A Catskill Eagle by Robert B. Parker Page B

I hadn’t thought there would be, but the disappointment that she wasn’t here felt like something heavy in my chest. The back side of the lodge was set into the hillside so there were no windows on the first-floor back wall. Holding my breath I went back up to the second floor and out a back window. It was barely a five-foot drop into the woods on the hill. Behind me the floor of the lodge had caught and I could see the tips of the flames shimmering against the secondfloor windows.
    The rain was pelting down now. I had shipped to Korea out of Fort Lewis some time back and I remembered how often it rained in Washington. I was moving through the woods in a crouch, circling back toward the road and the place where we’d parked the car. The rain was cold, and without my jacket it soaked through my black turtleneck sweater. Behind me I heard a large huff as the flames burst out of the second-floor windows of the lodge. We hadn’t found Susan yet, but we were certainly annoying the Costigans. Better than nothing.

CHAPTER 19

    HAWK WAS SITTING IN THE VOLVO WITH THE motor running as I sloshed out of the woods. He’d have the heater on. I got slapped one last time across the face with a wet branch and then the woods relinquished me and I stepped out onto the road about ten feet behind the Volvo.
    When I did about ten guys with guns stepped out with me. From my side, from the other side, in front of the Volvo. One of them was the fat guy with skinny arms who had been working the counter where we’d had breakfast yesterday. He was pointing a double-barreled shotgun at me.
    “Who’s minding the store,” I said.
    “It’s Mr. Costigan’s store,” he said.
    “I imagine so,” I said.
    The Volvo engine suddenly snarled and its tires whined as they spun on the wet pavement. The guys in front of it had time to put one shot through the windshield before they dove out of the way and the Volvo screeched off uphill and around the curve in the road.
    “Son of a bitch,” the counterman said.
    “Greedy,” I said. “You wanted to wait and make sure of us both.”
    “Got you,” the counterman said. He grinned at me over the gun. “Your buddy hauled ass and left you,” he said. “Most niggers’ll skedaddle like that.”
    I shrugged. The Volvo was out of hearing already. The group gathered around me. The gunny who fired at Hawk said, “I mighta winged him, Warren.”
    The counterman nodded. Even when the Volvo had bolted and the shooting had followed he’d never wavered. He’d kept looking straight at me down the long twin barrels of the shotgun. “Bobby, you and Raymond go get the cars. Soon’s I kill this boy we’ll get after the nigger,” he said.
    Everyone was quiet as the two men walked down the highway. I could hear the hiss of the rain and the beat when it landed and the slower syncopated plop of the droplets that fell from the leaves and branches. The counterman stepped closer, so that the shotgun barrels were six inches from my face.
    “I figure both barrels at once will blow most of your head off completely,” he said.
    “Unless you miss,” I said.
    He giggled. “Miss,” he said and giggled some more. “You dumb fucker. How can I miss with a shotgun from six inches.” His shoulders shook with the giggle.
    “Come on, Warren,” one of the gunnies said.
    “Shoot him and let’s get after the nigger. Mr. Costigan’s gonna be pissed.”
    Warren nodded. “Okay, stand away less you want to get blood and brains all over you.”
    Then the smile vanished and his eyes narrowed slightly. He took in a slow breath, and while he was taking it in, his head jerked, a round red hole appeared in the middle of his forehead, and a gunshot sounded from the woods to the right. Warren staggered back a step and the shotgun sagged and then fell from his hands and he keeled over backward. Everything froze in that posture and I turned and plunged back into the woods. The rifle shots continued fast, at about the rate it would