Free Dead Boys by RICHARD LANGE

front.”
    “Jesus,” I say.
    The cops go back to their discussion, ignoring us.
    Maria hugs me close and whispers in my ear, “I was so scared.” I apologize to her, tell her everything will be okay.
    We’ll be like this for a while, tightening at the sight of police cars, losing hope every time there’s a knock at the door. But the years will pass, the fear will fade, Maria will stop wondering what other secrets I’m keeping, and someday I won’t even be the same man who took down those banks. It will be more like a crazy story I heard than something I lived.
    Sam won’t let me put him down. He wants to be carried. I put my other arm around Maria, and we walk to the bungalow, step inside, and lock the door behind us. Safe — oh, please let us be safe — for at least another day.

Chapter Three: The Bogo-Indian Defense
    The Bogo-Indian Defense
    S OMETHING HAD CHANGED. I SENSED IT AS SOON AS I walked into the doughnut shop. Nobody was playing chess, where always before there had been at least one game going on. All the guys just sat glumly at the little plastic tables, staring into their coffee or fiddling with empty sugar packets. And the radio was off. No Dodgers. In the middle of the season. Impossible.
    I thought it might be me. I have this tendency. I’ll pick a bar, for example, and stop in for a drink every evening for six months, a year, know all the bartenders’ names, all the regulars, get slipped a free one now and then, feel right at home, but then one day, out of nowhere, it turns to shit. Same bar, same stool, same gin and tonic, but suddenly the mole on the face of my favorite waitress makes me sick, the Christmas lights framing the bottles are a terrible joke, and the ice cubes feel like broken glass in my mouth. I hurry out in what always seems like the nick of time, never to return. I’ve fled bowling alleys in the same cold sweat, restaurants, apartments I loved, too many jobs to count, an entire city. Denver — just the thought of that place makes me shudder.
    So that’s what I assumed was going on when I saw those men I’d never known to be anything but cheerful fighting back tears and not even Cocaine Bill could muster a greeting. I stepped to the counter for a coffee, waiting for that inexplicable dread to grab me by the throat and once again force me out onto the street. It was no use even sitting. I stood in the corner, holding my cup in one hand, jingling the change in my pocket with the other.
    But then Whitey roused himself with a heavy sigh, running his fingers and thumb over his big silver mustache. He glanced at me with bloodshot eyes before turning back to the window, on the other side of which cars raced up and down Sunset on missions of great importance.
    “Bud passed away,” he said, letting me in on the reason for the pall. “Heart attack, apparently, yesterday afternoon.”
    José crossed his tattooed arms on the table in front of him, bowed his head, and began to sob, while Bill, that miswired fuck, ran out the front door and attacked a parking meter, kicking and punching it until Ray Ray screamed at him to stop.
    I got a refill on my coffee and settled in for a long night in my usual spot next to the video game. Yes, things had changed. But this time it was the world, not me. Was it selfish to feel relieved? I couldn’t decide.
    B UD LEARNED TO dream in Vietnam. Before that, back on the ranch — Montana, Idaho, wherever it was he grew up — he’d turn to stone as soon as he hit the sack. His mind shut down till morning, when his father’s voice resurrected him, calling him to breakfast and days heavy with heat and dust and endless chores.
    At first it scared him. He’d be sleeping in a bunker deep in the jungle, and his head would fill with yellow or red or green. He thought he was going crazy, like the private from Tulsa who came off a long night at a listening post on the perimeter and started in with “Pete and Repeat were sitting on a log. Pete fell off. Who