Meet Lucy. I didn't mean to get her shot at, but now the killing's started and she's in the game to the last call whether she likes it or not. Worse, there's not much I can do about it. I'm just the dealer, now. I can show you the cards, but you have to play them.
You and Lucy Brown...
* * *
As soon as the cops sent Robert to the morgue and finished asking her questions, she tried calling Clay.
No answer.
When she got home she tried again, got no answer, broke down and emailed him 
instead. And all the time, looping in her head, were Robert's dying words, coming out of his bloody mouth in wet gasps as he lay gut-shot in the grass.
"You always were bad luck."
He was petty and mean and nothing like his dad, but he was family and he didn't deserve to die like that.
You always were bad luck.
Well, Lucy thought, it was hard to argue with that.
Of course, she would have died the same way if Clay hadn't miraculously turned up to provide some covering fire. " Preacher with a Gun" Rescue Service - Damsels in Distress Our Specialty. The only drawback being that as a convicted felon, he wasn't allowed to carry a gun.
It had been Lucy's bright idea to shoo him off before the cops showed up; entirely Lucy's idea to tell them she never saw the second shooter. In a world gone very weird, lying to the police had a homey, familiar feel, and besides, sending the padre back to jail on a probation violation seemed like a piss-poor reward for saving her ass.
But... why the hell had Clay followed her from the GA meeting to the cemetery? Lucy rummaged through a drawer full of unpaid parking tickets until she found the Buddy Sheet to check his number.
Cell phone not available.
The Buddy Sheet fluttered in her shaking hand. Come on, Brown. Get a grip.
Probably she was just hungry. She tried to remember if she'd had anything to eat yet today. Depended on whether you counted those little plastic thimbles of Non-Dairy Creamer.
She opened the fridge door to find half a box of leftovers from the Double Happiness, a jar of dill pickles, six-day old mac 'n cheez gone sculptural, 5 bottles of Dos Equis and a Corona.
Lucy twisted the cap off the Corona and paced around the room, trying to reconstruct the son of a bitch who'd killed Robert. Mid-30's, dirty-blond hair receding in two ovals up his head, sideburns and a long thin nose. Right-handed, no engagement or wedding rings. Probably got most of his dates at gunpoint. The gun itself had been one of those cheap 9 millimeter jobs you could get free with purchase of 10 gallons of gas anywhere in East L.A. Czech, maybe? Scratches on the barrel and butt, as if he was in the habit of tossing it into the glove compartment of his car.
Lucy always had been good at noticing things. That's what had made her an assassin at the card table. That's why she was playing with the biggest rollers by the time she was twenty. That's how she'd earned enough rope to hang herself good and high--gotten into a game so rich she finally took a beating lesser players could only dream of, one that hurt her so bad she swore she'd never play again.
She tried to replay the gunfight in her head. 12-shot magazine, maybe? Thirteen?
Bad luck.
She saw the light blinking on her answering machine. After listening to the message she finished the Corona in a hurry and started on a Dos Equis.