The staked Goat

was that smart. He was scared shitless of you, and I can see why. But he was that smart. Now take the package and go, or don’t and go. Either way.”
    ”Open it,” he said in the authoritative voice. ”Open what?” I said.
    ”The glove compartment! The goddamned glove compartment! Open it!”
    I shrugged and leaned over. He put the barrel of the Walther in my right ear. He smelled acrid, worried. He was breathing shallowly. He started to say, ”If anything, if anything at all—”
    I popped open the box, Crowley tensing as the lid bounced a few times. He relaxed, and I straightened back up.
    ”When I felt the barrel of that Walther, I nearly got a cramp in my left foot.”
    His breathing edged toward normal. He glanced into the box.
    ”The envelope,” I said.
    He frowned at me, then peered down into the box and reached with his left hand.
    I relaxed my left foot and sensed the switch come up. The car quaked as Crowley caught the full blast of the 12-gauge squarely in the face. His Walther went off, the slug whacking me in the fleshy part of my right upper arm, wrecking some tricep.
    I yelled once in pain. My arm burned like hell, but there was no more noise or sensation except for the urinating sound of Crowley’s blood as it drummed onto the vinyl upholstery. I looked over at him and tried not to think of how Marco must have felt as he watched the Coopers’ house burn.
     

Twenty-four
     
     
     
    I GOT OUT OF THE CAR AND LISTENED. N O VOICES, NO sirens, nothing. The Walther bullet had tom up some of the driver’s seat behind me. I ignored the upholstery and packed some snow up under my sleeve as best I could to retard the bleeding. I reached back into the car and pulled Crowley’s case toward me. With some effort, I latched it back down. Then I sprang the hood of the Pontiac and, with a lot more effort from one and a half arms, tried to free the backward-facing shotgun from its braces in the engine compartment. I finally yanked it clear, parallel to the course the pellets had taken as they traveled through the barrel, past the hole and cloth in the engine side of the glove compartment, and into Crowley’s face and chest.
    I set the shotgun down and opened the passenger’s door. With my left hand, I grasped Crowley’s coat at the neck and dragged him out of the car onto the snow. I examined his face and mouth for as long as I needed to. The features were a pulpy mess, the teeth too shattered for a dental chart comparison. I stripped him of all other ID, taking the cash from his wallet and using a pen-knife on his clothes labels. When I was finished, I left him on the ground.
    I closed down the hood of the Pontiac and carried the shotgun to the back of the car. I opened the trunk and fished out the blanket for the shotgun. Then I tossed Crowley’s handgun and wallet in the trunk.
    For the tenth time I thought of tossing Crowley’s body into the trunk, too. After all, Eddie was going to crush the car; the corpse could be crushed just as easily. The problem was that I had already involved Eddie more deeply than I cared to, and I was not about to make him that active an accessory.
    I walked back to the driver’s door and retrieved the attach^ case. I brought it back and opened it at the trunk. I divided the cash stacks into four piles of roughly equal weight. I then put the piles inside the book mailers and sealed them. They were addressed to J. T. Davis’ box at the Newton Post Office.
    I closed down the trunk of the Pontiac and walked out from behind the building, cradling the wrapped shotgun in my bad arm and carrying the mailers under my good arm. I stood in the shadow of the side of the building and listened. It was only 5 P.M. , but the street was cathedral quiet. I carried my bundles down to the rental car. I opened the front door and tossed the mailers in on the floor of the passenger’s side. I unwrapped and laid the shotgun gently on top, spreading the blanket over everything. I locked the door and returned up the driveway and around to the Pontiac. My arm was beginning to throb. I’d been wounded more seriously in the past, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t losing enough blood to cause shock.
    I started the Pontiac and moved it back and forth a few times to ball up whatever tire tracks might be in the snow. Then I drove down the driveway and over to Eddie Shuba’s place. Very light traffic.
    I pulled into his driveway and opened the gate lock with the key he had given me. I drove the