“It’s a hold-up,” Nason said. “Please don’t, uh, antagonize this gentleman.”
“Too much,” the guy with the POT ROCKS button said. He started to grin. He pointed at Nason. His fingernail was dirty. “Dude’s ripping you off, man.”
The hold-up man turned to POT ROCKS. “Wallet,” he said.
“Dude,” POT ROCKS said, not losing the grin, “I’m on
“Give me your wallet or I’ll blow your head off.”
POT ROCKS suddenly realized he might be in some trouble here; for sure he wasn’t in a movie. The grin went bye-bye and he stopped talking. Several zits stood out brightly on his cheeks, which were suddenly pale. He dug a black Lord Buxton out of his jeans pocket.
“There’s never a cop when you need one,” his girlfriend said coldly. She was wearing a long brown coat and black leather boots. Her hair matched the boots, at least this week.
“Drop the wallet in the bag,” the hold-up guy said. He held the bag out. Harry Nason always thought he could have become a hero at that point by braining the hold-up man with the giant bottle of pickled eggs. Only the hold-up man looked as if he might have a hard head. Very hard.
The wallet plopped into the bag.
The hold-up man skirted them and headed for the door. He moved well for a man his size.
“You pig,” the girl said.
The hold-up man stopped dead. For a moment the girl was sure (so she later told police) that he was going to turn around, open fire, and lay them all out. Later, with the police, they would differ on the hold-up man’s hair color (brown, reddish, or blond), his complexion (fair, ruddy, or pale), and his clothes (pea jacket, windbreaker, woolen lumberjack shirt), but they all agreed on his size — big — and his final words before leaving. These were apparently addressed to the blank, dark doorway, almost in a moan:
“Jeezus, George, I forgot the stocking!”
Then he was gone. There was a bare glimpse of him running in the cold white light of the big Schlitz sign that hung over the store’s entrance, and then an engine roared across the street. A moment later he wheeled out. The car was a sedan, but none of them could ID the make or model. It was beginning to snow.
“So much for beer,” POT ROCKS said.
“Go on back to the cooler and have one on the house,” said Harry Nason.
“Yeah? You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. Your girl, too. What the fuck, we’re insured.” He began to laugh.
When the police asked him, he said he had never seen the stickup guy before. It was only later that he had cause to wonder if he had not in fact seen the stickup guy the previous fall, in the company of a skinny little rat- faced man who was buying wine and mouthing off.
Chapter 6
WHEN BLAZE GOT UP the next morning, snow had piled in drifts all the way to the eaves of the shack and the fire was out. His bladder contracted the second his feet hit the floor. He hurried to the bathroom on the balls of his feet, wincing and blowing out little puffs of white vapor. His urine arched in a high-pressure flow for perhaps thirty seconds, then slowly faded. He sighed, shook off, broke wind.
Much bigger wind was screaming and whooping around the house. The pines outside the kitchen window were dipping and swaying. To Blaze they looked like thin women at a funeral.
He dressed, opened the back door, and fought his way around to the woodpile under the south eaves. The driveway was completely gone. Visibility was down to five feet, maybe less. It exhilarated him. The grainy slap of the snow on his face exhilarated him.
The wood was solid chunks of oak. He gathered a huge armful, pausing only to stomp his feet before going back in. He made up the fire with his coat on. Then he filled the coffee pot. He carried two cups to the table.
He paused, frowning. He had forgotten something.
The money! He had never counted the money.
He started into the other room. George’s voice froze him. George was in the bathroom.
“Asshole.”
“George, I —”
“George, I’m an asshole. Can you say that?”
“I —”
“No. Say George, I’m the asshole who forgot to wear the stocking.”
“I got the m —”
“
“George, I’m the asshole. I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“Forgot to wear the stocking.”
