Specimen & Other Stories Read Free Page B

was
looking and stuck the gun into his waistband. He took a pair of
sunglasses from the dash and slipped them on.
    He opened the back door and picked up a soda
can from the floor. He’d stuffed it lightly full of cat hair that
he’d accumulated from weekly brushings of his 12-year-old Angora
cat, whose name was Boston Blackie. The rate at which Blackie was
shedding was sufficient to handle about three hits a month, and
since Ken rarely achieved such a level of business, he had a bale
of hair at home, enough to stuff a couple of pillows or knit a few
sweaters.
    He locked the car and headed back to
Danforth, occasionally raising the soda can to his lips and
pretending to take a sip from it, but all he got was a whiff of
pussy hair. Typical. Sometimes a whiff, rarely a taste. But all
that could change...
    He glanced at himself in the window of a
storefront. Lookin’ sharp, man, like a car salesman in a recession,
all dressed up and no place to go. A couple of songs danced through
his head, competing for his attention. He’s a real nowhere man,
working with his awesome hands ... And those bearded Texas
bluesmen singing, Everybody talkin’ ‘bout a sharp-dressed
man ...
    He was a hundred feet away from the
restaurant when the banana shirt stepped out onto the sidewalk.
That was one thing Ken had, it was a sense of timing, like he was
right in lockstep with destiny. He followed Mr. Banana a dozen
stores down the street, and stood looking in the window of a
bookstore until the guy re-emerged from a convenience store. Mr.
Banana tore the cellophane off a pack of cigarettes, ripped out the
foil-wrap sleeve and lit a cigarette with a lighter. He crumpled
the waste in his fist and threw it half-heartedly at a trash bin,
totally missing the waste paper aperture, and the garbage fell onto
the sidewalk.
    Ken gritted his teeth, picked up the litter
and placed it in the Paper & Plastic compartment. It wasn’t
much, but it was the principle of the thing. What was the matter
with people these days?
    He followed the guy around the corner onto
Carlaw. A dark blue Porsche Cayenne was illegally parked in a
commercial zone. Its lights blinked, its horn made a little toot,
and its engine started up as Mister Banana approached it. Ken
crossed the street with him, glancing around him as he went. No
innocent bystanders to witness what was about to happen, the
nearest pedestrians on Danforth a good twenty yards away.
    Mister Banana opened the door and slipped
behind the wheel. Ken was just five steps behind him. He saw it was
a Cayenne Turbo, which listed for about $125K. Interestingly
enough, there was a big blue Handicapped placard lying on
the front dash. Oooh, bonus points!
    He caught the door just before Mr. Banana
swung it shut and in one smooth movement he pulled the Comanche
from under his jacket, jammed its barrel into the mouth of the soda
can and popped the guy one right under the armpit. The home-made
silencer burped discreetly. The guy leaned away from him, pawing
the air like he was trying to shoo away a bumblebee, and his voice
gagged in his throat, like the noise Blackie made when he was
trying to cough up a hairball. Ken grabbed the flapping hand, held
it tight for a moment, and popped the guy another one right in the
temple.
    There was no big splat from an exit wound
because a .22 didn’t have the power to do more than one cranial
wall. The slug just went in and bounced around once or twice and
that was all she wrote. The Cayenne’s cream leather interior would
be left unspoiled and the wife could either keep the ride or, if
she felt any guilt about it, sell it like new.
    “Now you’ve got a real handicap,” Ken told
the dead guy.
    He kept the soda can but dropped the gun on
the floor and closed the door. He looked around. Not a soul was
looking in his direction. He’d always been lucky that way too. He
walked back to Danforth and headed for his car. He stopped at one
of the litter bins and inserted the soda can into the