Gone, Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane [105]
Roberta Trett. Her photograph did not do her justice.
“They won’t give me the clips,” Leon said. “They’re taking the money, but they won’t give me the clips.”
Roberta took a step into the room, surveyed it with a slow roll of her head from right to left. The only one who hadn’t acknowledged her presence was Bubba. He remained in the center of the kitchen, head down, trying to count his money.
Roberta pointed the gun quite casually in my direction. “Give us the clips.”
I shrugged. “I don’t got ’em.”
“You.” She waved the gun at Bubba. “Hey, you.”
“…eight hundred fifty,” Bubba said, “eight hundred sixty, eight hundred seventy—”
“Hey!” Roberta said. “You look at me when I’m talking.”
Bubba turned his head slightly toward her, but kept his eyes on the money. “Nine hundred. Nine hundred ten, nine hundred twenty—”
“Mr. Miller,” Leon said desperately, “my wife is talking to you.”
“…nine hundred sixty-five, nine hundred seventy—”
“Mr. Miller!” Leon’s shriek was so high-pitched I felt it ring in my inner ears, buzz along the brain stem.
“One thousand.” Bubba stopped in the middle of the wad of money and placed the chunk he’d already counted in his jacket pocket.
Leon sighed audibly and relief sagged across his face.
Bubba looked at me as if unaware of what all the fuss was about.
Roberta lowered the gun. “Now, Mr. Miller, if we could just—”
Bubba licked the corner of his thumb and peeled off the top bill in the pile that remained in his hands. “Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred….”
Leon Trett looked like he’d suffered an embolism on the spot. His chalky face turned crimson and bloated and he squeezed the empty gun between his hands and hopped back and forth as if he needed a bathroom.
Roberta Trett raised the gun again, and this time there was nothing casual about it. She pointed it directly at Bubba’s head and closed her left eye. She sighted down the barrel and pulled back the hammer.
The harsh light of the kitchen seemed to etch her and Bubba’s outlines as they stood in the center of the room, both of them the size of something you’d normally climb with rope and pitons, not give birth to.
I slid my .45 out of the holster at the small of my back, dropped it down behind my right leg, and released the safety.
“Two hundred twenty,” Bubba said, as Roberta Trett took another step toward him, “two hundred thirty, two hundred forty, dude, shoot this bitch, will ya, two hundred fifty, two hundred sixty…”
Roberta Trett stopped and cocked her head slightly to the left, as if unsure of what she’d heard. She looked unable to identify what her options were. She looked unfamiliar with that sensation.
I doubted she’d ever been ignored in her life.
“Mr. Miller, you will stop counting now.” She extended her arm until it was T-bar straight and hard, and her knuckles whitened against the black steel.
“…three hundred, three hundred ten, three hundred twenty, I said, shoot the big bitch, three hundred thirty…”
That time she was sure of what she’d heard. A tremor appeared in her wrist, and the pistol shook.
“Ma’am,” I said, “put the gun down.”
Her eyes rolled right in their sockets, and she saw that I hadn’t moved, that I wasn’t pointing anything at her. And then she noticed that she couldn’t see my right hand, and that’s when I used my thumb to pull back the hammer on my .45, the sound cutting into the fluorescent hum of that bright kitchen as cleanly as a gunshot itself.
“…four fifty, four sixty, four seventy…”
Roberta Trett looked over Bubba’s shoulder at Leon, and the .38 shook some more and Bubba kept counting.
Beyond the kitchen I heard the sound of a door open and close very quickly. It came from the back of the house, from the far end of the long hallway that split the building.
Roberta heard it too. Her eyes jerked to the left for a moment, then back to Leon.
“Make him stop,” Leon said. “Make him stop counting. It hurts.”
“…six hundred,” Bubba