Dale started his truck and put it into gear.

Theo stepped up on the running board, leaned over the windshield, and started tapping on it with a quarter he'd fished from his jeans pocket. "Don't leave, Dale." Tap, tap, tap. "You leave now, I'll put a warrant out for your arrest." Tap, tap, tap. Theo was pissed now — he was sure of it. Yes, this was definitely anger now.

Dale threw the truck into park and hit the electric window button. "What? What do you want?"

"Lena wants to press charges for assault — maybe assault with a deadly weapon. I think you'd better rethink leaving right now."

"Deadly weapon? It was a bag of ice."

Theo shook his head, affected a whimsical storyteller's tone: "A ten-pound bag of ice. Listen, Dale, as I drop a ten-pound block of ice on the courtroom floor in front of the jury. Can you hear it? Can't you just see the jury cringe as I smash a honeydew melon on the defense attorney's table with a ten-pound block of ice? Not a deadly weapon? 'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this man, this reprobate, this redneck, this — if I may — clump-filled-cat-box-of-a-man, struck a defenseless woman — a woman who out of the kindness of her heart was collecting for the poor, a woman who was only —»

"But it's not a block of ice, it's —»

Theo raised a finger in the air. "Not another word, Dale, not until I read you your rights." Theo could tell he was getting to Dale — veins were starting to pulse in the contractor's temples and his bald head was turning bright pink. Hippie, huh? "Lena is definitely pressing charges, aren't you, Lena?"

Lena had made her way to the side of the truck.

"No," Lena said.

"Bitch!" Theo said — it slipped out before he could stop himself. He'd been on such a roll.

"See how she is," said Dale. "Wish you had a bag of ice now, don't you, hippie?"