On Thin Ice Read Free

He let a small, satisfied smirk play at the corners of his mouth. Bluffing with a bunch of stoned teenagers was always a challenge – if he overplayed it they’d get suspicious, if he underplayed it they wouldn’t notice. “I like it here,” he said, putting the cards face down in front of him with the demeanor of a man well-pleased with life, or at least with his poker hand.
    “Then you’re loco,” Izzy said. “You sleep on the dirt, there’s no pussy, it’s cold and rainy. Englishmen like their comforts.”
    “I’m not English,” he said pleasantly, steel beneath. “I’m Irish. From Northern Ireland.”
    “What’s the difference?” Porco asked, blinking as he tried to focus on his hand.
    “Trust me, there’s a big one,” MacGowan said in an easy voice. “I’ll explain to you a bit of our history this winter. Assuming you’ll continue to keep me alive that long.” Of course, he wasn’t going to be anywhere around in the coming winter, but they wouldn’t know that.
    “You’ll be alive,” Izzy said. “We’re supposed to keep you that way if we can. We had orders when we took you.”
    Which didn’t make sense. If Madsen was responsible he never would have bothered with the expense of keeping him on ice. So why the hell was he still here, and still alive?
    He simply nodded, dealing new cards to those who asked for them, standing pat on his miserable pair of twos. He could hear them coming from a distance, but his poker buddies were too caught up in the game to notice. He drained his beer, then looked up with all the innocence of a hungry puma. “You want to call?”
    “I want. . .” Izzy began, when the newcomers broke through into the clearing, and everyone jumped, scattering cards and cigarettes and beer bottles in their wake.
    There were five of them, a little higher on the food chain than Izzy and Porco and their friends, though in two years MacGowan hadn’t learned their names, plus a new kid who looked small and nasty. He knew what they were capable of, though, and he stayed where he was. If they saw he was missing his handcuffs they’d do something to remedy that, and he wasn’t about to take that chance. The others only showed up when they moved camp, and this was his last chance.
    They’d brought something with them – it looked like nothing more than a pile of fabric and bones, and someone dumped it on the ground. It was either a skinny kid or a woman, and it had been so long since he’d gotten laid he didn’t care which.
    “They’ll be looking for this one,” the one in charge, a man MacGowan thought of as Redbeard, said, giving the bundle a little nudge with his foot. “We break camp tonight.”
    Shit. He’d been hoping for a couple more days, just to make certain Hans and Dylan would be up to it. Maybe he should say the hell with it and go alone. They’d probably be more of a liability than an eventual asset. But he did like money, and it was going to take a fair amount to get back to England.
    “Who’s this?” Izzy had approached the pathetic bundle on the ground, sniffing like a dog who’d found a bitch in heat.
    “Leave her alone. You already killed one of the nuns,” Redbeard said. “This one is worth a lot of money, more if she’s in good shape.”
    Izzy glared at the older man. MacGowan could remember the screams coming from the shed that had held the nuns. Two of them originally, now only one was left. If he had a chance before he left he was going to take care of Izzy, as a favor to the dead nun.
    “She’s mine.” The new kid was a little bit younger than Izzy, but MacGowan didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was harmless. “I’m the one who took her.”
    Redbeard looked at the kid with contempt. “She belongs to the Guiding Light now. No one touches her, comprende ?”
    Okay, this was going to work out fine. They’d be so busy keeping the jackals from the new female flesh that they wouldn’t have time to notice as he slipped away.