Cold Service

59

I LEFT HAWK and Vinnie drinking beer in Henry's office and drove up to Marshport. It was after six when I got there, fighting the commuter traffic all the way. The Marshport Mall sat on a landfill dumped at the edge of the salt marshes where the Squamos River ran into Marshport Harbor. The landfill hadn't been as stable as everyone had hoped, and as it shifted, the buildings of the mall shifted with it, causing cracks and leaks. Doors jammed. Windows didn't open properly. Plumbing leaked. Finally, the place folded and everybody but the people who'd sold them the land lost all they had. No one wanted to build again on the land. No one wanted to spend their money to tear down the mall. So it remained a rotting, ambling, and spectacular eyesore as you entered Marshport from the south.

The hot top of the parking lot was distorted with frost heaves and potholes. I drove across it and parked next to the disreputable south entrance, took a flashlight from the console, and walked over for a look. The big glass doors were stuck ajar. Leaves and litter had blown in through them and fanned out for ten or fifteen feet inside. It was still daylight in mid-May, but inside the empty mall it was dim. I walked through slowly, moving the flashlight around. Some of the ceilings had collapsed. Plaster dust punctuated with pink scraps of insulation covered most of the floor. Glass from broken light fixtures and display windows made the footing uneven and raspy. The skeletal bones of commerce past were all that was left of the various shops that lined the central arcade. There was nothing of value left in any of them. I wasn't the first intruder. There were cobwebs and spiderwebs and empty muscatel bottles. In a corner of one of the empty shops were a couple of torn mattresses and some filthy quilts, where some of my residence-challenged brothers had apparently holed up. Another arcade crossed the one I was in. More of the same. Darkness, litter, filth, emptiness, and a million places to ambush somebody. As I walked, a large rat scuttled across the arcade and disappeared into what was once a shop selling evocative ladies underwear. I saw several others, bigger than squirrels, as I strolled. I spent an hour or so exploring the maze, and learned only that it would be a dangerous place for Hawk to enter. But since I knew he would enter it no matter what, the information didn't do us much good. I shrugged. Readiness is all. I followed my flashlight back to the car and went home.

On Saturday morning, I got up at three. Hawk would be at the mall at five, and I wanted plenty of time to wake up and drink coffee and dip my bullets in curare. At quarter of five, I pulled off of Route 1A and onto the scrambled surface of the Marshport Mall parking lot. It was light, though the sun hadn't yet officially appeared. At the far end of the mall I could see the silver SUV, parked near the north entrance. I drove to the south entrance and parked where I had twelve hours ago. I took a Winchester.45-caliber lever-action rifle from the backseat and levered a round into the chamber and let the hammer down slowly. I had the Browning nine-millimeter on my belt, but I didn't know how far a shot I might need to make. I leaned the rifle against the passenger seat beside me and waited. In the rearview mirror I saw another car pull into the lot. It wasn't Hawk's Jag. It was a dark blue Camry, and I didn't recognize it. I took the Browning off my belt and held it in my lap. The Camry drove slowly toward me. With the Browning in my right hand, I stepped out of my car and looked over the car roof at the Camry. The driver saw me. The Camry did a U-turn so that the driver's side was away from me and stopped maybe fifty feet from me. The driver got out and looked at me over his car roof. It was Vinnie. Each of us holstered our guns and walked out from behind our cars.

"Come to watch?" I said.

"Yeah," Vinnie said.

He went to the rear of his car and opened the trunk and took out a twelve-gauge Smith & Wesson pump. From a box of shells open in the trunk, he took a handful and put them in the pocket of his safari vest. Then he pumped a round up into the chamber and set the safety.

"Boots in there already?" he said.

"That's his car," I said and nodded at the Volvo.

"Hawk'll be here at five," Vinnie said.

"He said five."

Vinnie nodded.

"Gives Boots time to set up in there," he said.

"Yes," I said. "If you're not finicky, it's ambush heaven."

"I know," Vinnie said.

"You been in there," I said.

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"Last night," I said. "After I left you. About six."

"I was up here 'bout eleven," Vinnie said. "Fucking place is rat heaven."

"Yes," I said.

Hawk's Jaguar pulled in and drove past us halfway to the south entrance. The Jaguar stopped, and Hawk got out and walked to the mall. He stopped before he went in and looked at Vinnie and me. He nodded once and went into the mall.

I looked at my watch. Five o'clock, straight up, as they say.