the Hot Kid (2005) by Elmore - Carl Webster 0 Leonard Page A

here. She tried to tell him they had to leave, right now.
    He was still drunk or starting over, saying now, "They come after me they's gonna be a shoot-out. I'm taking some of the scudders with me."
    Maybe not even knowing he was playing Jimmy Cagney now. Louly said, "You only stole seventy-one dollars."
    "I done other things in the State of Oklahoma," Joe Young said.
    "They take me alive I'm facing fifteen to life. I swear I ain't going back."
    What was going on here? They're driving around looking for Charley Floyd--the next thing this dumbbell wants to shoot it out with the law and here she was in this room with him.
    "They don't want me," Louly said. Knowing she couldn't talk to him, the state he was in. She had to get out of here, open the door and run. She got her crocheted bag from the dresser, started for the door and was stopped by the bullhorn.
    The electrified voice loud, saying, "JOE YOUNG, COME OUT
    WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR."

What Joe Young did--he held his Colt straight out in front of him and started firing through the glass pane in the door. Drunk. People outside returned fire, blew out the window, gouged the door with gunfire, Louly dropping to the floor with her bag, until she heard a voice on the bullhorn call out, "HOLD YOUR FIRE."
    Louly looked up to see Joe Young standing by the bed with a gun in each hand now, the Colt and a .38. She said, "Joe, you have to give yourself up. They're gonna kill both of us you keep shooting." He reminded her again of James Cagney acting mad, in the movie where he squashes the grapefruit in the girl's face.
    Joe Young didn't even look at her. He yelled out, "Come and get me!" and started shooting again, both guns at the same time. He stopped long enough to say to Louly, "I die, I'm gonna die game." Louly's hand went in the crocheted bag and came out with the .38 he'd given her to help him rob places. From the floor, up on her elbows, she aimed the revolver at Joe Young, cocked it and bam, shot him through the chest.
    Louly stepped away from the door and the marshal, Carl Webster, came in holding a revolver. She saw lawmen standing out in the road, some with rifles. Carl Webster was looking at Joe Young curled up on the floor. He holstered his revolver, took the .38 from Louly and sniffed the barrel and stared at her without saying anything before going to one knee to see if Joe Young had a pulse. He got up saying, "The Oklahoma Bankers Association wants people like Joe dead, and that's what he is. They're gonna give you a five-hundred dollar reward for killing your friend."
    "He wasn't a friend."
    "He was yesterday. Make up your mind."
    "He stole the car and made me go with him."
    "Against your will," Carl Webster said. "Stay with that you won't go to jail."
    "It's true, Carl," Louly said, showing him her big brown eyes with soul in them. "Really."
    The headline in the Tulsa World, over a small photo of Louise Brown, said sallisaw girl shoots abuductor.
    According to Louise, she had to stop Joe Young or be killed in the exchange of gunfire. She also said her name was Louly, not Louise. The marshal on the scene said it was a courageous act, the girl shooting her abductor. "We considered Joe Young a mad-dog felon with nothing to lose." The marshal said that Joe Young was suspected of being a member of Pretty Boy Floyd's gang. He also mentioned that Louly Brown was related to Floyd's wife and acquainted with the desperado. The headline in the Tulsa paper, over a larger photo of Louly, said girl shoots pretty boy floyd gang member. The story told that Louly Brown was a friend of Pretty Boy's and had been abducted by the former gang member who, according to Louly, "was jealous of Pretty Boy and kidnapped me to get back at him."
    By the time the story had appeared everywhere from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Toledo, Ohio, the most popular headline was girlfriend of pretty boy guns down mad-dog felon.
    The marshal, Carl Webster, came to Sallisaw on business and stopped in