Gone, Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane [106]
A set of soft footsteps approached from the hall, and Roberta’s back stiffened.
Leon said, “Stop it. Stop that counting.”
A man even smaller than Leon went rigid as he stepped through the doorway, his dark eyes widening in confusion, and I removed the gun from behind my leg and pointed it at the center of his forehead.
He had a chest so sunken it seemed to have been produced in reverse, the sternum and rib cage curling in while the small belly protruded like a pygmy’s. His right eye was lazy and kept sliding away from us as if it were asea on a floundering boat. Small scratches over his right nipple reddened in the white light.
He wore only a small blue terry-cloth towel, and his skin was sheened with sweat.
“Corwin,” Roberta said, “you go back to your room now.”
Corwin Earle. I guess he’d found his nuclear family after all.
“Corwin’s going to stay right here,” I said, and extended my arm its full length, watched Corwin’s good eye meet the hole in the barrel of the .45.
Corwin nodded and placed his hands by his sides.
All eyes but mine turned back to Bubba and gave him their full attention.
“Two thousand!” he crowed. He raised the wad of cash in his hand.
“We agree you’ve been compensated,” Roberta Trett said, and her voice shook like the gun in her hand. “Now complete the transaction, Mr. Miller. Give us the clips.”
“Give us the clips!” Leon shrieked.
Bubba looked over his shoulder at him.
Corwin Earle took a step back, and I said, “That’s a no-no.”
He swallowed and I waved the gun forward and he moved with it.
Bubba chuckled. It was a low, soft heh-heh-heh, and it put a hard curve up the back of Roberta Trett’s neck.
“The clips,” Bubba said, and turned back to Roberta, seemed to notice the gun pointed at him for the first time. “Of course.”
He pursed his lips and blew a kiss to Roberta. She blinked and stepped back from it as if it were toxic.
Bubba reached toward the pocket of his trench coat, and then his arm shot back up.
“Hey!” Leon said.
Roberta jerked backward as Bubba slapped his wrist into hers and the .38 jumped from her hand, flew over the sink, and sped toward the counter.
Everyone but Bubba ducked.
The .38 hit the wall above the counter. Its hammer dropped on impact, and the gun fired.
The bullet tore a hole through the cheap Formica behind the sink and ricocheted into the wall beside the window where Leon crouched.
The .38 clattered loudly as it fell to the counter, and the barrel spun and ended up pointing at the dusty dish rack.
Bubba looked at the hole in the wall. “Cool,” he said.
The rest of us straightened, except for Leon. He sat down on the floor and placed a palm over his heart, and those pale eyes of his hardened in such a way that I knew he was far less frail than his cringing act during Bubba’s counting would lead us to believe. It was just a mask, a role he played, I assumed, to lull us into forgetting about him, and it dropped from his face as he sat on the floor and looked up at Bubba with naked hatred.
Bubba stuffed the second wad in his pocket. He closed the distance between himself and Roberta, then tapped his foot on the floor in front of her until she raised her head and met his eyes.
“You had a gun pointed at me, Xena the Large.” He rubbed his jaw with his palm, filled the kitchen with the scratch of bristles against rough flesh.
Roberta placed her hands by her sides.
Bubba smiled gently at her.
Very softly, he said, “So, should I kill you now?”
Roberta shook her head once from side to side.
“You sure?”
Roberta nodded, very deliberately.
“You pointed that gun at me, after all.”
Roberta nodded again. She tried to speak, but nothing came out but a gurgle.
“What was that?” Bubba said.
She swallowed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Miller.”
“Oh.” Bubba nodded.
He winked at me and there was that green and angry light dancing in his smiling eyes that I’ve seen before, the one that said anything could happen. Anything.
Leon used the kitchen table