She sighed. “Okay. All right. We’ll save some for you. Love you.”
    “Bye, Daddy!”
    To Pellam she said, “He’s in a bind at the plant. He’s got to work most of the night. Sunday, can you believe it? He said he’ll be back at eleven. . . . So we eat à trois.”
    Sam said, “What’s that, Mom? Sounds yucky.”
    “It means there’ll be three of us for dinner.”
    “Oh, I thought it was this weird food you weregoing to make.” To Pellam he said, “Mom makes this totally strange stuff sometimes. All slippery—”
    “Sam.”
    “. . . and these gross colors.”
    “Young man, that’s enough.”
    “And her apple butter . . .” He headed for the porch. “It starts out brownish. Then it gets kind of green.”
    “Sam—” Meg began good-naturedly.
    Pellam asked Meg, “So, how ’bout that ride?”
    “Let’s go.”
    Pellam called to Sam, “Don’t clean that gun till I get back, young man.”
    “Yessir. And then it goes all grayish. Yuck. . . .”
    MEG DROPPED HIM a block away from the camper.
    She turned to him but before she could say anything he preempted her. “You don’t talk about flower children, I won’t talk about apple butter.”
    She laughed hard. “See you soon.” This was a moment when he might’ve kissed her. But instead he just climbed stiffly out of the tiny car—his wounds still hurt—and walked quickly to the camper. Inside a light was on. He opened the door. Inside, Janine sat motionless, looking down.
    She turned to him. “Bastard.”
    “I’m sorry. I ran into some trouble last night and—
    “Bastard.” What she was talking about, though, wasn’t his being late but the screenplay of To Sleep in a Shallow Grave. The binder was open and she’d read most of it.
    He closed the door.
    “This character you’ve added. That’s me, isn’t it?”
    He sat down slowly.
    “Some of it’s based on you. Some. It isn’t what I feel about you, it’s not the way I see you. It’s fiction. A story, nothing more than that. Mostly my imagination.”
    She lowered her head and read, “ ‘You’re living a dream that the past can’t justify. . . .’ ‘It’s the remoteness of the past that makes it such a safe place for you to live. . . .’ ‘The Age of Aquarius was a long, long time ago. . . .’ Janice. Christ, Pellam, you could at least have done a better job changing my name.”
    “I didn’t—”
    “You!” She threw the notebook against the wall. The binding snapped. The pages cascaded to the floor. “You’re the one living in a dream, not me. You come into people’s lives—nobody invited you to Cleary—you come into town with the big fantasy, promising to put people into a movie, promising to take people away from here—”
    “I never said that.”
    She