[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

strides and grabbed the first crack head he came to, hurling him over the
railing to the landing below, where his vocalizations stopped with a bony
crunch.
A crack head bashed his vodka bottle on the floor. Half the contents spilled
out, and the air filled with the smell. Remo lifted the glass weapon out of
the crack head's hands and inserted it in his chest, twisting and slicing a
perfect circle of empty space where much of his rib cage and heart should have
been.
The final crack head ran into an empty apartment and tried to slam the door
behind him, only to find his attacker standing right there at his side. His
howl died to a curious "Urk?" and he died with it, as his trachea shattered
and his breathing apparatus stopped functioning.
There was a rustle from above and Remo drifted up to the third story,
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following the sounds to the doorless entry to another apartment. A zinc trash
barrel stood in the middle of the room, smoking slightly from a fire that had
been allowed to die out. A hairy, greasy man was struggling to claw his way
through the narrow window, snuffling and grunting like a dog digging its way
under the fence.
"Let's talk," Remo suggested. The hairy man's mouth fell open. "Please?" Remo
added.
All he got was a high-pitched hyena wail.
"Oh, can it!" Remo swept the metal garbage container across the room, where it
slammed into the screamer and crushed him into the window frame, shattering
most of his skeletal system and silencing him instantly.
Remo listened. There were no more animal-like howls. More importantly, he
could hear no other heartbeats or furtive movement inside the building.
Grabbing the boneless dead man, he tromped to the second floor and collected
an armful of corpses. On the first floor he sat all the dead druggies
together, rifling their clothing for paraphernalia and coming up with a few
large plastic bags of white powder, a few plastic-wrapped rocks of crack
cocaine and a couple of syringes. He broke the needles and pocketed everything
else.
Down the street was a tiny neighborhood grocery that looked like a miniature
prison. The windows were barred. A heavy steel gate covered the door.
Miraculously, the pay phone on the sidewalk functioned. Remo depressed the one
button and held it. Somewhere, magic computerized connections were made. A
wind blew and his body adjusted automatically to the chill.
"Luigi's Pizza," said a computer-simulated voice on the other end of the
line.
"I want an extralarge pepperoni, delivered," Remo said. A scrawny man stalked
to the phone booth, wearing so many gang colors and insignias he looked like
an Eagle Scout who had gone over to the dark side.
Remo nodded. "Evening. The weather outside is frightful. Dum, dum,
delightful."
"Man, what're you doing on my telephone?"
"Remo? What did you say?" said a new voice on the line.
"I'm talkin' to you, boy. What're you doin' on my phone? You know this is my
place of business."
"Hold on, Luigi," Remo said, then turned to the gangbanger. "I thought you
guys used cell phones these days."
"Usually I do, but there's times I need a public phone, and it's that phone
right there. Now you get off my phone."
"You work with those clowns in the big green building down the street?" Remo
asked.
"What's it to you, boy?"
"I just took this off them," he said, pulling one of the largest of the
plastic bags of white substance out of his coat pocket. The dealer became very
still, steam hissing out of his nostrils.
"Remo, what's going on?" Harold Smith demanded.
"Just hold on, Luigi."
"You a cop?" the dealer demanded.
"Just an interested bystander."
"If you ain't a cop, then you're moving in on my territory!" Reaching into the
back of his pants, he yanked out a snubby handgun. "Hand it over."
Remo extended the dope and let go of it. In the moment the drug dealer's
attention was distracted by the plummeting bag of controlled substance the
handgun somehow became turned around in his hands, with his thumb depressing
the trigger. He started to shout, and Remo nudged the muzzle of the weapon
into his mouth. A great red mess suddenly covered the sidewalk. Remo snatched
his bag of drugs before it hit the ground.
"I'm here, Smitty."
"Are you calling me from the middle of a job?"
"No, job's done. I just got tangled in some superfluous details and now
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they're untangled."
A man in a sleeveless undershirt and a dirty apron stepped out of the front of
the grocery, looked down at the corpse and the mess on the sidewalk, then
peered quizzically at Remo. Remo shrugged. The grocer retreated inside.
"You get any samples?" Smith asked.
"Got 'em. You were right about the perpetrators. They howled like dogs."
"Get those samples shipped here ASAP and maybe we'll figure out what's making
it happen." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]