Winter Prey

in a shattered-paisley pattern, but through a clear spot he could see the roof-mounted auxiliary lights on Russ Harper’s Toyota truck, sitting under the blue yard-light.
    “Harper,” he muttered. Bad news.
    The pounding started again and the Iceman yelled “Just a minute” and went to the door and unlocked it. Harper was on the concrete stoop, stamping the snow off his boots. He looked up when the Iceman opened the door, and without a word, pushed inside, shoving the door back, his face like a chunk of wood. He wore a red-and-plaid wool hunting coat and leather gloves. Two other men were behind him, and a woman, all dressed in parkas with hoods and heavy ski gloves, corduroy or wool pants, and pac boots, faces pale with winter, harsh with stress.
    “Russ,” said the Iceman, as Harper brushed past. “Andy. Doug. How’re you doin’, Judy?”
    “We gotta talk,” Harper said, pulling off his gloves. The other three wouldn’t directly meet the Iceman’s inquiring eyes, but looked instead to Harper. Harper was the one the Iceman would have to deal with.
    “What’s going on?” he said. On the surface, his face was slack, sleepy. Inside, the beast began to stir, to unwind.
    “Did you kill the LaCourts?” Harper asked, stepping close to him. The Iceman’s heart jumped, and for just a moment he found it hard to breathe. But he was a good liar. He’d always been good.
    “What? No—of course not. I was here.” He put shock on his face and Harper said “Motherfucker,” and turned away, shaking his head. He touched his lip and winced, and the Iceman saw what looked like a tiny rime of blood.
    “What are you talking about, Russ?” he asked. “I didn’t have a goddamned thing to do with it. I was here, there were witnesses,” he complained. Public consumption: I didn’t mean to; they just fell down  . . .
    As his voice rose, Harper was pulling off his coat. He tossed it on a card table, hitched his pants. “Motherfucker,”he said again, and he turned and grabbed the Iceman by his pajama shirt, pulled him forward on his toes, off-balance.
    “You motherfucker—you better not have,” Harper breathed in his face. His breath smelled of sausage and bad teeth, and the Iceman nearly retched. “We don’t want nothing to do with no goddamned half-assed killer.”
    The Iceman brought his hands up, shoulder height, shrugged, tried not to struggle against Harper’s hold, tried not to breathe. Kill him now  . . .
    Of the people in their group, Harper was the only one who worried him. Harper might do anything. Harper had a craziness, a killer feel about him: scars on his shiny forehead, lumps. And when he was angry, there was nothing calculated about it. He was a nightmare you met in a biker bar, a man who liked to hurt, a man who never stopped to think that he might be the one to get damaged. He worried the Iceman, but didn’t frighten him. He could deal with him, in his own time.
    “Honest to God, Russ,” he said, throwing his hands out to his sides. “I mean, calm down.”
    “I’m having a hard time calmin’ down. The cops was out to my house tonight and they flat jacked me up,” Harper said. “That fuckin’ guy from Minneapolis and old Gene Climpt, they jacked my ass off the floor, you know what I’m telling you?” Spit was spraying out of his mouth, and the Iceman averted his face. “You know?”
    “C’mon, Russ . . .”
    Harper was inflexible, boosted him an inch higher, his work-hardened knuckles cutting into soft flesh under the Iceman’s chin. “You know what we been doing? We been diddlin’ kids. Fuckin’ juveniles, that’s what we been doin’, all of us. All that fancy bullshit talk about teachin’ ’em this or that—it don’t mean squat to the cops. They’d put us all in the fuckin’ penitentiary, sure as bears shit in the woods.”
    “There’s no reason to think I did it,” the Iceman said, forcing sincerity into his voice. And the beast whispered, Let’s kill him. Now now now  . . .
    “Horseshit,” Harper snarled. He snapped the Iceman away as though he were a bug. “You sure you didn’t have nothingto do with it?” Harper looked straight into his eyes.
    “I promise you,” the Iceman said, his eyes turning away, down, then back up. He pushed the beast down, caught his breath. “Listen, this is a time to be calm.”
    The man called Doug was bearded, with the rims of old pock-scars showing above the beard and dimpling his purple nose. “The