Feast Day of Fools - James Lee Burke [166]
“¡Qué bueno, hombre!” Negrito said.
“Do not talk,” Krill said, shifting the bipod on the rock, depressing the barrel slightly so the hood on the front sight formed a perfect circle around Sholokoff’s tiny head. He tightened his finger on the trigger, letting out his breath, his cheek flush against the dull black finish of the rifle stock.
“Chingado, go ahead!” Negrito said. “Burn the whole magazine. It’s time we got out of here. I want to fuck my woman tonight.”
Krill had released his finger from the trigger and was staring numbly down the incline at the window. Two little girls and a little boy had just run from a side room and climbed into Sholokoff’s lap. Negrito leaned over Krill’s shoulder to see better, his loins brushing against Krill’s buttocks, his body odor and the smell of onions and garlic and fried meat on his breath enveloping Krill in a toxic cloud.
“Fuck, man, do it,” Negrito said. “I hear a plane. Them hunters come in and out of here all the time. They got a landing strip on the other side of the house.”
“Shut your mouth,” Krill said.
“You ain’t thinking straight. We already killed two guys. You got to finish the job, man. Sholokoff has many friends. We cannot have this man hunting us. Do it now, jefe.”
“Take your hand off my shoulder.”
“Then shoot.”
“You will not give me orders.”
“Then give me the rifle.”
“Remove your hand and take your odor out of my face.”
“Look at the plane. It’s dipping out of the sky. You have to choose between our families and these worthless people. You worry about my odor? What is wrong with you, man?”
“You are like an empty wagon rattling across a bridge,” Krill said. “You speak craziness and nonsense. You are like the demoniac babbling among the swine. We do not kill children. Have you learned nothing? Do you understand nothing except killing?”
“We did not put the children here. This is not our fault. Lupa and Mimo and me will do everything that is necessary inside the house. You will not have to see or hear anything that happens down there. One day you will be right in the head, but now you are not. So we will do these things for you and forget the bad words that you have spoken.”
“You will do nothing without my permission.”
“Take the shot, Krill. Please. You can do it. I’ve seen you shoot the head off a dove at a hundred meters. Concentrate on the Russian and don’t worry about the children. They will be all right. But we cannot leave this man alive.”
Krill’s head was pounding, his ears filled with whirring sounds that were louder than either the wind or Negrito’s incessant talking. Had it been like this for the soldiers in the helicopter who had machine-gunned the clinic built by the East Germans? Had they seen Krill’s children playing in the yard and wondered if they should not abort their mission? Had they fired on the building in hopes that they would not hit the children? Or had they given no thought at all to what they were doing? Did they simply murder his children and fly back to their base and eat lunch and drink warm beer under a palm-shaded table, staring idly at a smokeless blue volcano in the distance? Was that what happened when they slew the innocent children he had loved from the first breath they had drawn?
He bent over the rifle again, feeling the sling tighten on his left arm, his mouth filled with a taste like pennies, a brass band thundering in his head. The little boy was seated firmly in Sholokoff’s lap, watching the television. Krill raised the rifle barrel until the hood on the front sight circled Sholokoff’s head like the frame on a miniature photograph. He took a breath and waited a split second and then exhaled slowly, slowly, slowly, his left eye squinted shut, his right eye bulging like a child’s marble, his index finger tightening as though it had a life of its own.
Suddenly, he stood erect, pulling his hand from the trigger guard as though it had been shocked with a cattle prod. His teeth were chattering, his breath catching in his throat. Murderer, he