Corsican Death Read Free Page B

for life, and to avoid that, some of them would even pull out their mother’s heart and stomp on it. So you kept the gun where it could do you the most good—on the end of your trigger finger.
    And you kept your ass low to the ground. That’s how you stayed alive.
    John Bolt crawled between parked cars, hearing a car door slam somewhere behind him as someone prepared to go upstairs and begin a normal day working at a normal job. Bolt’s nose twitched and his face muscles tightened as he inhaled gasoline, oil, and the stale odor of a place too long in damp darkness.
    He flexed the fingers of his right hand, then tightened them once more around the butt of his Colt .45 APC Commander. My life preserver. Maybe Alain Lonzu will let us grab him a second time. Maybe.
    But chances are he won’t. Not this Corsican. Jesus, those people are tough. They stick together against all strangers, and they’re as vicious as a rattlesnake with an inch of tail chopped off. Suspicious, too. But smart. Goddamnit are they smart.
    And don’t ever get on their shit list. Those bastards will follow you into hell to have their revenge. They’ll dig up your dead body and piss on it if you die before they can even the score. If it takes forever and a day, they’ll get even.
    That’s why the Corsicans had the heroin trade by the balls, exporting more than any mob in the world. In the fucking world. This bunch of hard-nose greedy Frenchmen was bringing America to its knees.
    Ain’t that a bitch?
    The Corsicans deal dope, and what does it get them? Yachts, blond girlfriends with big tits, and they do all their fucking in sixty-room villas on the Riviera. The dope comes to America, and what do we get? Junkies hiding in hallways, their switchblades hidden inside folded newspapers; store windows wrapped in iron gates; and higher taxes to pay more cops to try to stop all this shit.
    That’s why Bolt wanted to get his bands on Alain Lonzu. Now. Not tomorrow, not eventually, but now.
    The narc stopped, crouching beside a brown-and-yellow station wagon, leaning against its cool metal fender. In front of him Alain Lonzu was arguing now, voice higher and louder with anger and tension, waving his hands and talking fast. Bolt frowned. What the hell was going on over there?
    Hey, I know. Jesus, I know. The bastard’s telling them why Claude Patek’s not coming. Lying his ass off. Well, you and I know, don’t we, hot lips? You fucking wrapped a coat hanger around his neck, didn’t you, little brother?
    So your friend Patek’s off on the big sleep and you are talking some trash in a hurry. Yeah. I’d sure like to get closer and hear your story on my man Claude.
    You have a lot of stories going for you, little brother. Like telling us you’re just a vacationing French businessman, not a Corsican dope dealer. Well, maybe your high-priced lawyer believes that bullshit. Not me, Jack. No way.
    Maybe you’ve got friends in the French consulate who’ll lie for you. Well, I’ve got French friends, too. In the Paris police department.
    And you’ve got fingerprints—you left them all over your hotel room. Toilet seat, drinking glass, mirror, closet doors. Your fingerprints, my French friend, and three days to ask questions. And what do we come up with?
    We come up with your real name, yours and Claude’s. And when we hustle over to the hospital, what do we find?
    We find friend Claude half-naked and all dead, his face purple and blue and his goddamn tongue hanging out like he was a sheep dog on a hot day. He’s got a coat hanger wrapped around his neck like it was a silk tie, but he ain’t about to tell us whether or not he likes the fit.
    ’Cause he’s fucking dead, little brother. Nothing but cold meat now. And you, his one and only roommate, are the man of the hour. If you didn’t do it, your grandmother did. And since your granny’s molding in her grave, it’s you, lover boy. You.
    And I want you. Not because you did in Claude, but because you got