Cold Service (18 page)

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.

I nodded.

Vinnie got back in his car, put the shotgun on the backseat, and eased the Camry quietly down to the north entrance, parking a few yards from the silver Volvo. I got back in my car.

According to the digital clock on my dashboard, it was 5:04.

The sun was above the far edge of the world now, and the gray light had turned faintly gold. It didn't go well with the Marshport Mall. Hell, sunrise didn't go well with Marshport.

5:05.

A couple of seagulls circled the parking lot without much enthusiasm. Pickings were by now awfully slim, and the gulls seemed to know it.

5:06.

There was a thin fog lingering just over the salt marsh. The traffic on Route 1A was still desultory. Occasionally, a truck would lumber south toward Boston, but mostly it was just quiet. I felt as if Tex Ritter should be singing on a sound track somewhere. "… look at that big hand move along, nearing high noon."

5:10.

I took the Winchester and got out of the car and leaned on the fender. Traffic was picking up a little on 1A. Somewhere, somebody was frying something and making coffee.

5:12.

One of the gulls spotted something it considered edible. It landed and grabbed it. Two other gulls landed beside it and tried to get it away. There was a fair amount of gull squawk and flutter.

5:15.

"… or lie a coward, a craven coward in my grave."

At the other end of the mall, Vinnie was out of his car, cradling the shotgun, leaning on the side of his car. The sun had cleared the horizon now, lingering brightly just above the gray ocean.

5:22.

One of the gulls had successfully wrested the scrap of garbage from the other two and flown off with it. The other two gulls had returned to the area. Maybe there was more where it came from. They circled slowly and low, looking beady-eyed and passionless at the littered surface below them.

At 5:27, Hawk walked out of the south entrance of the mall. He nodded at Vinnie as he passed him and kept on walking. Vinnie opened his trunk, put the shotgun in, closed the trunk, got in the Camry, and drove off. Hawk walked past his parked Jaguar and kept walking toward me.

When he got to me, he stopped and looked at me as if he'd never seen me before. I waited.

Finally, Hawk said, "Done."

"Boots is dead," I said.

"Yeah."

"I didn't hear a shot," I said.

"Weren't no shot," Hawk said.

"We got in our cars and drove away. I came here. I don't know where Hawk went."

"And you didn't ask him what happened," Susan said.

"No."

"And Vinnie, when he saw Hawk come out, just drove away without a word," Susan said.

"He did."

"So neither of you know what happened in there."

"Boots died," I said.

"But that's all you know."

"All that matters," I said.

We were in bed together with our clothes off. Susan was lying on top of me, her face maybe six inches from mine.

"Will you ever ask him?" she said.

"Probably not," I said.

She nodded slowly, as if I had just confirmed a long-held suspicion of hers.

"Probably not," she said.

She shifted a little, moving her hips.

"I'm having a little trouble concentrating," I said.

"Really?"

"Aren't you going to ask me why?" I said.

"I believe I know," she said, and kissed me hard.

I believe she did.