Death Wish Read Free

sex-pots. They had drained away the steely ballet in his legs. The rattle-snaking instant oblivion coiled in his fists had crawled these caves of easy slime and died.
    Bone stumbled twice on the way down the stairs to the vestibule. The child junkie was shivering as she huddled over a large coffee can in a corner on the stone landing. She stared hypnotically at dragon tongues of fire licking into the chilled vestibule air from a tight roll of newspaper inside the can.
    Bone scrambled past her through the street door. He went to a snowbank at the side of the building and scooped up a mound of snow. He came back and flung it into the can. A steamy genie hissed angrily and escaped into the air.
    Angelo stood on the landing behind Bone, smiling crookedly. Bone squatted, clucking concern before the scarecrow clump sobbing and snotting guilt and fear of eviction.
    Bone patted her humpy back, and she cringed away and wailed. “That ain’t my fire. One of them Forty-seventh Street hypes musta made it. Bone, I swear it ain’t mine.”
    Bone said, “Easy, girl, you know your play. Uncle Bone wouldn’t put no hurt to you. Li’l Dee, why you in these streets like this on Christmas morning? Pearl know you out here?”
    She blotted a bubble of snot with her sleeve and said plaintively, “I been had a habit two months. Mama threw me out. Ain’t no room and food for no junkie with them ten squealers still at home.”
    Bone shook his head and said, “Go home, li’l Dee. Ain’t no way Cecil wouldn’t take you in tonight with that bad hawk screaming and blowing instant TB out there. Li’l Dee, use your outs.”
    She said sadly, “You ain’t heard? The cops wasted Papa hiding in Sam’s Baby Store just before midnight last night.”
    Bone sighed and fumbled with a ring of keys. He unlocked the glass door and held it open. He ordered in mock anger, “Li’l Dee, take your skinny ass to the shower in the basement and throw them clothes in the furnace. Tell old man Franklin, the janitor, I said give you a old shirt and a sandwich and let you sleep on that cot by the furnace. Uncle Bone will hustle up you a jive wardrobe in a coupla days. G’wan, girl, before I throw you to the hawk.”
    She got up laboriously like a decrepit crone, her child eyes brimming tears of gratitude. She squeezed Bone’s hand and kissed it.
    Bone tenderly slapped her bony behind and said, “Li’l Dee, stop playing that jive on Love Bone Larry Flambert. Girl, I’m hard and cold as a bandit squad roller at Eleventh Street Station.”
    She grinned wanly and started through the door.
    Bone held her arm for a moment, and his glazed eyes looked down seriously at her. “Li’l Dee, Uncle Bone gonna help you kick that thing you got. You gotta get back to your schoolbooks.”
    She nodded. The Tuinals wobbled Bone’s legs as he turned away and followed Angelo to the sidewalk. Angelo felt it unnecessary to play the disarming game of “you follow me in your El D.” Hesteered Bone directly to the yawning maw of the opened rear door of the black sedan.
    Bone stooped and swiveled his head inside the car for an instant and recoiled back against Angelo. “Man, who—?”
    Angelo cut in smoothly. “Mr. Collucci is gonna have a Christmas dinner, fun-and-games kinda thing, around noon at the roadhouse for some friends and their kids. The guy in the back is a chef, and the guy up front is his helper and waiter.”
    Bone mumbled and flung himself onto the backseat beside beaming Stilotti. Angelo slammed the door shut and went to the driver’s seat. He started the Caddie’s engine and pushed a button on the door armrest. Bone didn’t hear the faint click inside the door next to him as the sedan pulled away. Bone was sealed inside a two-inch-thick bulletproof glass-and-steel-plated rolling prison.
    Bone leaned across the seat and stared