"You're cute."
She smiled back. "You're not. You want to get this done?"
His expression froze. He extracted a.40 Glock from under his shirt and shoved it painfully into her stomach, making her gasp for air. "I had a wife with a mouth like yours. You don't wanna know what happened to her."
Sam spoke through gritted teeth. "She probably got bored."
The bouncer's search was thorough and painful, leaving Sam at the end of it walking bowlegged for several minutes. He pushed her by the scruff of the neck into an adjacent room, where Bill was waiting.
"You okay?" he asked.
She glared at him. "You are a total moron. You know we're going to get ripped off here, right?"
His voice climbed to a plaintive pitch. "That's not true. Bob and me go back."
She held up her hand. "Shut up." She moved to the door she'd just entered by, paused a moment to listen, and then walked through fast and low. Ahead of her, his gun to Manuel's head, the bouncer had just torn the bag from his hand. At the sound of her entrance, he turned and began swinging the gun in her direction. He was too late. Crossing to him quickly, Sam grabbed a lamp off a small table and in the same gesture smacked him across the side of the head, breaking the lamp, exploding the bulb in a bright flash of light, and bringing him to his knees. She kicked the gun from his hand and finished him off with a chop to the side of the neck. He fell over without a sound.
Manuel stared at her openmouthed, as did Bill, entering behind her.
Through the open door to the entryway, they heard footsteps descending the stairs. A fat man in a stained T-shirt and electric-green sneakers appeared, looking shocked and apologetic in the remaining light from a dim lamp in the far corner. He spread his hands wide to his sides, looking at Dancer and shaking his head. "Jesus, Bill, what the hell happened? That crazy bastard didn't try to rip you off, did he?"
Bill was still staring at everyone wide-eyed and mute. "Bob," he finally said, "what's the deal? You and me go back-"
But the fat man interrupted him, approaching and patting his arm with one meaty paw. "No, no, Bill. I'm real sorry. The guy's a maniac. High most of the time. Crazy bastard. I shouldn't have him around."
As if to prove the point, he took a halfhearted but solid shot at the downed man's head with his sneaker and then draped his arm around Bill's shoulders. "I'm real sorry. Come on up, all of you. I gotta make this up."
Bill paused long enough to stoop and retrieve the paper bag. After he and their host had turned their backs to address the staircase in the cramped entryway, Sam picked up the bearded man's abandoned gun, sticking it discreetly into her waistband at the small of her back. Just before she fell into step behind Bill, who was following Bob upstairs, she leaned in close to Manuel, who started slightly in surprise, and murmured, "If I yell go, you go. No questions."
* * *
"Les, update, goddammit." Joe had seen the flash of the lamp being broken over the doorman's head, without knowing the details.
Spinney hesitated, still squinting through a pair of binoculars from his position closer by. "Sorry, boss. Had to figure it out first. I'm still not sure, but Sa-shit-Gatekeeper may have thrown a lamp at somebody, maybe the guy who met them at the door. I saw some shadows when the light flashed. Looked like she was still standing."
"What're they doing now?"
"It's quiet. I can see movement at the windows upstairs, but all the shades are drawn."
Gunther swore silently to himself. This whole operation was falling apart. He should never have let her do this.
"Call for backup, Les. Have them stand by at first, but let's you and me get ready to move. I don't like this at all."
* * *
Sounding like a herd of cattle, they all stomped up the narrow wooden stairs, each person's eyes on the heels of the one before him. Except for Sam, who was trying her best to peer around the bulk of the big man leading the parade who was still talking in a loud voice about how hard it was to get good help.
His voice was too loud, she thought, and his mood too falsely upbeat given what had just transpired. And she didn't like the fact that while they were climbing under a single light high above, the top of the stairs and the landing doubling back above them were cloaked in darkness.
Surreptitiously, she reached back and wrapped her hand around the gun butt.
Which is when she heard a small metallic click-as with a safety being released-above and over her right shoulder, where the landing gave way to a shadowed door on the second floor. She spun around, her gun out, just in time to see the glimmer of the overhead light on the black metal of a semiautomatic.
There was an enormous flash as the shooter fired at her, thrown off by her sudden move. She fired back, heard a yell, and spun around to snatch the paper bag from Bill Dancer's hand as everyone began shouting at once.
"Go, go, go, go," she screamed at Manuel, pushing at him and kicking him to get him going back down the stairs. Another shot rang out and a piece of plaster snapped next to her head. She paused a moment, fired four times wildly overhead, and heard several people diving for cover.
She and Manuel stumbled, jumped, and half fell down the staircase as more gunshots flashed like lightning, punctuated by a bedlam of voices.
Incredulous they were still alive and unhurt, Sam propelled Manuel out the door, yelling, "To the car, to the car," just as she saw Lester Spinney dive out of sight behind a bush near the front walkway.
But Manuel was too stunned to notice much of anything. He staggered toward Bill's car as instructed, looking over his shoulder at her and the house beyond, clearly expecting a small army to burst out in hot pursuit.
"Get in," she ordered, circling the hood to reach the driver's seat. She could hear sirens approaching in the distance, and as she slid behind the wheel, she caught a glimpse of Joe Gunther crouching behind a nearby parked car. Unseen by Manuel, she gave her boss a quick nod and a thumbs-up signal out the window.
She turned the key, fired up the engine, did a tight, wheel-squealing U-turn in the middle of the road, and retreated the way they'd come, heading for the interstate.
"Jesus," Manuel was saying. "What happened?"
"It was a setup. That idiot Bill set us up to get ripped off and killed. Probably bragged to the fat bastard that he had a fortune worth of dope to sell, or some damn fool thing. Guaranteed to get everyone good and greedy."
"Johnny's not going to like this."
Sam pulled over suddenly, killed the lights, and yanked Manuel down onto the bench seat with her. Two patrol cars went screaming past them, unaware the car wasn't empty. She straightened and resumed driving at normal speed, the car's peaceful progress at direct odds to the hammering of her heart. But not from fear, or even postaction nerves. It was excitement. Sam was feeling on top of the world, as if she'd confronted the lion of legend and bearded it thoroughly.
"Johnny's not going to know," she said confidently.
Manuel stared at her and pointed out the back window, his anger boiling over. "What the fuck you mean? We almost got killed. I'm going to tell him you're a fucking crazy bitch. What do you think?"
"I think," she said calmly, "that you can tell him whatever you want, but not till we're done selling his junk."
"Selling? Who the hell're you gonna sell to? You gonna hang out a sign? Maybe the cops'll chip in."
"Nah," she told him, casting him a smile. "That wouldn't work. Relax. Brattleboro may be blown for tonight, but we'll get a few customers in Bellows Falls and Springfield."
He stared at her in stunned silence as she hit the turn signal and headed toward the northbound ramp.
"See what you can find on the radio."