Sarah - Exposed Shot - Part 3

From yesterday ...

Just as Flores took the bullet from Giamatti and started to turn to look - to see if someone was out there, after him - Sarah took the shot.

And now ...

The shot startled him. Mackey had been off somewhere else, for a second. His mind had drifted, which it seemed to be doing a lot of, lately.

He'd been thinking about Ma. Thelma.

The whole thing had flashed through his mind again. That whole night, which had been so unexpected, which had been so complete, which had done so much to the inside of his head.

She had been in her rooms, waiting for him. She'd been sitting at that little table under the window in the small kitchen. She was lit by a candle stuck in that old wine bottle, which is why he couldn't see her clearly, at first, which is why he was so surprised, when finally he could.

She'd done her hair up. She'd put a little powder on her face and some lipstick on and done her mascara and by God, she was pretty. And then she stood in that simple dress and she looked every bit a woman, tall in her high heels and strangely elegant - a far cry from the woman with the scraggly hair and baggy pants he'd come to know.

She had walked across the room to him and stood in front of him, looking him straight in the eye. She laid a hand softly against his cheek as she whispered, "Hello, Mackey."

It was hard to remember exactly what happened. Hard to remember the exact order of events. It was all a bit confused. All he knew was that by the next morning he was sure he'd never been with a woman like that, before. He was sure he'd never be with any other woman, again. If this was love, if this was what they all called "Love", then by God he'd been missing it all his life. And he knew that somehow, he wasn't going to miss it anymore - now that he'd found it - he didn't want to let it go.

The shot startled him. He'd lost his concentration and it had startled him. Suddenly, the distraction stuff started going off and Sarah was shouting SHOOT! SHOOT! and for just an instant he thought "What the fuck am I supposed to shoot at?" and then he saw the big guy coming around the backside of the big black Buick and he had a Thompson in his hand and it was blowing little puffs of smoke at him and then he came to it and he knew where he was and he knew he had the second shot and so he sighted down the barrel of his Springfield and squeezed off the round and the target disappeared under a cloud of red.