“Gentlemen,” he said. Loudly.
They stopped in their tracks. Comfort seemed puzzled — probably he wasn’t used to hearing the word “gentlemen” used in reference to him. Lyle seemed stunned, but then he’d seemed stunned all night. A Leech poked his head out of the back of the van, like a groundhog checking to see if this was his day; it wasn’t. Fisher looked at Nolan, not making anything of it. But Winch and Dooley seemed to sense something.
“I’ve got something to say,” Nolan said. “I’d advise you listen carefully.”
Comfort glared at Nolan. The old man’s usually disconcertingly pleasant face became a sphincter of irritation as his mouth squeezed out the words: “What the fuck’s the idea? Don’t interrupt the work!” Then to everybody else, including the loitering Winch, Dooley and the smoking Leech, he waved his hands like an insane traffic cop and said, “Get back to it. We gotta get out of this place.”
“If it’s the last thing we ever do,” Jon said, stepping out from an aisle between shelves and stacked boxes, UZI in his hands.
Comfort’s eyes were saucers, flying from Nolan to Jon and back again. “What the fuck is this?”
“No sudden moves,” Nolan said, and showed them all the long-barreled .38 he’d had behind him.
“What the fuck is this?” a Leech within the truck said, poking his head out next to his brother’s. They looked uglier than groundhogs.
With his left hand, Nolan gestured gently toward the truck.
“Put it back,” he said.
The men looked at each other; confusion turned to smiles. Even Lyle smiled. Heads were shaking.
Only Comfort showed no signs of amusement.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he said, spitting the words.
“It means,” Nolan said, “put it back.”
He and Jon were spread apart enough to keep the men covered. The UZI could kill them all in a matter of seconds. Despite their smiles — their nervous smiles — these men knew that. Even Lyle.
Fisher, with a tiny one-sided smirk, said, “Surely you’re not suggesting we put back... what we... took.”
Nolan nodded.
“The merchandise?” Fisher said, eyebrows raised over dark-rimmed glasses. “The money... the diamonds... all of it?”
Nolan nodded.
“Nolan,” Winch said, stepping forward, looking like a raggedy man in his dusty work clothes, “it took us all night to do this job. We don’t have time to put everything back, even if we wanted to. What am I supposed to do, unblow five safes? Come on, man — the deed is done. So’s the damage. Let’s all let bygones be bygones and enjoy this coup we pulled.”
“We have plenty of manpower,” Nolan said, “and plenty of time. Merchants don’t get here till eight-thirty. The maintenance guy comes on at seven, and if we aren’t done by then, we can do something about him. We’re going to work very hard, unloading these trucks. But the first thing I want you all to do is toss your guns on the floor. No offense, but do it. Toss ’em right over by Jon. Now.”
There were grumbles, but they complied — all but Winch, who didn’t carry a piece. Fisher threw on his clunkily futuristic-looking stun gun. Even the Leeches coughed up weapons, surprisingly small ones, 22 revolvers, Saturday night specials. Nolan kept a close eye on Cole Comfort, who tossed a Colt Woodsman .38 on the silvery pile.
“Nolan,” Dooley said, “why are you doing this?”
“You all know why,” Nolan said. “The Comforts took a hostage. The woman I live with. That’s how they forced my involvement here. I work here, gentlemen. My friends own and operate the stores we’ve looted. I’ve been made to do two things I don’t as a rule do: steal from my friends; and shit where I eat. Start unloading.”
Fisher said, “Isn’t this a little late...”
“You’ll all be paid for your trouble. I’ll even extend my offer to the Leech brothers...” He directed his words toward them: “I’m kicking in fifteen grand apiece for your trouble here tonight.”
A Leech scowled from the back of the truck and said, “This is a million-dollar score. What the fuck kind of insult is fifteen gees?”
“You’re wasting time. Start unloading.”
Winch stepped forward. “Nolan, we worked a lot of jobs together. I got a lot of respect for you. But this isn’t right. This isn’t fair.”
“They killed the girl,” Nolan said. He didn’t like saying it. Saying it was admitting it.
Winch shook his head, made a clicking sound of sympathy in his cheek. “That’s a shame. The dirty bastards.” He glanced at Comfort, who was standing near the semi, boiling, and Lyle, who was frozen at his hand truck, and shook his head again. Then he looked at Nolan and shrugged, “But really, Nolan, that’s between you and Comfort, here.”
Fisher stepped forward, too. “It’s an awful thing. But, Nolan, frankly — it doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of us. We worked our tails off, all damn night.”
Dooley didn’t step forward, but he gave his two cents’ worth. “I agree it’s a dirty rotten shame, your girl. But I also agree it’s between you and the Comforts. Why don’t you keep Cole and his kid, and let the rest of us go, and send the Leech boys on to Omaha where our fence is waiting. We can all retire on this one, Nolan. You, too.”
The Leech who stood outside the truck spit on the pavement. “Who gives a shit who Comfort killed or didn’t kill. We been workin’ all fuckin’ night. And this is one big fuckin’ haul. Fuck it!”
“Yeah,” one of his brothers said, leaning out of the back of the truck. “Fuck it! Let’s go.”
Comfort’s rage had subsided; he was smiling — lapping up the way the crowd had turned against Nolan. His blue eyes fairly twinkled in the leathery face and he smoothed back his white hair with one hand and walked a few paces toward Nolan.
With mock diplomacy, he said, “I gotta throw in with the Leeches, on this one. You can’t undo this thing, at this point. Even your friends are lining up against you. Listen to ’em, Nolan — they’re telling you fuck it. Fuck it, Nolan. Hell, fuck you.”
Nolan shot him in the head.
It lifted Comfort off his feet and knocked him flat on his back, with a splintering splat; his skull was cracked open — whether from the shot he took in the forehead, or the fall to the cement, Nolan couldn’t say; maybe a little of both. At any rate, the blue eyes stared up at nothing and his arms were splayed out and his legs asprawl and the top of his head began emptying, as if all the meanness was oozing out, a slimy trail of blood and brains draining toward the truck.
“Pa!” Lyle shouted. He ran to the body, slipped in his father’s brains and fell; then he picked himself up and kneeled before the corpse, and stared at it openmouthed. “Pa?”
The rest of them stood there, on the pavement, inside the truck, mouths open, eyes wide, breathing in the smell of cordite.
Nolan, a question mark of smoke curling out his gun barrel, said, “Put it back. Please.”
“Well, since you put it that way,” Winch said, and he headed back toward the truck.
“No problem,” Fisher said, and joined Winch.
Dooley said, “I can handle it,” and reached for the nearest box.
But the Leech brothers had other ideas, at least the two inside the truck did, because they burst out the back of it like commando jacks-in-the- box, guns in hand; they’d had them stashed within the trailer, apparently, big blue-black .357 mags that spewed noise and flames and more, exploding at Nolan and Jon, the Leeches screaming their anger, no words, just anger, gunfire ringing in the concrete room.
Nolan yelled, “Hit the deck,” in the process of doing so, and Dooley and Winch and Fisher did so too, even as they scrambled toward the sidelines, for cover, though all it was was boxes, but Jon just crouched and opened up with the UZI while Nolan, on his belly, fired the .38 and bullets zinged and danced across the filthy sweaters of the two men, who pitched forward and landed face-first, not far from Jon’s feet, deader than dirt.