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while Stokes waited for the car to pull away from the curb. He was thinking hard, trying to come up with a possible scenario that wouldn’t end badly for him. They were pissed he was trying to leave town, that was for sure. Their father would probably be even more pissed. Stokes thought about giving them the ten thousand he owed right then, taking it out of the bag and handing it over, but they’d certainly want to see what else he had in the bag, thinking there might be more money, which there was. And they’d take it all, so screw that.
    “Buckle your seat belt,” Non-Chatty said.
    “You’re worried about my safety?” Stokes thought that was ironic, which was a word he was never sure he was using correctly, but he thought he knew irony when he saw it.
    “Shit no, but if my brother screws up and hits a goddamn tree, you think I want you flying up here and splattering all over me? Now put on your seat belt and stop dicking around. You think we got all day to spend with you? You already interrupted our day by getting on that bus, making us come down here and pull you off of it. So cut the crap. We got places to be.”
    Stokes shrugged and did as he was told. He held the backpack tightly in his arms, but thinking that might look suspicious, he put it on the floor between his feet. The Nickersons must not have considered him much of a threat or they wouldn’t have let him sit in the back by himself with his bag. Apparently, the thought that he might be carrying a gun never occurred to them. It should have, but they weren’t terribly bright. Then again, he wasn’t carrying. He never did. He didn’t even own a gun. He didn’t like them. Sure, he’d fantasized as a kid about being a gunslinger, fingers twitching near the handle of his Colt .45 as he stood in the dusty street, staring down the fastest gun in town while tumbleweeds rolled past and frightened townsfolk watched from the safety of their windows and doorways. But then he grew up. Guns were serious. They usually made things worse, not better. He wasn’t scared of them, but he simply didn’t want to do the kind of work or pull the kind of jobs where they were needed. Didn’t think the risk was worth it. So he stayed away from them. Still, if the Nickerson boys had an ounce more brains between them, they would have at least searched him, and the bag, and found no gun but a lot of money. Stokes hoped they wouldn’t wise up en route to wherever they were taking him.
    Chatty pulled the Escalade away from the curb. Stokes was thinking hard. How was he going to get out of this with most of the cash and all of his bones intact?
    “This about the money I owe your father?”
    “What the hell do you think?” Chatty said.
    “I think it is.”
    “Fucking genius.”
    “I have it.”
    Silence.
    “I have it,” Stokes repeated.
    He saw Chatty’s eyes flick up to regard him in the rearview mirror. Non-Chatty turned around. “Bullshit,” he said.
    “I’m serious.”
    “Then why were you skipping town?”
    “I wasn’t. I was going to Akron for a couple of days. Got some friends there who owe me money.”
    “Ohio?”
    “Yeah, that’s where Akron is.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “No, I’m pretty sure it’s still there.”
    If either Nickerson got his joke or thought it was funny, he didn’t let on. “You were skipping town, Stokes,” Non-Chatty said. “Skipping out on your debt.”
    “I wasn’t. Seriously. I have your money.”
    Non-Chatty squinted at him for a moment. Chewed his gum, his jaw muscles working. “Why didn’t you pay then?”
    “Due date’s in two weeks. I still have time.”
    Non-Chatty chewed on that for a while, along with his Doublemint. “So you weren’t skipping town?”
    Stokes shook his head.
    “So how much have you got then?”
    After a brief hesitation, Stokes said, “All of it.” He’d considered giving them only the ten-grand payment that was coming due soon and leaving town later with the rest, but then he’d have to