Scott Sigler - Contagious

The insane look faded away completely. Perry stood straight, stared at Dew for a few more seconds, then turned and walked away.

Margaret rose to her knees. Her hands held her left thigh, and her face was wrinkled with pain. “You kicked me.”

“Sorry,” Dew said. “My aim was off. I can’t imagine why.”

Dew slowly got to his feet, then reached down and helped Margaret up.

She let out a long breath. “Jesus,” she said. “You’re not the most sensitive guy in the world, are you? You need to stop being such a pussy? Did you really think that was going to motivate him somehow?”

“He’s a guy,” Dew said. “That kind of thing usually works with us.”

Margaret shook her head. “Can’t you men ever just talk something out?”

“You’re right, women are so much more logical,” Dew said. “Maybe I should have shown him my boxercise technique.”

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Fine. You’ve got me there. But hear me, Dew. Marcus and Gitsh are in the trailer mopping up Bernadette’s blood. You will get Perry to go in there and talk to those things, or that woman died for nothing.”

She pointed her finger in Dew’s face. “Do you understand me?”

So much anger in those eyes. She didn’t even look like Margo anymore. This was a new woman, one he’d helped create.

“I understand,” Dew said. “I’ll get through to him.”

Margaret walked back to the trailer, leaving Dew alone in the burned out, snow-covered kitchen.

Rome sat slunk down in the driver’s seat of his Delta 88. The car was turned off, but even if it had been on, it would have been cold as hell because the heater hadn’t worked in months. His eyes were just high enough to look out the driver’s-side window, across Orleans Street, at the fat man with the red beard walking along a waist-high fence. Wasn’t even a sidewalk there, just a snow-covered grass strip, the fence, then trees on the other side. White guy in the wrong neighborhood, at night, carrying a big white McDonald’s bag in each hand.

“Are you kidding me?” Rome said quietly. “Doesn’t this motherfucker know where he’s at?”

In the passenger seat, Jamall shook his head. “He must not. White guy walking here at night ? Alone? After hitting an ATM? It’s like he wants to get robbed.”

“Hope he got some Big Macs,” Rome said. “I’m hungry.”

The man wore jeans and a long-sleeved plaid shirt. Not only did he seem oblivious to his surroundings, he also seemed oblivious to the cold. Every four steps or so, his breath shot out in a big white cloud that lit up from the few working streetlights.

“I’ll tell you what,” Rome said. “Somebody has a serious fucking hankering for McDonald’s.”

They’d been watching an ATM on Mack Avenue, looking for an easy mark. This guy had walked up on foot and taken out money. Looked like a lot of money. Rome and Jamall then watched him go into McDonald’s. Five minutes later he’d walked out with the two big bags. The man turned south on Orleans and had been walking for fifteen minutes straight. Rome even drove a block past Orleans, to St. Aubin, then several blocks south to get ahead of the man, then cut back on Lafayette and finally up the other side of Orleans. Here the street was barren, a parking lot on one side, the long stretch of trees on the other. He’d parked and they’d waited, seeing if the man was stupid enough to keep walking down such a deserted area.

He was.

It just didn’t get any easier than this. And that made Rome nervous. “Am I missing something?” he asked after the man had gone a half block past the Delta 88. “For real, this guy is alone ?”

“He’s just going straight,” Jamall said. “Not even enough sense to walk on a main road. Dude must be in a hurry.”

“No one here,” Rome said.

Jamall nodded. “No one. You said you wanted a sure thing, man. It don’t get more sure than this. We gonna do this, we gotta move. Let’s go get paid.”

Jamall and Rome got out of the car and left the doors slightly open. That wouldn’t give them away, because the dome light didn’t work. They pulled their guns, Rome a simple .38 revolver, Jamall his fancier Glock. They ran across the empty street and came up on the man from behind.

He heard them, because he turned—and when he did, he found two guns pointing at his face.

“Gimme your wallet!” Rome said. He held the .38 in his right hand. His left he held out, palm up.

The man just stared at him.

Jamall made a show of pulling back the Glock’s slide, then pointed it at the man’s face again. “You give my man that wallet, or it’s your ass. And put them bags down—we’re takin’ those, too.”

The man turned to stare at Jamall. White as a sheet, big red beard—he couldn’t possibly look more out of place. Had to be a tourist or something like that. Or maybe a retard, because he didn’t look scared. Not even a little bit.

“No,” the man said.

Fury crossed over Jamall’s face. Rome got nervous. Jamall didn’t like it when people told him no. Especially white people. Rome chanced a quick look up and down the street. No one there, but this was already taking too long.

“I’m only gonna tell you one more time,” Jamall said. “Put down those bags and give my boy your wallet. If there’s enough money in it, I won’t kill you.”

“No,” the man said. “I can’t. I still have to get ice cream bars. Chelsea will be mad if I don’t come back with ice cream bars.”

Jamall took two steps forward and put the barrel of the gun on the man’s forehead.

“I don’t give a fuck about your ice cream bars,” Jamall said. “Put down the motherfucking bags.”

The man knelt a little and set the bags on the snow-covered grass, then stood. He still didn’t look scared. Rome didn’t like this shit, not at all. Usually people crapped their drawers when you pulled a gun on them. This guy looked like he’d had a gun to his face so many times it bored him. Fuck the money, Rome wanted out of there.

The man reached back with his right hand.

“That’s it,” Jamall said. “Real slow, gimme that wallet.”

The man’s expression didn’t change. He reached up with his left hand, grabbed Jamall’s gun and lifted it until the barrel pointed into the air. It wasn’t a fast move, but it wasn’t slow, either: just smooth. No hesitation. Jamall seemed to freeze for a second, almost in disbelief that someone could be so stupid as to fuck with him, and then he tried to pull the gun free.

It was only then that Rome saw the man’s other hand coming out from behind his back, coming out with that same speed, that same confident smoothness—and holding a gun.

The man put the barrel against Jamall’s stomach and pulled the trigger.

The sound was like a cap gun. It didn’t sound real. Jamall’s face twitched, more in surprise than in pain.

Smooth as before, the man raised his gun up under Jamall’s chin and pulled the trigger twice.

Then the man’s throat started spraying blood. At first Rome thought Jamall’s blood was spraying on the man, but Jamall wasn’t bleeding that much—he just wobbled for a second, then fell.

The fat man dropped the gun and put both hands to his throat. His expression didn’t change. The guy still looked bored, even as blood seeped between his fingers.

The man turned to face Rome.

Rome had fired his .38. That’s what had happened. Smoke curled from the stubby barrel. He hadn’t even known he’d fired, but he must have. He’d shot the man right in the throat.

The man blinked a few times, then knelt, one knee on the ground. He reached back with his hands and eased into a sitting position. Blood continued to pour out of his throat, some of it splattering on the white McDonald’s bags. The blood stained his collar and his shirt, dripping from his red beard.