.45-Caliber Deathtrap Read Online Free PDF

had turned such a sweet, pretty girl to whoring until she’d told him, the last time he was through Columbine, that her parents had broken up and simply abandoned her on the streets of Denver.
    That was often all it took.
    Cuno swung past her, looked at the house. In the second story, a lace curtain swung down across a window.
    â€œWounded?”
    â€œYeah, but he’s getting better,” Lara said. “He’s also got one of them big, long pistols. Near as long as a rifle.”
    â€œA Buntline Special,” Cuno said, thumbing fresh cartridges through his loading gate.
    â€œHe’s got a taste for strange pleasures too.”
    â€œNot much longer.”
    Cuno tramped with her toward the house, behind which the sun was setting, casting shadows into the yard around half a dozen half-dressed girls.
    â€œSorry about what happened to Scanlon,” Lara said gently behind him.
    â€œStay here.”
    Holding his .45 down low at his right thigh, Cuno passed the girls standing silent amidst the buckbrush and sage of the pleasure house’s front yard. As he climbed the porch and started through the open front door, a plump, middle-aged woman with bottle-blond hair piled loosely atop her head grabbed his left arm.
    â€œHe was upstairs beatin’ hell outta one of my girls a while ago. Haven’t heard a peep out of him since the shootin’ started.” Her breath smelled like candy and tobacco, Miss Mundy’s two worst vices. She read the Bible aloud to her girls every Sunday, however, and did not personally imbibe.
    Cuno nodded and moved slowly through the door. He crossed the shabby parlor to the stairs and the room’s rear, took the carpeted stairs two steps at a time, walking softly on the balls of his boots, the .45 aimed straight out from his right side.
    He gained the top step and stopped.
    The air was rife with the smell of whiskey, tobacco, perfume, and sex. A window at the far end of the hall offered the only light.
    Cuno took one step forward. A latch clicked. A door on his right and ten yards ahead swung inward. Soft, natural light spread across the hall’s musty runner and opposite wall. A bulky shadow grew on the wallpaper.
    A skinny, naked man stepped into the hall and turned to face Cuno. He held a naked girl before him, one hand clutching her arm, the other holding a long-barreled pistol to her head.
    The man wasn’t much taller than the girl, and he wasn’t much broader. His blond hair was longer than hers, reaching nearly to his waist. His left side was covered with a heavy, white bandage crisscrossed with cotton straps. His face was long and narrow, his eyes blinking rapidly.
    Cuno heard his short, shallow breaths. The girl groaned softly, her body rigid with fear. The fetor of the ground roots, mud, horse shit, and whiskey packing the man’s gunshot wound instantly overcame all the other smells in the hall.
    The hard case gave the girl’s hair a vicious yank. “Throw the gun down, you murderin’ bastard! I’ll kill the whore!”
    Cuno stopped and lowered the gun to his side. “What do I care about a whore?” he asked quietly.
    â€œI’ll kill her!” the hard case shrieked. “I swear I will. You’ll have this whore’s death on your conscience for the rest of your life.” He jerked the girl’s head sharply; she screamed.
    â€œNo,” she whimpered, grabbing at the man’s skinny arm wrapped around her neck. “Please…”
    Cuno blinked. “What’s your name, friend?”
    The hard case stared at him dully, the bridge of his nose wrinkling. “Huh?”
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œSylvester. Sylvester Cannady. Why you askin’?”
    â€œJust wanna know what name to carve on your headstone.”
    As the hard case’s mouth snapped wide with exasperation, Cuno raised his pistol and fired. In the close quarters, the report sounded like a