ten miles per hour.
“Did you date that waitress again?”
He took his eyes out of the binoculars and looked over at her.
“You’re not the only one, Hunter, who can play the whole spy game.”
“That girl is the daughter of a friend. I was just helping her out.”
“She sure didn’t dress like somebody’s daughter. Her cleavage was spilling out all over the place and she kept putting her hands on you.”
“She’d had too much to drink. She called me and I let her come back to my place and sleep on my couch so that her father didn’t see her in that condition.” Paul put the binoculars to his eyes again.
Suddenly Norma seemed embarrassed about telling him that she’d spied on him. “It wasn’t like I had been staking out your house. I just saw you out driving and I was going to say hello when you pulled over and stopped.”
“That’s very bad.”
“Well, I’m sorry but you can’t always-”
“Not that, Norma.” He passed her the binoculars and she put them to her eyes. At the next street lamp were two bodies laying in a bloody mess, all crimson and white. “Oh, Hunter! Are they dead?”
They reached the corner and Paul grabbed the rifle from the back of the truck. He climbed out of the truck and examined the bodies. He recognized his company patch on a shred of one of the men’s jackets. He picked it up and pocketed it. Then he pulled a knife from his jacket and cut the patch from the other man’s jacket. He knew the men would have no other forms of identity on their bodies and their prints and teeth would lead investigators to a false identity. The patches were fairly generic. Just a quick way for agents to identify each other in the field when time was scarce. He examined the blood and noticed that it was already frozen. Not as fresh as he’d hoped. And the tracks were already gone. He pried a frozen hand that was severed at the wrist off of a rifle that was lying in the snow near one of the bodies. Then he grabbed the other man’s rifle. He walked back to the machine, tossed them into the back, and climbed in.
“What are we going to do?”
“Nothing we can do right now. We’ll have to come back here after we’ve secured the bear.” He grabbed his communicator and paused before saying anything.
“To do what?”
He didn’t answer.
“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?”
“For what? Those men are already dead.”
“Shouldn’t we call somebody?”
“We are somebody.” Then he spoke into the communicator. “Clean-up agents are both down on the corner of Fourth Street and Third Avenue. No possible recovery. Continue sweep.”
“You’re not going to do anything about them?”
“What would I do?”
“Something. You could’ve at least said a prayer over them.”
“I could’ve done that.” He sighed and put the binoculars back up to his eyes.
“That’s the thing about you, Hunter. You never care about anyone else. You’re so cold. You were born lacking any real emotions.”
“Well, you always had enough for both of us.” He pulled the binoculars down. “I feel horrible about what we just saw but I can’t afford to let that get to me. We have just about an hour to get this bear off the street before we have to alert everyone. I need to do my job. Nothing will bring back those men. They knew what they were in for when they took this job. It’s what we do. Why do you think that I never wanted to share any of the details of my job with you? Get a clue, Norma!”
A voice came over the communicator. It was Lester. “I just caught sight of Snow Ball. I was about a block away when he spotted me and charged back down the hill. I can follow his tracks before the snow drifts over them and give you a location.”
Paul brought the communicator to his mouth. “Do it. Everyone circle down and follow Lester’s instruction. Snow Ball doubled back on us.”
They hurried down the side street until they were down on Superior Street again. They heard several gunshots over the howling storm. “Talk to me, Lester,” Paul said, and waited for a response, but none came. “How about you, Johnny?”
“I’m down here on Michigan street.”
“Any sign of Snow Ball?”
“Haven’t seen him yet.”
“How about Lester?”
“No.”
“How about you, Jack?”
Silence.
“Jack?”
Still no response. Paul took a deep breath.
They drove on in silence for five minutes until they passed over a mountain-like drift and noticed that the front glass of Dublin’s Irish Pub was smashed in. Paul looked at Norma as she maneuvered the machine so that she could point the spotlight into the bar. Paul unzipped the rifle from its holder and chambered a tranquilizer dart.
“The window might’ve broken as a result of all the snow up against it,” said Paul, while Norma flashed the spotlight into Dublin’s. It landed on Snow Ball, who was standing in a pile of smashed glass and lapping spirits from the floor.
“Nope,” answered Norma.
