A Dance at the Slaughterhouse

"Ah," Stettner said.

And I relaxed, because we were watching their home movie now. Stettner stood with his hands on his hips, gazing attentively at the screen. The set was larger than Elaine's, and the image somewhat more compelling as a result. I found my own attention drawn to it in spite of myself. Olga, drawing closer to her husband's side, was staring at it as if hypnotized.

"What a beautiful woman you are," Stettner told her. To me he said, "Here she is in the flesh, but I have to see her on the screen to appreciate how beautiful she is. Curious, don't you think?"

Whatever my reply might have been, it was lost forever when gunfire rang out somewhere in the building. There were two shots close together, then a brace of answering shots. Stettner said, "Jesus Christ!" and spun around to face the door. I was moving the minute the sounds registered for what they were. I stepped backward, yanked the tail of my suit jacket aside with my left hand, went for my gun with my right. I had it in my hand and got my finger on the trigger and my thumb on the hammer. The wall was at my back, and I could cover them and see the door to the hall all at the same time.

"Freeze," I said. "Nobody move."

On the screen, Olga had mounted the boy, impaling herself upon his penis. She rode him furiously in utter silence. I could see her performance out of the corner of my eye, but Bergen and Olga were no longer watching. They stood side by side and looked at me and the gun in my hand, and all three of us were as silent as the pair on the screen.

A single gunshot broke the silence. Then it returned, and then it was broken again by footsteps on the stairs.

THERE were more footsteps in the hall, and the sounds of doors being opened and closed. Stettner seemed about to say something. Then I heard Ballou call my name.

"In here," I shouted back. "End of the hall."

He came flying into the room, the big automatic looking like a child's toy in his huge hand. He was wearing his father's apron. His face was twisted with rage.

"Tom's shot," he said.

"Bad?"

"Not so bad, but he's down. 'Twas a fucking trap, we came through the door and there was two of 'em in the shadows with guns in their hands. Good job they were bad shots, but Tom caught a bullet before I could take them down." He was breathing heavily, taking in great gulps of air. "I shot one dead and put the other down with two shots in his gut. Just now I stuck the pistol in his mouth and blew the back of his fucking head off. Dirty bastard, shooting a man from ambush."

That's why Stettner had seemed to be performing when he opened the door for me. He'd had an audience after all, guards hidden in the shadows.

"Where's the money, man? Let's get it and get Tom to a doctor."

"There's your money," Stettner said grimly. He pointed at the still-open attaché case. "All you had to do was take it and go. There was no need for any of this."

"You had guards posted," I said.

"Purely as a precautionary measure, and it seems I was right to be cautious. Though it didn't do much good, did it?" He shrugged. "There's your money," he said again. "Take it and get out of here."

"It's fifty thousand," I told Ballou. "But there's more in the safe."

He looked at the big Mosler, then at Stettner. "Open it," he said.

"There's nothing in it."

"Open the fucking safe!"

"Nothing but more tapes, though none as successful as the one playing now. It's interesting, don't you think?"

Ballou glanced at the television set, seeing it for the first time. He took a second or two to register the action unfolding in silence, then pointed the SIG Sauer and squeezed off a shot, his hand rock-solid against the gun's considerable recoil. The set's picture tube exploded and the noise was immense.

"Open the safe," he said.

"I don't keep money here. I keep some in safe-deposit boxes and the rest in the safe at my office."

"Open it or you're dead."

"I don't think I can," Stettner said coolly. "I can never remember the combination."

Ballou grabbed him by his shirtfront and threw him against the wall, backhanding him across the face. Stettner never lost his composure. A little blood trickled from one nostril, but if he was aware of it he gave no sign.

"This is silly," he said. "I'm not going to open the safe. If I open it we're dead."

"You're dead if you don't," Ballou said.

"Only if you're an idiot. If we're alive we can get you more money. If we're dead you'll never get into that safe."

"We're dead anyway," Olga said.

"I don't think so," Stettner told her. To Ballou he said, "You can beat us if you want. You have the gun, you're in charge. But don't you see it's pointless? And meanwhile your man Tom lies bleeding upstairs. He'll die while you waste your time trying to persuade me to open an empty safe. Why not save time and take your fifty thousand and get your man the medical attention he requires?"

Mick looked at me. He asked me what I figured was in the safe. "Something good," I said, "or he would have opened it by now."

He nodded slowly, then turned and set down the SIG Sauer next to the attaché case. I was still covering the two of them with the.38 Smith. From a pocket in the butcher's apron he produced a cleaver, its blade snug in a leather sheath. He drew it from the sheath. The blade was carbon steel, discolored through years of use. It looked intimidating enough to me, but Stettner eyed it with apparent contempt.

"Open the safe," Ballou told him.

"I don't think so."

"I'll hack her fine tits off," he said. "I'll chop her into cat meat."

"That won't put money in your pocket, will it?"

I thought of the drug dealer in Jamaica Estates, and the bluff he'd felt safe enough to call. I didn't know if Mick was bluffing and I wasn't eager to find out.

He grabbed her by the forearm, yanked her toward him.

"Wait," I said.

He looked at me, fury glinting in his eyes.

"The pictures," I said.

"What are you talking about, man?"

I pointed at the little Corot. "That's worth more than he's got in the safe," I said.

"I don't want to try to sell a fucking painting."

"Neither do I," I said, and I swung the gun around and snapped off a shot that caromed off the wall just inches to the side of the painting. It chipped the concrete, and it put a dent in Stettner's sangfroid. "I'll shoot the shit out of it," I told him. "And the others." I swung the gun toward the pair of portraits and squeezed the trigger without actually aiming. The bullet went through the portrait of the woman, making a small round hole just inches from her forehead.

"My God," Stettner said. "You are vandals."

"It's just paint and canvas," I said.

"My God. I'll open the safe."

He worked the combination swiftly and surely. The turning of the dial was the only sound you could hear. I was holding on to the Smith and breathing in the smell of cordite. The gun was heavy and my hand ached slightly from the gun's recoil. I longed to put it down. There was no reason to point it at anyone. Stettner was busy with the safe, Olga frozen with dread and incapable of movement.

Stettner hit the last number, turned the handle, drew open the twin doors. We all looked within at the stacks of bills. I was to the side, my view partly screened by the other two men. I saw Stettner's hand dart into the open safe and I cried out, "Mick, he's got a gun!"

In a film they would show the scene in slow motion, and what's curious is that's the way I remember it. Stettner's hand reaching in, fastening on a little blued-steel automatic pistol. Mick's hand, gripping the huge cleaver, poised high overhead, then flashing down in a deadly arc. The blade biting cleanly, surgically, through the wrist. The hand appearing to leap forward, away from the blade, as if liberated from its arm.