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Okay, well, the reason was to get an ice-cream cone. “Mr. Deering was in back doing prescriptions—he looked out of that little window and told me to help myself. So I went over to the soda fountain and scooped up a double dip of peach on a sugar cone and went up to the cigar counter and left a nickel by the cash register. That’s where I was when I see these two men come in wearing suits and hats I thought at first were salesmen. Mr. Deering calls to me to wait on them as I know the store pretty well. Frank Miller comes up to the counter—”

“You knew right away who he was?”

“Once he was close, yes sir, from pictures of him in the paper. He said to give him a deck of Luckies. I did and he picks up the nickel I’d left by the register. Hands it to me and says, ‘This ought to cover it.’”

“You tell him it was yours?”

“No, sir.”

“Or a pack of Luckies was fifteen cents?”

“I didn’t argue with him. But see, I think that’s when he got the idea of robbing the store, the cash register sitting there, nobody around but me holding my ice-cream cone. Mr. Deering never came out from the back. The other one, Jim Ray Monks? He wanted a tube of Unguentine, he said, for a heat rash was bothering him, under his arms. I got it for him and he didn’t pay either. Then Frank Miller says, ‘Let’s see what you have in the register.’ I told him I didn’t know how to open it as I didn’t work there. He leans over the counter and points to a key—a man who knows his cash registers—and says, ‘That one right there. Hit it and she’ll open for you.’ I press the key—Mr. Deering must’ve heard it ring open, he calls from the back of the store, ‘Carlos, you able to help them out?’ Frank Miller raised his voice, saying, ‘Carlos is doing fine,’ using my name. He told me then to take out the scrip but leave the change.”

“How much did he get?”

“No more’n fifty dollars,” Carlos said. He took his time thinking about what happened right after, starting with Frank Miller looking at his ice-cream cone. Carlos saw it as personal, something between him and Frank Miller, so he skipped over it, telling Bud Maddox:

“I put the money on the counter for him, mostly singles. I look up—”

“Junior Harjo walks in,” Bud Maddox said, “a robbery in progress.”

“Yes sir, but Junior doesn’t know it. Frank Miller’s at the counter with his back to him. Jim Ray Monks is over at the soda fountain getting into the ice cream. Neither of them had their guns out, so I doubt Junior saw it as a robbery. But Mr. Deering sees Junior and calls out he’s got his mother’s medicine. Then says for all of us to hear, ‘She tells me they got you raiding stills, looking for moonshine.’ He said something about setting a jar aside for him and that’s all I heard. Now the guns are coming out, Frank Miller’s Colt from inside his suit . . . I guess all he had to see was Junior’s badge and his sidearm, that was enough, Frank Miller shot him. He’d know with that Colt one round would do the job, but he stepped up and shot Junior again, lying on the floor.”

There was a silence.

“I’m trying to recall,” Bud Maddox said, “how many Frank Miller’s killed. I believe six, half of ’em police officers.”

“Seven,” Carlos said, “you count the bank hostage had to stand on his running board. Fell off and broke her neck?”

“I just read the report on that one,” Bud Maddox said. “Was a Dodge Touring, same as Black Jack Pershing’s staff car over in France.”

“They drove away from the drugstore in a LaSalle,” Carlos said, and gave Bud Maddox the license number.

Here was the part Carlos saw as personal and had skipped over, beginning with Frank Miller looking at his ice-cream cone. Then asking, “What is that, peach?” Carlos said it was and Frank Miller reached out his hand, saying, “Lemme have a bite there,” and took the cone to hold it away from him as it was starting to drip. He bent over to lick it a couple of times before putting his mouth around a big bite he took from the top dip. He said, “Mmmmm, that’s good,” with a trace of peach ice cream along the edge of his mustache. Frank Miller