They were running alongside the golf course, which stretched between the river and the road. Virgil could see the taillights on Laughton’s vehicle no more than a hundred and fifty yards ahead.
“Shoot one up beside him,” Shrake suggested.
The golf cart had a Plexiglas windshield, but Shrake poked it a couple times with the heel of his hand and it folded down, and Virgil aimed unsteadily off to one side of the other golf cart and fired.
They saw the tiny taillights swerve, maybe off the road, because it bumped hard a couple times, and they gained another thirty yards, and Shrake said, “Try that again. See if you can bounce it off the road behind him.”
Virgil fired again, and this time the other golf cart swerved hard left and went down into the ditch.
“Got him,” Shrake said.
“He’s got that shotgun,” Virgil said, and they pulled off sideways and got out, and Virgil shouted, “Vike, give it up.”
They heard him moving like a bear through the ditch. Virgil pinned him with the light again, as they ran forward, ready to shoot, but Laughton did a somersault over the fairway fence and they ran after him. Shrake said, “I think he lost the gun.”
Then came a strangled shriek from the golf course, and silence.
—
THEY CROSSED the fence and spread apart, moving slowly now, up a mound . . .
The mound was the top of a sand trap. In the brilliant illumination of Virgil’s jacklight, they found Laughton spread-eagled in the white sand below. He’d run right off the top of the sand trap, and had fallen in, maybe ten feet straight down, into fine white river sand.
Virgil ran around the trap, keeping the muzzle of the gun out in front of him, and asked, “You alive in there?”
“Heart attack. I’m having a heart attack,” Laughton groaned.
“Really?” Virgil asked.
“Oh, God, don’t let me suffer. Shoot me.”
“Could happen,” Virgil said. “You’ve got two shotguns pointed at your head.” He moved quickly around to Shrake and whispered, “Cuff his hands in front of him. We’re going to run him back to the boats, evacuate him to the clinic.”
Shrake whispered, “Why not just call an ambulance? He’s faking, anyway.”
Virgil whispered, “Because then he’ll be in Minnesota. And what if he’s not faking?”
So they climbed down into the trap, and Virgil said, “Think about the shotguns,” and he put his aside and helped Laughton roll over. Shrake stepped in with the cuffs, and Laughton groaned again, “It hurts so bad. This is the end.”
Shrake ran the cuffs under Laughton’s belt, and Virgil got out of the trap and waved the light in a circle. “Johnson! Johnson! Over here!”
Johnson shouted back, and, following the light, arrived a minute later, breathing hard, and asked, “What?”
“We have to evacuate Vike to the clinic. He’s having a heart attack. You guys get his body, I’ll get his legs.”
“Call an ambulance,” Laughton said.
“Not enough time. Time is critical,” Virgil said.
They picked Laughton up, and Johnson said, “Jesus, wide load, huh?” and they carried him three hundred yards, across two fairways and down the embankment where Johnson had tied up the boats. Laughton bitched every inch of the way: “It’s killing me. You’re killing me. Oh, God, I’m hurt . . .”