Frank shook his head. “You think we can get Sturm to stall for a while?”
Pine just laughed.
Sturm’s voice came over the loudspeakers again. “Window is now closed! The fight is ON!” He thundered back down the stairs. “Them cats ready?”
Frank glanced over at the three cages and the pacing cats. “Yeah.”
Sturm stopped in front of the bear cage, stuck his hands in his pockets, and rocked back and forth for a few moments. “You think that bear’s ready?”
“No.”
“Me neither. But it’s showtime. You better figure something out.” Sturm started down the chute. “Soon as I shut that gate out there, you let this big boy out. Then you got thirty seconds and I want all three of them cats coming down this chute. Got it?” He locked eyes with Frank.
“Yeah.”
Sturm headed down the chute. Frank knew that he had no time, no time at all. He pulled the last pill and found a hammer in the locker. He put the baggie on the cement and rolled the head of the hammer over the pill, grinding it down until it was as fine and smooth as flour.
A roar made the walls shake. Sturm was out in the auction yard floor.
“You gonna feed that to him?” Pine asked. “I don’t think it’s gonna do much now, you know?”
Frank shook his head. After sifting the powder down into a corner, he twisted the plastic, creating a plump little triangle, and tore the rest of the baggie away. “Do what you got to do, but get that bear up and moving.”
Girdler made another noise, deep down, but Frank and Pine ignored him.
Pine pulled a pitchfork from under the stairs and plunged the tines into Bo-Bo’s back thigh. The bear jerked away, uttering a surprised yelp of pain. Pine stuck him again.
Frank swung the gate open and clicked it into place, sealing off the cage while simultaneously opening into the chute. He crouched and waited, the triangle of powder tight in his sweating fist.
Pine jabbed at Bo-Bo a third time, and rather than face the source of pain and swipe at the pitchfork, the bear retreated, just as Frank had feared. Bo-Bo was no fighter. The cats were going to rip him wide open. Panicked now, the bear slammed his massive shoulders through the narrow gap, and in the split second it took for him to squeeze through, Frank brought up the triangle, letting the plastic fall away, and blew the powder into Bo-Bo’s nose and brown eyes.
* * * * *
For a moment, the bear just flinched and blinked, his fear of the pitchfork overriding his confusion. Bo-Bo padded down the chute quickly, anxious to get away from Pine. But then that great shaggy head shook once, twice. He stopped. A spasming quiver worked it was along his spine as if he had just stepped on a live wire, shooting 110 volts through his bones.
The Kodiak howled, a sound that shook the dust from the cages and made Frank’s heart stop. Bo-Bo reared up, smashing through the top of the chute like he was breaking through the thin ice of a frozen lake. Paws bigger than hubcaps tore strips from the sides of the chute and the whole thing threatened to collapse. He twisted, and started coming back the other way and if anything, that awful, screaming roar got even louder.
Frank leapt onto the closest cage and scrambled up as fast as he could. Inside, the lionesses had curled into a corner, her hissing moan lost under the bear’s terrible bellow. He heard Pine blurt, “Oh fucking hell,” just as the grizzly sent the gate crashing into the dog cages across the aisle.
Pine needed a distraction, so he gave Girdler a kick that sent the duct taped, bleeding man spinning across the aisle in his office chair. The bear, drowning in a mindless, furious frenzy, swiped at Girdler and sent the man and his chair sliding sideways across the cement, leaving a trail of blood like the sheep back on Main Street. The bear followed and pounced, seizing Girdler’s skull between his teeth and clamped them together, working those jaws in a slobbering froth of saliva and blood.
When the grizzly finally looked up, there wasn’t enough left of Girdler’s head to put in the plastic baggie of pills. Bo-Bo’s shoulders spasmed again, and he whirled, swatting at unseen demons. Frank hooked one leg over the rafter and pulled himself even higher.
Gunfire exploded from inside the chute. Sturm, marching up to the where the shredded chicken wire blocked the chute, had both revolvers out, blasting away at the bear. Frank couldn’t tell if any bullets hit Bo-Bo, but it was enough to send the bear loping down the aisle.
The Kodiak, in this state, literally could not feel the bullets, but the noise of the gunfire echoed like a thousand dreadful storms through his mind, spiking agony through every cell. He ran back to his room, but the door was shut. He smacked the door with the top of his head and bellowed.
Sturm fired again and again, aiming for the knees. He didn’t want the Kodiak to go running out into the night. Men followed up the chute and everyone carried a gun. They filled the aisle behind Sturm.
Bo-Bo turned, and gunfire erupted, knocking the bear back against the door. Blood flew, spattering the walls and cement like an abstract painting. The bear shivered, falling on shattered knees, and finally died. The men kept shooting.
* * * * *
Frank reached out to knock on the Glouck’s front door before he could change his mind. He’d slipped away in the chaos after Bo-Bo’s escape attempt; he didn’t want to face Sturm. Frank had a feeling that things were starting to get out of control, just a little, as if he was back on the carnival ride, the Wheel of Screams, and it wouldn’t stop, it just kept going fast and faster and Frank could feel his grip starting to slip.
Frank knocked again. The light above the door flickered on and he felt like bait under the sudden glare.
The door opened and Gun squinted out. “What?” he demanded.
“I need to talk to your mom,” Frank said.
“Which one?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Gun shut the door and left Frank standing in the pool of light. His night vision was gone and couldn’t see a damn thing beyond the concrete steps. Even the gas station sign across the street was off. He’d hid the long black car among the shadows of the station.
Again, he wondered if he was doing the right thing.
The door opened again. And there was Annie.
* * * * *
She was wearing shorts and a Judas Priest tank top and a hint of a smile. “Yeah?”
“Just, ah, thought you and your family should know. The grizzly got loose. Could be anywhere.” He needed an excuse to see Annie and figured the Gloucks wouldn’t find out until tomorrow that the bear had been killed inside the auction yard. “I’d keep everyone inside. At least tonight.”
“Is that why you came by? To warn us?”
“Yeah.”
Annie let the silence grow, then said, “Not to apologize for the other day?”
Frank let a hint of his own smile out. “No.”
Okay. Thanks.” She started to close the door.
“I know where the money is,” Frank said.
The door stopped. Annie’s eye peered out from the crack, watching Frank for a moment. The light was suddenly shut off, leaving Frank in momentary complete darkness. He just waited.
“So what?” Annie asked softly.
“You still interested?”
“Maybe.” A pause. “You interested?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I got a feeling that I won’t be getting all the money I’m owed.”
“So you think stealing it is a good idea?”
“I figure I deserve it.”
“So where is it?”
Frank let a hint of his own smile out.
Annie crossed her arms and smirked. “Fine. When you planning this?”
“Soon.” He turned and walked back to his car.
“Hey,” Annie called after him. “You gonna apologize for the other day?”
Frank opened the driver’s door. He looked back at Annie, silhouetted on the front steps. He smiled fully this time, nothing hidden. “No,” he said, and got in the car and drove away.