Red Snow Read Free

skin from the skull. The only light came from a flickering candle and the fire under the pot, but in his imagination he could see the festering jungle around him. Enormous trees soared overhead, their branches dark with every hue of green. Purple orchids hung from the tangled limbs, and poisonous fruits dropped into the undergrowth to rot. Up there, coveys of vampire bats slept in the foliage, their furry bellies bloated with blood. Down here, in the musky odor of damp and decay, tarantulas with fuzzy legs watched anacondas slither through the gloom, the jaws of their spade-shaped heads lined with teeth.
    Parting the hair of the severed head from the crown to the hack line at the base of the neck, the headhunter slit the skin by pressing the tip of his knife against the bone. Carefully, he peeled the flesh back on both sides. Cutting was required at the ears, the eyes, and the nose, but soon the skull was naked except for the eyeballs and the lipless teeth.
    Had he been close to a river, the headhunter would have tossed the skull in as an offering to the anaconda god, feared for its strength and its supernatural powers. But instead, he mounted the flayed skull on a candlestick.
    The bulging, bloodshot whites stared at him.
    The teeth flashed an ivory grin.
    Pushing back from the table, the man who had bushwhacked Boomer carried the snowboarder’s head across to the pot boiling on the stove and turned the gas flame down to a simmer. Holding the trophy by its long locks, he lowered Boomer’s face into the spaghetti pot and watched it sink slowly into the bubbling water. Then, with half an hour to wait before the next step, he left the kitchen for the main room.
    As he crossed the threshold, he morphed from a bronze-skinned Jivaro with long hair into that which he’d seen in the bathroom mirror before setting out to trap the poacher that morning.
    “El Dorado,” he prophesied.
    The window of the mountainside chalet looked down on the village sprawled at the base of the snow-covered peaks. Twilight stained the slopes an iridescent blue as gold lights below lured Olympic hopefuls to nightlife in the bars. Along the windowsill were several carnivorous plants, their deadly maws yawning for their evening meal. With long tweezers, the headhunter plucked bugs from an aerated jar and dropped them into the hairy funnels. As he did, he smiled down at the skiers, snowboarders, and other athletes converging on the pub in the El Dorado Resort.
    “Have you had your fill of gold now?” he asked rhetorically.
    If not, they soon would.

So This Cop Walks Into a Bar …
     
    “What’ll it be?” the bartender asked.
    “Whisky,” said Nick.
    “Whisky with or without the ‘e’?”
    “Single malt.”
    “Brand?”
    “Surprise me,” said Nick.
    “One uisge beatha coming up,” the bartender said, turning her back on the Mountie to choose from the line of bottles ranked along the wall. The brunette poured a dram of Glenmorangie into a glass, held it up to the light to admire the amber color, and set it down in front of Nick with a flash of cleavage that convinced him to increase her tip.
    “What’s that mean?”
    “What?”
    “‘You ski’ whatever.”
    “Uisge beatha?” She threw him a bright, white grin. “The same as uisce beatha . Both mean ‘water of life.’ The first is Scots Gaelic, the second Irish Gaelic. Scotsmen drink whisky without an ‘e,’ and Irishmen drink whiskey with an extra letter.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “You learn something new every day,” she said, giving him a wink like a starlet from a 1940s movie.
    “Whisky or whiskey—does it matter? They’ll both take you where you want to go.”
    “Shh!” shushed the bartender, raising a finger to her candy apple lips. “If a Scotsman hears that, the two of you’ll be busting up the pub.”
    “You think?”
    “‘Whisky or Whiskey?’” the brunette said as if standing in front of a mike:
     
A Scotsman who spells
    Whisky with an