Blood risk by Dean Koontz Page A

up only a few blocks from the hotel, Harris in back with his Thompson across his lap, Tucker hungrily devoured two Hershey chocolate bars and watched the occasional headlights of other cars blur by them. He had not eaten since breakfast, but the candy stopped his stomach growling and steadied his hands, which had become slightly palsied. The food did not, however, do anything about the shakes that had hold of his insides, and he resisted an urge to hug himself for warmth.
        Eventually, they pulled off onto the familiar picnic area three quarters of a mile beyond Baglio's private road and stopped behind another car.
        "It's empty," Shirillo said.
        Harris had leaned forward, and he said, "Couple of kids parking."
        Shirillo grinned and shook his head. "If it was that, the windows would be all steamed."
        "What do we do?" Harris asked.
        Wishing he had another Hershey bar, Tucker said, "We sit here and wait, that's all."
        "What if nobody shows up, my friend?"
        "We'll see," Tucker said.
        A minute later two tall, well-dressed black men walked out of the woods behind the picnic area, making casually for the parked car, one of them still zipping up his fly.
        "The call of nature," Shirillo said. "You'd think the state could afford a few comfort stations along a highway like this."
        The black men gave the Buick only a cursory glance, not at all afraid of whom they might encounter in a lonely spot like this, got into their own car, started up and drove away.
        "Okay,' Tucker said, getting out of the car.
        Harris rolled down his window and called to Tucker, "Maybe we ought to hide it better than we planned-in case there's anyone else with a bad bladder problem."
        "You're right," Tucker said.
        Using a flashlight, Tucker inspected the edge of the woods, found a place between the trees where the Buick could squeeze through, motioned to Shirillo. The kid drove the big car into the woods, following Tucker as he cautiously picked out a route that led deeper and deeper into the underbrush. Fifteen minutes later he signaled Shirillo to stop. They were more than a hundred yards from the last picnic table, two hundred from the road, screened by several clumps of thickly grown mountain laurel.
        Getting out of the car, Harris said, "Anybody who's prude enough to walk all this way from the road just to take a piss deserves to be shot in the head."
        Shirillo and Tucker quickly unloaded all the gear from the Buick and put it on the car roof where everyone could get at it. Quickly they undressed and changed into the clothes which Shirillo had purchased earlier in the evening according to the sizes they had given him. Each man wore his own black socks and shoes, dark jeans that fitted loosely enough to be comfortable in almost any circumstance, midnight-blue shirt and dark windbreaker with large pockets and a hood that could be pulled over the head. Each man drew up his hood and fastened it beneath his chin, tied the drawstrings in a double knot to keep them from loosening.
        Harris said, "You sure have rotten taste, Jimmy."
        "Oh?"
        "What's the alligator patch on the windbreakers?"
        Shirillo reached down and fingered the embroidered alligator on his left breast. "I couldn't find any wind-breakers without them," he said.
        "I feel like a kid," Harris said.
        Tucker said, "Relax. It could have been worse than an alligator. It might have been a kitten or a canary or something."
        "They had kittens," Shirillo said. "But I ruled those out. They also had elephants and tigers, and I couldn't make up my mind between those and the alligators. If you don't like the alligators, Pete, we'll wait here while you exchange your jacket for another one."
        "Maybe I'd have liked the tiger," Harris said reflectively, letting the idea roll around in his mind while he spoke.
        Tucker