Fire Lake by Jonathan Valin Page B

fuck the man."
    "My partner?" I said, starting to
understand. "You mean Lonnie?"
    "Who the fuck you think we're talking 'bout,
homes?" the kid said drily.
    "Look," I said, "I don't know where
Lonnie is and I don't know anything about cocaine. You've already
searched the apartment, so you know it's not here."
    "Yeah, but we ain't searched you, yet, bro',"
the kid said with a grin. He glanced at Maurice, who took a step
toward me.
    All of a sudden it didn't seem like a Saturday
morning serial anymore. I reached inside my coat for the Gold Cup.
But before I could pull it out, I felt someone press something cold
and hard against the back of my head. It was the guy from the
stairway. The guy with the shotgun. I left the automatic in its
holster and pulled my hand out of my coat slowly, raising it,
palm-up, to show them that I was clean.
    The kid tut-tutted me with his lips and waved a
warning finger. "Don't be uncool," he said. He snapped up
out of the chair, as if he was hinged at his middle like a knife.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an ivory-handled razor.
    Sweet Christ, I said to myself.
    "You gonna do some cuttin', Bo?" Maurice
said, with a booming laugh that made him cough. The man with the
shotgun laughed too. Maurice cleared his throat and spat phlegm on
the floor.
    I thought of the sock in Claude Jenkins's smiling
face.
    Bo took off his sunglasses and came right up to me,
moving his head in jerky little turns, like a parrot, as he stared
furiouslv into my face. He had a mad, drugged-out look in his
bloodshot eyes. He kept hefting the razor in his hand, as if it were
a bag of shot.
    "Yeah," he said, still staring at me. "I
might do me some cuttin'." He glanced at Maurice. "Take him
on back to the shitter. We'll do him in the tub."
    "Gonna clean up his act," Maurice said with
another booming laugh.
    Maurice pulled a bandanna out of his back pocket,
twirled it around to make a gag, and started toward me, snapping the
handkerchief between his hands. Bo backed away to give Maurice room.
I knew that as soon as Maurice gagged and tied me, it was all over.
It was probably all over anyway. But I'd be damned if I was going to
end up like Claude Jenkins, with my own flesh hanging around my waist
like a tattered shirt.
    I didn't really have time to think about it. The
shotgun was propped against the back of my skull, like the headrest
of a barber's chair. If the guy behind me pulled the trigger, I'd
lose my head. But, at that moment, it seemed like a better way to go
than watching myself being cut to ribbons by a cokedout kid.
    I let out a scream--as loud as I've ever screamed in
my life. At the same time, I dropped into a crouch and threw myself
backward into the man with the shotgun, driving him through the open
apartment door into the hall and slamming him against the corridor
wall. The shotgun went off above my head, deafening me with its
enormous blast and tearing a gaping hole in the hall ceiling.
    The guy with the shotgun and I danced against the
wall for a split second, then our feet got tangled and he fell
backward to the floor. I fell backward, too, landing on top of him.
    He groaned and shouted, "Get off me,
motherfucker!" I could feel him trying to work the shotgun loose
underneath me.
    Pinning the guy with my body and jabbing him with my
left elbow, I clawed for my pistol with my right hand. By then, doors
had begun to open up and down the hall.
    In a Rash, Bo and Maurice came barreling out into the
hall. Grabbing the front of my shirt in one huge hand, Maurice pulled
me off his partner and tossed me against the opposite wall. The Gold
Cup skittered out of my grasp. Bo kicked it down the hall and swung
his right arm at me. I could see the razor blade glittering in his
palm. I threw my right arm up to block him. Our wrists hit hard, and
the razor went flying out of his hand. It stuck in the plaster wall
with a twang, like a thrown knife. Giving me a ferocious look, Bo
kicked me in the leg with his pointed boots.