Age of Voodoo Read Online Free PDF Page B

guy.”
    “I think you’ll find it’s you who’ve fucked with the wrong guy.”
    They approached the Jeep.
    “Get in and go,” Lex ordered. “You come back here, any time, and I’ll know. And then I will seriously mess your shit up. Understand?”
    The front passenger door of the Jeep swung open and out stepped a giant in a seersucker suit. He was holding a pistol, a long-barrelled Desert Eagle .44 Magnum which, though a sizeable weapon, was dwarfed by his massive hand. A pair of Calvin Klein sunglasses perched atop his smooth-shaven head.
    “Tell me again,” the giant said in a bassy booming voice. He levelled the Desert Eagle at Lex, and diamond cufflinks sparkled at his wrists. “Who goin’ to mess whose shit up?”
     
     
    L EX KNEW EXACTLY who this was. He had never seen him in person before, but everyone in Manzanilla had heard of Garfield ‘the Garfish’ Finisterre. Seven foot tall, skinny as a whip, he was the island’s premier drug lord and loan shark. Garfish were pencil-thin, electric-blue fish that darted through the beach shallows and among the reefs, but there was nothing pretty or innocuous about this character. He had everyone who mattered in his pocket, from government bureaucrats to police officers. He was a master of top-down corruption and, it could be argued, Manzanilla’s true head of state.
    Wilberforce had really screwed up if he was in hock to the Garfish. But then, that put him on an equal footing with fully a fifth of the island’s population. Maybe as much as a third, if some reports were to be believed. When you wanted to borrow a lump sum of money, but didn’t have the kind of equity or capital a bank demanded, Finisterre was the man you went to.
    “Saw you creepin’ round the back,” Finisterre said to Lex. “Reckoned you’d try and save my friend Wilberforce in there, but I didn’t think you were anything my boys couldn’t cope with. Runty white punk like you. Seems like I guessed wrong.”
    “Seems like I should have checked that car first before I went in.” Lex was making light of it, but he could have kicked himself. Rookie blunder. He’d been on civvy street too long. Rusty.
    “Told you you were makin’ a mistake,” gloated Football Shirt.
    “Shut up, you.” Lex pressed the razor hard enough against the man’s neck to break the skin. Blood trickled from an inch-long incision. Football Shirt let out an anguished hiss.
    “Yes, shut up, Maurice,” said Finisterre to his henchman. “You haven’t exactly covered yourself in glory tonight, lettin’ yourself get sneaked up on and caught. Amateurish, that’s what it is. Not what I expect from an employee of the Garfish.
    “So,” he said, returning his attention to Lex, “we appear to find ourselves at an impasse.”
    “We do.”
    “You got my guy at your mercy, I got you covered with this.” He jerked his head at the Desert Eagle. “How we goin’ to resolve this?”
    “Simple. You back off, or Maurice here gets it in the neck. The three of you climb into the Jeep and drive away. Then I let Maurice go free and he can make his own way home. How about that?”
    Finisterre rebalanced his sunglasses on the dome of his head, pretending to consider Lex’s proposal. “Maybe.”
    “You don’t have a clear shot,” said Lex, careful to keep Maurice angled between him and Finisterre. “Miss me, even wing me, I’ll still be able to give him a new breathing hole. And don’t doubt that I’ll do it.”
    “Oh, no.” Finisterre looked deep into Lex’s eyes. “I can see that. You got it in you, all right. You have the look. I know who you are now. The Englishman who lives on the hill. What’s your name? Goose? Pigeon? Somethin’ birdy like that. You sort out troublemakers at Wilberforce’s shack, but always real polite, askin’ them to leave if you can rather than makin’ them. Placid on the outside. Don’t look like you’d harm a fly. But below, deep down—somethin’ dark in there, I can tell.