Page 1 (2/2)

"Oh, please," I said "Get your fking hands up, ahole"

The Sarge put his hands up Keenan's already were

"Come down to the foot of the steps Both of you"

They caht I could see their faces Keenan looked scared, but the Sargeto a lecture on Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance He was probably the one who had jobbed Barney

"Face the wall and lean on it Both of you"

Keenan: "If you're after money"

I laughed "Well, I was going to start off by offering you a cut-rate deal on Tupperware, work h hty thousand dollars, actually Buried on a little island off Bar Harbor called Carmen's Folly"

Keenan jerked as if he'd been shot, but the Sarge's dipped-in-concrete face never twitched He turned around and put his hands on the wall, leaning his weight on theot a stupid little32 with a three-inch barrel A gun like that, you could put the uy's head and still er I threw it over e was clean -- and it was a relief to step away from him

"We're going into the house You first, Keenan, then Sarge, then me Without incident, okay?"

We all trooped up the steps and into the kitchen It was one of those germless chrome-and-tile jobs that looks like it was spit whole out of some mass-production womb in the Midwest somewhere, the work of hearty Methodist aholes who all look like Mr Goodwrench and smell like Cherry Blend tobacco I doubt if it ever needed anything so vulgar as cleaning; Keenan probably just closed the doors and turned on the hidden sprinklers once a week

I paraded the rooot over his crush on Ernest Hestone fireplace al as an elevator car, a teak buffet table with a moosehead unrack loaded with premium artillery The stereo had turned itself off

I waved the gun at the couch "One on each end"

They sat, Keenan on the right, Sarge on the left The Sarge looked even bigger sitting down An ugly, dented scar twisted its way through his slightly overgrown crewcut I put his weight at about two-thirty, and wondered why a man with the size and physical presence of Mike Tyson owned a Volkswagen

I grabbed an easy chair and dragged it over Keenan's quicksand-colored rug until it was in front and between theh Keenan stared at it like a bird stares at a snake The Sarge, on the other hand, was staring at me like he was the snake and I was the bird "Nohat?" he asked

"Let's talk about maps and money," I said

"I don't knohat you're talking about," Sarge said "All I know is that little boys shouldn't play with guns"

"How's Cappy MacFarland these days?" I asked casually

It didn't get jack shit froe, but Keenan popped his cork "He knows He knows!" The words shot out of him like bullets