Today’s excerpt is from Toboggan,
Book #4 of the nine-book Janitors Series.
Nick and Phyllis meet the escaped bad guys as Russell approaches from
the other direction. Enjoy and have a wonderful day.
m.j.
While Dan and Mark watched their watches tick and
the Janitors were doing their thing, Tony took a deep breath. “Okay, Frank, let’s go.”
They
had rested exactly thirty minutes. Had
they rested fifteen minutes more, or fifteen minutes less, a number of
people—including them—may have had things worked out differently. As they started plowing through the snow
again, Russell started heading for the same target from a different
direction. With the snow still coming
down heavily, Tony and Frank failed to see Russell, and he failed to see them
as well.
Suddenly,
as they were about two hundred feet from the lodge, and Russell was nearly as
close, Phyllis said, “We’re nearly out of wood, darling.”
“Already
with the ‘darling’ when you want me to do something. In this case, you are correct. I’ll go get some.”
As
Phyllis laughed, Nick slipped on the sweater he had found in Meat Hook’s room
and went outside. Almost at once, he saw
Frank in the State Trooper uniform and hollered to Phyllis, “Hey, honey, it
looks like help has arrived.”
Then
he saw Tony wearing the jail jumpsuit he had been wearing when picked up in Del
Norte. The coat covering the top half of
the jump suit also had a big white “P” on the front, which he could see, and
one on the back that Russell noticed just before he called out a greeting.
Both
Nick and Russell also saw that Tony, a presumed prisoner, was carrying a
shotgun while walking behind the State Trooper.
Nick realized something was wrong with that picture and shouted to
Phyllis, “Don’t come outside!”
Then
he turned and hurried toward the door.
Tony took a step to the side of Frank and fired as Frank grappled with
the holstered handgun taken from Trooper Collins. Typical of Tony and Frank, the shot almost completely
missed Nick. Only about ten stray
pellets from the shot hit him as he stumbled through the door. About the time Phyllis screamed, “What was
that?” Frank finally got the pistol out and fired in the general direction of
Nick, but totally missed.
At
that point, something made Tony turn toward Russell and, on seeing him, he leveled
the shotgun. Russell spun and tried to
run. The blast from the shotgun hit him
squarely in the back and threw him forward into the snow.
Convinced
he had killed Russell, Tony turned back toward the lodge to see Frank trying
desperately to push through the snow.
Tony followed.
As
soon as he had gotten back into the lodge, Nick wasted no time. He told Phyllis to grab her sweater and
follow him. Then he raced toward the
kitchen, picking up the bag they brought with them but had never opened since being
in the lodge. In the kitchen, he tossed
the bag on a table, opened it, and tossed in a first aid kit that happened to
be there because Phyllis had cut herself the previous day while getting a meal
ready for them. That cut had been very
minor, but had the effect of having the first aid kit handy.
Next
Nick grabbed a ham they had put out to thaw, tossed it in the bag, grabbed
several knives, and put them in as well.
Then he ran to the door leading from the kitchen to the main lounge and
saw no one in the lodge yet. He raced
forward to the bar, picked up three bottles of whisky, and ran back to the
kitchen. They went into the bag and, for
good measure, he opened the freezer and took out three wrapped pieces of meat
and tossed them in as well, having no idea what was in the packages, nor caring
at that point.
Phyllis
had stood by dumbfounded, but when Nick said, “Let’s go,” she followed without
question. Just as he reached the door,
Nick remembered and saw the hip-waders.
He stopped, picked up a pair, and handed them to Phyllis. “Put them on.
We may be roughing it for a while, so let’s not start out wet.”
As
she complied, Nick quickly put his on, then opened the door for Phyllis and
followed her out, carefully shutting the door as he went. “No sense drawing them a map where we
are,” he thought as he passed Phyllis and led the way toward the barn.
Frank
was irate at how long it took him to go just more than two hundred feet. When he finally reached the porch, he raced
inside with the gun at the ready. Tony
was close behind. They, of course, saw
no one.
Frank
muttered, “Dammit, Tony. Dem friends o’
Meat Hook. He gonna kill us.”
“They
weren’t.”
“How’d
ya knows dat?”
“Because
the sweater the guy was wearing didn’t fit him at all. That was Meat Hook’s favorite sweater. He wouldn’t let nobody wear it. Now get upstairs and look for ‘em while I
look around down here.”
Frank
grumbled, but did as told. By the time
he had checked everywhere on the second and third floors and come back
downstairs, Tony had already checked the first floor and poured himself a
drink. Seeing Frank approaching, he
poured one for him and asked, “Nothing, how ‘bout you?”
“Naw. Nobody dare.”
“Well,
if they aren’t here, they either went outside, or they’re in the basement, which
I didn’t check yet. The door down there
is off the kitchen. Let’s get something
to eat, then we’ll check out the basement.”
“Dat
a good idea.”
·
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