It came as a roar.
Three shots smeared together, almost as one, belched out of the ugly black gun in Dwyer’s hands. The kitchen filled with the malevolent stink of gunpowder. It must’ve been a hit because Dwyer stepped away from the shattered window, lowered the weapon, and handed it off to his huge friend.
“Some piece,” the man said.
“Alternated buckshot and deer slugs,” Dwyer said.
“Nasty.”
Gantcher struggled to free his hands, but they—like his knees, ankles, and mouth for that matter—were held fast and painfully with silver duct tape.
“Now where’s the bloody safe—in the study or the basement?” Dwyer asked.
Gantcher didn’t answer. He had no idea how they’d gotten inside. He’d felt a breeze and had stood to investigate and lifted the over/under and was suddenly tackled off his feet and found Dwyer’s knee, like an anvil, on his chest. He saw Dwyer rear back for a punch, glimpsed a piece of black metal in his hand—and had woken up in the chair. He hadn’t even fired a shot.
Dwyer had been asking about the safe just before the tall one with the buzz cut had whistled him over to the kitchen window. They’d seen something—someone—and Dwyer had lined him up and fired. Gantcher couldn’t care less about them finding his lousy safe, that wasn’t the reason for his holding out, nor was it heroics. It was more his profound feeling that when the safe was open, and Dwyer found it held only three hundred dollars’ worth of paper issued by the American Express Company, it was going to all finally be over and they were going to kill him. And beyond that, Gantcher had suddenly gained the elemental knowledge common to all living beings close to their end: every last second mattered a great deal.
He heard the clatter of steel kitchen implements, but couldn’t turn his head to see what was happening. The information soon came to him, as Dwyer stepped back in front of him, this time holding one of Nancy’s long, stainless steel, two-tined barbecue forks. Dwyer put the points of it maddeningly close to Gantcher’s eye and said, “Now is it in the fucking basement or the study? Or should I take an eyeball to each place to help me look?”
“Basement,” Gantcher said, though the tape muffled it.
“Basement. Grand,” Dwyer said. Gantcher understood another elemental truth, this one specific to him: even close to the end, agony and disfigurement were still frightening propositions. Then Dwyer grabbed a paring knife to cut Gantcher loose at knee and ankle and dragged him out of the chair toward the door that led to the stairway down.
“Go make sure that fuck in the driveway is finished,” he instructed his friend, leaving the big shotgun with him, as he pulled Gantcher along.
I’m going to die in the basement, flashed through Gantcher’s brain as he stumbled down the steps.