“There’s just no point. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” she says. “Then show me how to put the rifle together.”
“It’s simple,” he says, and he picks it up piece by piece and attaches it, metal locking into metal, each piece making a satisfying click, him telling her along the way what each piece is called. It takes him less than a minute.
“Again, but slower,” she says. “Pretend I’ve never used a gun before,” she says, but of course she’s used a gun before, and she’ll be using one again soon too. Real soon. As soon as he’s finished showing her how.
He takes it apart. Puts it back together. This time it takes three minutes. He shows her how to load it. Then he takes it apart and puts it back into the case and shuts the lid and latches it closed.
“Anything else?”
“Ammunition,” she says.
He unzips the front of the rucksack with the C-four buried inside. Reaches in and pulls out one box of ammunition. “There’s two more just like it in the bag,” he says. “Point two two three Remington,” he says. “All armor-piercing rounds.”
“Thank you,” she says.
She shoots him twice in the chest through the newspaper, the silencer allowing the neighbors to keep on being neighborly without fighting the need to call the police. She knows shooting the guy who gave you the guns is somewhat of a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason. She figures that arms dealers, just like taxi drivers and helicopter pilots, always know they’ll never make it to retirement. He drops where he stands. The look on his face is one she’s seen before, a look of disbelief mixed with anger and fear. She puts the pistol back into the briefcase along with the newspaper. She goes over to the manhole and reaches in and finds another bag. It’s most of the original money she gave him. Which means he probably used some of it to buy the gun and explosives. This is his profit.
“I believe you,” she says, looking down at him, and he would thank her for agreeing with him, but all he can do is slowly open and close his mouth, a spit bubble of blood growing and shrinking. “If I can’t find somebody to shoot Joe for money, maybe I can find them to shoot him for another reason. Thanks for everything,” she says, “and I’m going to keep the bag too,” she says, holding it up. “I like the color.”
She guesses he has another minute to live, two at the most. She takes one of his chocolate bars out of her pocket and starts working away at it. She enjoys the sugar rush about the same amount as she enjoys watching Derek die. Which is a lot. She starts the stereo back up while he’s doing it and the world for Derek, just like The Stones warned him earlier, becomes as black as night.
Chapter Two
“You passed the test,” he says, and it’s just more bullshit that I’ve heard for the last twelve months, and to be honest I’ve stopped listening to it. It seems people have made up their minds. Somehow this topsy-turvy world has taken upon itself to convict me without even getting to know me.
I look up from the table I was staring at to the guy doing all the talking. He’s got more hair on his face than on his head, and I start wondering how flammable it is, starting with the comb-over. He seems to be waiting for an answer, but I’m not sure what he’s going on about. My short-term memory since being in jail has packed its bags and left—but my long-term goals are still the same.
“What test?” I ask, and I ask not because it interests me, but because at the very least it relieves the boredom. If only for a moment. “Joe isn’t not remembering test,” I add, just for fun, and the words sound a little over the top, even to me, and I regret them.
The man’s name, Benson Barlow, sounds pretentious, and in case you weren’t quite sure he even has leather elbow patches on his jacket to drive home the point. His thin smile looks obnoxious. In other times, better times, I’d cut that smile off his face and show him how it looked hanging all bloody in his fingers. Unfortunately these aren’t the best of times. They’re the worst.
“The test,” he repeats. He looks smug. He has that annoying look people get when there’s something they know that you don’t, and they’re dying to tell you and trying to stretch it out for as long as they can because they like being the only one to know. I hate people like that almost as much as I hate people who say Open mouth, insert foot. But, to be fair, I hate other people too. I’m an equal-rights kind of guy. “The test you took. Half an hour ago.”
Joe Victim: A Thriller
Paul Cleave's books
- The Face of a Stranger
- The Dark Assassin
- Death of a Stranger
- Seven Dials
- The Whitechapel Conspiracy
- Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries
- Funeral in Blue
- Defend and Betray
- Cain His Brother
- A Breach of Promise
- A Dangerous Mourning
- A Sudden Fearful Death
- Dark Places
- Angels Demons
- Digital Fortress
- After the Funeral
- The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
- A Pocket Full of Rye
- A Murder is Announced
- A Caribbean Mystery
- Ordeal by Innocence
- Lord Edgware Dies
- A Stranger in the Mirror
- After the Darkness
- Are You Afraid of the Dark
- Master of the Game
- Nothing Lasts Forever
- Rage of Angels
- The Doomsday Conspiracy
- The Naked Face
- The Sands of Time
- The Stars Shine Down
- Pretty Little Liars #14
- Ruthless: A Pretty Little Liars Novel
- The Lying Game #6: Seven Minutes in Heaven
- True Lies: A Lying Game Novella
- Everything We Ever Wanted
- All the Things We Didn't Say
- Pretty Little Liars #15: Toxic
- Pretty Little Liars
- The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly
- Homicide in Hardcover
- The Lies That Bind
- A Cookbook Conspiracy
- Charlie, Presumed Dead
- Manhattan Mayhem
- Ripped From the Pages
- Tangled Webs
- A Baby Before Dawn
- A Hidden Secret: A Kate Burkholder Short Story
- A Cry in the Night
- Breaking Silence
- Operation: Midnight Rendezvous
- Long Lost: A Kate Burkholder Short Story
- Pray for Silence
- The Dead Will Tell: A Kate Burkholder Novel
- Wherever Nina Lies
- Fear the Worst: A Thriller
- The Naturals, Book 2: Killer Instinct
- Never Saw It Coming
- Operation: Midnight Guardian
- Operation: Midnight Tango
- Operation: Midnight Escape
- Cut to the Bone: A Body Farm Novel
- Eve
- Nearly Gone
- Pretty Baby
- The Bone Thief: A Body Farm Novel-5
- Bones of Betrayal
- CARVED IN BONE
- Madonna and Corpse
- The Bone Yard
- The Breaking Point: A Body Farm Novel
- Bad Guys
- Bad Move (Zack Walker Series, Book One)
- Sin una palabra
- Stone Rain
- Broken Promise: A Thriller
- El accidente
- Bone Island 01 - Ghost Shadow
- Bone Island 02 - Ghost Night
- Bone Island 03 - Ghost Moon
- Deadly Gift
- Deadly Harvest
- Deadly Night
- The Dead Room
- The Death Dealer
- Unhallowed Ground
- The Night Is Alive
- The Night Is Watching
- A Grave Matter
- Alert: (Michael Bennett 8)
- In the Dark
- Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery)
- Picture Me Dead
- The Betrayed (Krewe of Hunters)
- The Dead Play On
- Breakdown
- Brush Back
- Critical Mass