“That isn’t good,” said Paul, “a polar bear binge drinking.” He studied the bear in the spotlight. “Think I should wait for him to come out or take him down inside the bar?”
“I don’t know if the cable of my boom could reach him that far into the bar. He’d be awfully hard to drag out of there. Let him come out.”
Paul and Norma watched the enormous beast swat stools and tables out of his way. They climbed out of the machine and waited. Norma reached back into the machine and grabbed Paul’s big gun, just in case.
“What do you think a drunken polar bear acts like?” asked Paul.
“I don’t know. Never gotten drunk with a polar bear before,” answered Norma.
“Maybe he’ll be a happy drunk.”
“Not a chance. He’s going to be a mean surly bitch,” said Norma.
No sooner had the words left Norma’s lips when Snow Ball began toward the broken store front, staggering clumsily, knocking over more tables. He stepped out into the snow, got up on his hind legs, and released the most ear-shattering, hair-raising roar either of them had ever heard.
Paul lifted the tranquilizer gun and took aim. He pulled the trigger but the gun jammed. Paul struggled with the bolt, his heart nearly beating out of his chest. Suddenly, Norma stepped behind Paul, pulled a knife from her jacket and slit his throat. He dropped over into the snow, clutching at his neck, looking up at Norma in horror. His blood pooling around him. Trying desperately to figure out what had just happened.
“Here, Snow Ball. Come here.” The polar bear ran up to Norma and she rubbed his head. “Time to go home again. Get back in the trailer.” She pointed to the sleigh and the enormous beast climbed back in and laid down.
“Nobody cares about a zoo, Hunter. This wasn’t about a zoo at all. You talk way too much. All of the agents that were here tonight talked too much. To their wives, to other agents. All of you were on the job in Atlanta two months ago. If you all hadn’t been talking so much, Vice President Graves wouldn’t have been around yesterday so that he could introduce the new coal bill to Congress. Not only that, now a reporter from Georgia has all of the information from that job and he’s trying to show it to anyone that will take a look. Loose lips, Hunter. We just can’t afford those loose lips.” She looked over at Snow Ball . “You know why a big game animal like that one is more civilized than we are? You know why, Hunter?” She paused but he wasn’t about to answer. “Because animals like that, they never lie to each other. Or keep secrets.”
Somebody was stumbling up behind them. “What did you do to him? You stabbed him! I saw you do it!” It was Bobby again. He stood behind her, shaking and pointing. “I saw you!”
There was a gunshot and Bobby the Barnyard Animal Barnes fell over into the snow.” Chubby walked up and pointed the pistol at Bobby’s head and finished the job with two more shots.
Paul felt weak. He twisted his jacket up against his throat, turni
ng it into a tourniquet. Norma turned to Chubby.
She looked at Paul while she swatted Chubby on the rear. “Wouldn’t that be something, Hunter, if Agent Gehrig here was my uncle?
The man Paul had known as Chubby smiled.
“You find Johnny, Chubby?” Norma asked him.
“He nodded.”
“Taken care of?”
He nodded again.
“Nelson know anything yet?”
“No.”
“When you call him, let him know that we don’t need the storm anymore.” She smiled. “Those unpredictable lake effect snow storms. Never can tell what they’re going to do, right?”
Chubby smiled back. “That’s right.”
“Okay. I’ll just drop a couple of calling cards around before we leave.” She walked to the truck and grabbed Paul’s evidence bag. She dropped something into the snow beside him. “And that waitress, Hunter, she wasn’t a friend’s daughter. I watched the two of you. You never told me anything for years but you bragged all night long to her.” She grabbed something else from the bag and hurled it through the broken window of the store front. “She died yesterday during the evacuation in a tragic bus crash. In case you wanted to know. Slid off an icy road.” Norma crouched down and looked at Paul’s throat. “I can put a little tree sap on that for you and see if it’ll make it feel better. Then again, maybe not. You never liked holistic remedies anyway.”
Chubby walked over and stared down at Paul. “I always liked you, Hunter.” Chubby pointed the revolver and fired three shots into Paul’s forehead. “I always did.” Then he walked to the big red Santa sleigh and rubbed Snow Ball’s head.