Spencerville

THIRTY-FOUR
    K eith Landry and Annie Baxter lay in each other’s arms. They were half-asleep, but every now and then she’d say something to him, and he replied.
    He was fighting off sleep, and he suspected she was doing the same. Finally, she turned on the lamp and rolled over on top of him, nestling her head beside his neck, and bit his ear. She said, “Am I getting on your nerves?”
    “No. I like that.” He put his hands on her buttocks and massaged.
    “Feels good.” After a minute, she said, “Keith, I can’t sleep.”
    “Try.”
    “I can’t.” She reached between them and fondled him until he got hard, then put it inside her. “That’s my pacifier. Can you keep it hard until I fall asleep?”
    He smiled. “I guess. Never tried it before.”
    “I love you.”
    “I adore you.”
    “I snore.”
    “Me, too.”
    “I drool. I absolutely drool all over everything. I’m going to drool on you.”
    “You’re funny.”
    “I eat barbecued chicken and potato chips in bed, and I wipe my mouth on the sheets, and I burp.”
    He laughed. “Stop it.”
    “I have wet dreams and screaming orgasms all night.’
    “Good—”
    She moved her hips up and down. “I’m about to have one now.”
    “Oh, that feels—” He heard something at the door, then, before he could react, he heard the door crashing in, the bolt splintering through the wood.
    A second later, Cliff Baxter was charging into the room with a shotgun in his hands.
    Annie screamed as Keith pushed her off him. He jumped out of bed and, at the same time, grabbed his K-bar knife, which was lying under the phone book on the nightstand.
    Baxter rammed the rubber-padded butt of the shotgun toward Keith’s face, and Keith deflected it with his forearm, but it grazed his forehead and left him momentarily stunned. Baxter raised the stock of the shotgun again and brought it down hard on Keith’s shoulder, paralyzing his arm and causing him to drop the knife. Baxter was about to swing again when Annie sprang from the bed and landed on Baxter, her arms and legs encircling him and causing him to stagger backward.
    Keith, still dazed, his right arm hanging limp at his side, retrieved the knife with his left hand. His vision was blurred from the blow to his head, but he could see Annie hanging onto Baxter while Baxter tried to break her loose. Keith lunged along the floor and plunged the knife upward at Baxter’s femoral artery, but the man was still staggering around, with Annie hanging onto him, and Keith didn’t see the gush of arterial blood where the knife penetrated.
    Baxter bellowed in pain, Annie was screaming, and before Keith could plunge the knife again, two other men were in the room, guns drawn. “Freeze! Freeze!”
    Keith stood unsteadily, the knife still in his hand, and one of the cops—Keith thought it was Ward—swung his nightstick, catching Keith’s wrist, and the knife flew out of his hand.
    Baxter had disengaged himself from his wife, and Annie was lying on the floor, crying. The two cops still had their guns pointed at Keith, but their eyes were on their chief’s naked wife.
    As Keith moved toward Annie, Baxter swung the butt of the shotgun again and buried it in Keith’s solar plexus. Keith doubled over and fell to his knees. He could hear Baxter screaming to his men, “Get out of here! Get the fuck out of here!”
    Keith was aware of the two cops leaving, then felt the shotgun butt hit him again, this time on his back, sprawling him forward on the floor. He heard Baxter’s voice, “So—fuck
me?
No! Fuck
you
! Fuck
you
!” Keith felt Baxter kicking him in the ribs, he heard Annie scream again, then felt her fall on top of him, covering him with her body, her arms wrapped tightly around his chest and her face buried in his neck. He heard her shouting, “Leave him alone! Leave him alone! Go away!”
    There was a silence in the room, and Keith fought to remain conscious. He could see Baxter’s legs in front of him, blood running down the man’s pant leg and into his shoe.
    He heard Baxter’s voice again. “Get off him! Get off of him or, so help me God, I’ll kill you.”
    “No!”
    Keith heard the pump-action shotgun cocking, and he caught his breath and said to her, “Get off… Annie, get off…”
    “No!”
    A voice from outside the door called into the room, “Chief! We got to get moving! Got people out here now. Police on the way!”
    Baxter stuck the muzzle of the shotgun under Keith’s nose. “I’ll