Snowbound

Seventeen

Kubion stared down at the snow-spattered form of the man he had shot, recognized him as the one brother from the Sport Shop. Savagely he said, “You fucking hick Eskimo son of a bitch!” and drove the point of his shoe into yielding flesh just below the ribs, did it a second time. Then he backed up against the wall of the garage and probed the night around him with slitted, restless eyes.

Despite the direction of the snow tracks, he’d thought at first it was Brodie there in the building shadows and then the bastard had plugged away at him with that horse gun and Brodie hadn’t had time to locate a weapon but Christ on a crutch he’d almost walked into it, the first bullet had missed him by a foot but the second had almost gotten him but he was ten feet tall and nobody could kill him least of all a lousy hick, but still it had been close. Goddamn it he’d been positive none of them would try to get out of the church and here this one was stupid stupid, not through the locked front doors not that stupid but maybe some other exit he’d overlooked when he’d examined the interior on Thursday or by breaking out the glass in one of the windows, and how many others were there? Oh there’d be at least one more that was certain because one alone was too much of a risk even for stupid Eskimo hicks but now Tribucci was a dead hero and he’d make the other one or two dead heroes too. And Brodie, he’d kill Brodie slow and painful when he found him the fag shit, all that crap about safes but the urge telling him no and he’d thought he had everything nailed down and then that lousy ice and not watching his footing and falling and twisting his ankle, sprained and hurting and swelling up and hobbling him, and Brodie getting away and things all of a sudden screwing up just like the Greenfront job, things you couldn’t figure ahead of time. But there was no way things were going to screw him out of this score no way because there’d be a fruit jar somewhere with the big money he knew it, and it was only a matter of time before he was back on top and killed Brodie and killed them all…

The urge moaned and trembled inside him, softly, softly. He opened his mouth and pulled freezing air and flakes of snow into his lungs. Things screwing up sure but Tribucci was dead, and it was a good thing he’d had the shoot-out because now he knew some of them were free; coming after Brodie with the idea he could spot him on the run had been smart then but not now, no point in trying to trail him like a goddamn Indian and maybe walking into an ambush. Maybe Brodie’d try for the Sport Shop, he’d be after a weapon first thing all right, but it was too obvious and maybe he’d go somewhere else; still, the thing to do was check it out quick and careful and even if he couldn’t flush him he knew what Brodie would do after he was armed no question about that. He knew what the other hick heroes would be doing too, they’d want to protect those in the church and too many men running around in the village would increase chances of discovery and they’d be smart enough to understand that so they’d be waiting by or near the church for Tribucci to come with the guns that he wouldn’t be bringing. The church was the lay okay, all the way all the way.

Not looking at the motionless figure in the snow, Kubion sidestepped to the corner and went around it and ran limpingly back along Lassen Drive to Sierra Street.