Sid’s body jumped and bucked, creating a challenge to say the least, so I offered him an earnest look that conveyed my cordial sympathies then I pushed the attack part of the bar deep into the exposed meat.
As I felt the teeth chew bone, the severed arteries pumped generous quantities of blood into the air and I had to let off the trigger to clear my mask. Squatting down gave me the opportunity to closely inspect my work, as rapid forceful spurts continued to pump copious amounts of his life-force, painting the garage door opener above us.
Sid’s eyes showed white, his body jerked viciously. The front of the Taurus shifted as blood ran from his foaming mouth, the end of his tongue bitten off. He choked and bled and died hard on the concrete.
•••••
Outside the garage, a white Chevy van with a crushed grill was parked in front of the house. Signs on the van advertised Hesemann Landscape & Supply on each side. There were two orange cones behind the van and one in front.
Nobody thought twice about orange cones.
I carried my trusty Stihl in the plastic case in one hand, the other hand the radio.
Frank was waiting in the driver’s seat and he danced around excitedly, still favoring the foot, but his spirits were higher than I’d expected.
I told him to scoot over then I climbed behind the wheel. An aftershock from the painkiller sent a ripple of warm heat crawling up my spine.
We left the dead stripper’s house as the night came hard and sucked the energy from the day like a thousand-horsepower vacuum. The dark road was crawling with hungry people eager to escape their lives, toiling down the highway in their gas-powered metal coffins and searching for deliverance in a bottle, pipe, or a bag of white dope.
The lights of St. Louis called me in voice like broken glass. I knew in the darkest part of the city, people were shooting heroin and shooting each other. Women were getting raped, children were being beaten and molested. Tweakers robbed credit unions for plastic gangsters and men even cut up other men in empty garages for the things they’d done to have it end that way.
Frank rode on my lap all the way to Blackmore and I parked the van in the alley. I removed the magnetic signs and flung them in the back.
I leaned into the van and moved things around, finally started taking an inventory of what Doyle had back there. When I looked inside a roll of carpet the oxygen was sucked from my chest.
“Doyle, you old son-of-bitch.” I found stacks of cash in a wooden box under a stack of floor tiles, at least ten thousand inside a rubber boot, more than I could count hidden inside a stack of cones.
I grabbed a huge yellow bag I could throw over my shoulder and packed it with cash. It was the bag previously used to transport Doyle’s revolting suits back and forth to the cleaners.
I expected the image of Doyle’s blown-apart face would haunt me longer than I wanted it too, then I thought about that cocksucker I’d just cut in half and left tied to the bumper of a Ford Taurus.
Chief Caraway wouldn’t look too hard, and Amish Ron would just figure Sid got coming what was owed.
“Ready, Frank?” I walked around to the front and grabbed that little shit. When I looked under the seat my eyes came to rest on a stunning discovery and I laughed hard enough to damage at least three of my internal organs. That fucking Doyle would steal anything.
I carried the chainsaw in my left hand. My right held a big purple dildo.
I stopped by the staircase and let Frank scout the area for the best place to piss, shit, or both. He yelped when he put pressure on his foot and I thought of what a tough little bastard he must be to withstand such trauma and recover so quickly.
Frank lifted his leg and fired short bursts of golden piss into the snow.
We stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked at each other. We’d both been beaten and abused. We’d seen the worst mankind had to offer and fought back at their level.
I shifted my weight and got a better grip on the Stihl, got a better grip on the dildo, too. I asked Frank if he was ready and he barked, sneezed, and snorted.
“Let’s go, Frank.” I drove my boot heels down into the wood as my Yorkshire terrier took off. His injuries hampered his performance to an extent, but you could never take away his passion for stair climbing.
The End
About the Author
Matthew McBride burst onto the crime-fiction scene with his shocking and visceral short stories of bad men and good guns. Now his powerful first novel confirms what noir and crime pros have been murmuring online for months—this guy is the one to watch. McBride lives on a farm in rural Missouri with his wife and a bull named Hemingway. He started writing on the assembly line at a Chrysler plant in St. Louis, where he worked for thirteen years. Now he’s a force to be reckoned with as a crime writer. Welcome a new voice that’s raw, wild, and completely original.
http://igotpulp.blogspot.com/
Ken Bruen (introduction) is one of Ireland’s premier writers, author of dozens of thrillers and crime novels, many adapted into feature films.
www.kenbruen.com
Acknowledgements
This book would not be possible without the help and support of the following. Thank you—Melissa, for giving me the guts to write. Scott Phillips, for meeting me in the coffee shop that day and inspiring me to create worlds. Stona Fitch, my editor, for making this book what it is. Stacia Decker, my agent, for telling me to go with my gut.
Thanks also to Jedidiah Ayres, Rod Wiethop, Anthony Neil Smith, Charlie Stella, Elizabeth A. White, Sabrina Ogden, Fiona Johnson, Linda Trest, Lauren O’Brien, J. S. Woemmel, Mike Keller, Brad Wyman, and, of course, Ken Bruen.
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