Snowbound Read Free Page A

of them stepped up to the door, while Kubion stood watching by the right rear fender. Loxner pressed the bell, one long and two short and one long, and they stood there under the dark afternoon sky, waiting for the security cop to come down.
    It took him two minutes, twenty or thirty seconds longer than usual because they weren’t expecting the armored car for another half hour. He opened the peephole in the door and stared out through the thick glass covering it and saw the car and the three uniformed men—everything exactly as it was supposed to be. Satisfied, he worked the locks and swung the door open and said, “You guys are pretty early, aren’t you?”
    “There’s a fire over on Kingridge,” Brodie told him. “Big warehouse right across the street from Saddleman’s. They’ve got the streets blocked off, hoses and pumpers everywhere, and we can’t get in. So the company told us we might as well go ahead with our other rounds.”
    “Fires in the middle of December,” the guard said, and shook his head. “Well, everything’s just about ready upstairs, but you might have to wait five or ten minutes.”
    “Sure, we expected that.”
    The guard stepped aside to let Brodie and Loxner enter. When they were past him, he turned and started to close the door—and Brodie’s left hand slapped across his mouth, jerking his head back; the swiftly drawn revolver jabbed him sharply in the small of the back. Softly, Brodie said, “You make a funny move or say anything above a whisper when I take my hand away, and I’ll kill you first thing. Believe it. ”
    The guard stood motionless, his eyes wide and abruptly terrified; he had a wife and three kids, and he was no hero.
    Kubion glanced out at the loading dock and saw that no one on the ramp was looking in his direction. The area was otherwise deserted. He drew his own gun and shut the door, leaving it unlocked. “All right,” he said to the guard, “who opens the door up there? You or the other guy in the office?”
    Brodie took his hand away, increasing the pressure of the Colt. The guard’s throat worked three times before he found words, thickly hushed. “My partner. I tell him it’s okay and he opens up.”
    “That better be right,” Kubion said. “If it isn’t, you’re a dead man.”
    “It’s right.”
    “Fine. Now when we go into the office, you keep your mouth shut. Don’t do or say anything. We’ll take it from there.”
    Convulsively, the guard nodded. Kubion pushed him over to the stairs, and they went up single file. At the top, the guard called out, “Okay, Ben,” and there was the scrape of a key in the lock. The heavy steel-ribbed door opened, and the other security cop stood before them with his hands in plain sight. Kubion shoved the first one into the office, moving to one side so that Brodie and Loxner could enter, covering the startled second guard.
    “Everybody just sit tight,” Kubion said sharply. “No panic, no screams, no heroics.”
    “It’s a holdup, my God!” somebody said, and one of the two women employees gasped—but the two guards just stood there staring at Kubion’s gun. Brodie fanned immediately to the left and watched the rigid office staff sitting at their desks; none of them made further sounds. Loxner was at the open door to the manager’s cubicle, eyes and gun on the fat, white-faced man who had gotten to his feet within.
    For a long moment the office was a fixed tableau fashioned of fear and disbelief. Then Kubion—smiling, thinking that they were going to get it done well within their allotted fifteen minutes—gestured to the manager and said, “Come out here and open the safe. Quick, no arguments.” Obediently, woodenly, the fat man stepped out of his cubicle and started across the office.
    And that was when the whole thing went suddenly and completely sour. . . .

Two
     
    It began to snow again just after Lew Coopersmith left his house and walked over to Sierra Street.
    He pulled the collar of