Big Trouble (19 page)

He studied the two women on the sofa, the kingpin's women. He was pretty sure he'd seen the older one somewhere around the Grove. . . . Yeah, that was her; she'd walked past him like he was a piece of shit. Tonight would be different.

Snake moved closer to Anna and Jenny; they shrank back on the sofa.

“Lessee what we got here,” said Snake. “Mmm
mmm
. These are some
fine
-lookin' women, here.
Fine
-lookin'.” He glanced back at Arthur. “Just like you promised.”

Anna looked at Arthur. He would not meet her eyes.

Snake said to Anna, “We gonna have some fun tonight.” With his non-gun hand, he reached down and slowly, deliberately, stroked his crotch.

“If you touch my daughter,” said Anna, “I swear to God I'll cut your balls off.”

“Your daughter, huh?” said Snake, looking at Jenny, his hand still rubbing between his legs. “That right? She's a young thing? Can't leave her momma?” He raised the gun and aimed it right at Anna's face, and he could see in the way she looked at it that, despite her tough talk, he owned her. As long as he had the magic wand, he owned everything.

“I touch what I wanna touch,” he said. He took his hand from his crotch and reached it toward Jenny, who whimpered and shrank back.

Matt said, “Drop the gun right now or I'll shoot you.”

Snake, still aiming at Anna, turned his head and saw the boy aiming a gun at him. It was the JetBlast Junior squirt gun, but it looked real to Snake.

“Don't fuck with me, kid,” he said.

“I swear I'll shoot you, mister,” said Matt.

“You shoot me,” said Snake, “I shoot your girlfriend.” He moved his gun slightly, so it was pointing at Jenny. He was not letting go of his wand.

They stood that way for five seconds, Matt aiming at Snake, Snake aiming at Jenny, nobody with a clue what to do next. The silence ended with a crash from the foyer, which was the sound of Eddie, blinded by his panty hose, falling over an umbrella stand. The sound startled everybody, especially Matt, who squeezed the trigger of his JetBlast Junior, squirting a stream of water onto Snake.

“Whoops,” said Matt.

Snake, in two steps, was next to Matt, slashing sideways with his gun barrel.

“Unnnh,” said Matt, going down, his hands grabbing his face. Snake knelt and pressed the gun barrel against Matt's ear.

“You fuckin
punk
,” he said “Before I kill you, I'm gonna let you
watch
what I do to your girlfriend, you hear me?
You hear me?
” He forced the gun barrel hard into Matt's ear.

“Yes!” said Matt. “OW YES!”

“You better hear me, punk,” said Snake. “Eddie! Get in here!”

“Dammit, Snake,” said Eddie, from the foyer, “you keep sayin' my name!”

“Never mind that,” said Snake. “Get in here and take that thing off your head.”

“They'll see us,” said Eddie, feeling his way into the living room.

“Don't matter anymore,” said Snake, ripping the panty hose off his head. He was thinking like a kingpin now; he had a plan.

Eddie took off his panty hose, brushed some greasy strands of hair out of his eyes, and blinked at the scene in the living room. On the sofa were two women, one he'd hassled for money earlier that day in the Grove, the other very young, both way out of Eddie's league. In the corner were the two guys they had brought from the bar, the kingpin and the little strong guy that Snake had kicked. On the floor was some kid, holding his face.

Eddie went over to Snake and whispered, “Snake, what the fuck're you doin'?”

“What
we're
doin',” Snake whispered back, “is we're gonna tie up these assholes”—he nodded toward Arthur, Puggy, and Matt—“and then we're gonna have us some pussy”—he nodded toward Anna and Jenny—“and then we're gonna find out what's inna suitcase, and where this guy keeps his real money, and then we're gonna tidy up in here, and then we're gonna go to the Bahamas and we ain't never gonna have to work again.”

“The
Bahamas
?” said Eddie. “Snake, we don't know nothing about no Bahamas.”

“We're gonna find out,” said Snake. He'd heard they went pretty easy on kingpins in the Bahamas.

“What do you mean, tidy up in here?” said Eddie.

“I mean get rid of the loose ends,” said Snake. “Now go find us some rope.”

AGENT Greer, with John preceding him, came out of the back room of the Jolly Jackal, shaking his head.

“It's not there,” he said to Agent Seitz. “They got enough stuff back there to fight a war with North Korea, but no suitcase. Ivan here says he doesn't know what suitcase I'm talking about.”

“Is that right, Ivan?” asked Seitz.

John nodded.

“Are you maybe thinking that you could use the suitcase as, like, a bargaining chip?” said Seitz. “Like, we want it so bad that we work out some kind of deal with you, like you tell us where it is, and we go easy on you? Maybe even just deport you back to Russia? Is that what you're maybe thinking?”

John said nothing. But that was, in fact, exactly what he had been thinking.

“Hmmm,” said Seitz, frowning. “What do you think, Agent Greer?”

“Hmmm,” said Greer, also frowning. “What do
you
think, Agent Seitz?”

“I think,” said Seitz, pausing a moment, “nah.” Without moving from the bar stool, he shot John in the foot. He was an excellent shot.

John fell to the floor screaming. He grabbed his shoe, which was oozing blood from holes on both the top and the bottom.

“Don't be a baby, Ivan,” said Greer, looking down. “It's just your foot.”

“It's what we at the Bureau call an ‘extremity shot,'” explained Seitz. “Generally, the victim survives. They don't do so good with what we call a ‘torso shot.'”

Greer, bending down to the writhing figure on the floor, said, “What do you think, Ivan? You want to experience a torso shot?”

John, through gritted teeth, said, “I tell you who has suitcase.”

Greer looked at Seitz and said, “I love Special Executive Order 768 dash 4.”

ROGER the dog crouched on the patio, his nose thirty inches from the Enemy Toad. The toad was sitting in Roger's dish, munching on Roger's kibble, and Roger was growling at it. This had been going on for more than two hours, but Roger was not bored. Growling at the toad was a big part of his day.

Roger's head snapped up when he heard the sound of something scraping against the fence at the far end of the yard. The sound meant that there was an intruder, and to Roger, that meant only one thing:
There might be food
. In an instant he had left the toad and was hurtling through the underbrush, a hungry, hairy bullet.

EDDIE couldn't find any rope, so, at Snake's instruction, he went around the living room, dining room, family room, and kitchen and ripped out the cords to the telephones, which Snake didn't want working anyway. He brought the cords into the living room, where Snake had Anna and Jenny still on the couch, and Puggy and Arthur sitting on the floor next to Matt, whose face was red and whose nose was bleeding about as much as the last time he'd been over to the Herk household, when Anna had punched him out.

“OK,” said Snake, gesturing at the three men on the floor. “Tie 'em up.”

Eddie, looking uncertain, went over and stood behind Matt.

“What kinda knot?” he asked Snake.

“Whaddya mean, what kinda knot?” said Snake. “Just tie 'em the fuck
up
.”

“OK,” said Eddie, “but I ain't no damn Boy Scout. All's I know is the square knot and the whaddyacallit, the bow-man. Which one you want?”

“JUST TIE 'EM UP,” said Snake. He had decided that, once he got established as a kingpin in the Bahamas, he was definitely going to get a better class of henchman.

LEONARD, definitely feeling the second order of spaghetti and sausage he'd had for dinner, grunted as he heaved his body over the wall at the back of the Herk property. He dropped to the ground next to Henry, who was peering up into the big tree.

“You lookin' for Tarzan?” asked Leonard. “He's inna house, right?”

“I'm thinking maybe my rifle is up there,” said Henry. “Looks like there's some kind of platform up there, where he jumped from.”

Leonard looked up into the tree and said, “Why the fuck would he—
OOOM!
”

Roger had just given Leonard a traditional hearty dog welcome, which consisted of rocketing headfirst into Leonard's groin, knocking him backward and down.

“Get
away
from me, dammit!” said Leonard, unsuccessfully trying to fend off Roger, who had detected several residual atoms of marinara sauce on Leonard's chin and was frantically trying to lick them off before some rival dog found them. “Henry, get him
off
me!”

Henry grabbed Roger by the collar and lifted him off Leonard. This did not cause Roger any physical discomfort, as Roger was basically a large fur-covered muscle controlled by a brain the size of a Raisinet. In fact, Roger was delighted:
Another
person was here! Maybe
this
one had food!

“Get
down
, dammit,” said Henry, trying to push the dog away, wondering if maybe he would have to shoot it. Suddenly, Roger's head snapped up. He had detected something that Henry and Leonard could not hear at this distance: the intercom buzzer! Roger knew that sound; it meant
somebody was here
. And whoever it was
might have food
. As suddenly as he had appeared, Roger went rocketing back toward the house.

Henry said, “I'm gonna take a look up in the tree.”