Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem Read Online Free PDF

remembered.
    “Tell me about Tony,” I said.
    “A small caliber bullet through the forehead. Brain freeze.”
    Ariel tossed back two fingers of rum.
    “Oh, yeah. And both eyeballs were slit with a razor. Some kind of juju trick. If the dead man can’t see his killer, he can’t say his name.”
    I wondered whether Tony’s eyes had been razored before or after lights out. One way was a lot easier to take than the other.
    Ariel reached his fingers into the flap pocket of his camouflage shirt, withdrew a shiny Zippo and set it on the table between us.
    “You left your lighter at the crime scene.”
    It was certainly mine. Chrome plated with the initials A.M. engraved in Celtic script with a rising sun behind. Except I’d lost it more than two years ago about the same time I quit smoking.
    “Is that all you have?”
    “We’ve got your DNA all over his cock.”
    “No way. It takes at least two weeks to get DNA test results back from London.”
    He shrugged.
    “So you were sleeping with him.”
    “Who’s framing me?” I asked.
    Ariel’s hand caressed my leg.
    Chances were all he wanted was to watch me make it with one or two of his crack Alpha Squad recruits. The video would get some laughs floating around the Caribbean rim.
    And I’d never find work again. Except maybe as a hooker.
    In the end, we settled on just a handjob, with my breasts showing. By then the bottle of 1 Barrel was two-thirds empty and I had no idea what I’d agreed to.
    Ariel stood up and pulled at my arm. I looked around at the pool table. The multi-colored vinyl curtains separating the bar from the restaurant. The smoking remains of the Cessna across the runway. It was like an acid flashback.
    I followed Ariel behind the bar.
    His pistol belt was already hanging from one hand. He started to unbutton his pants. I could see he was rampant.
    “Hey, pal. Give me the name first or it’s no sweet patooti for you.”
    I put my hand over his eye and my tongue in his ear.
    I heard him groan. As though I were torturing him. Cutting off his foreskin with a dull paring knife.
    “Give me the name.”
    “Leroy Poe,” he mumbled.
    The lawyer.
    My other hand pulled Ariel’s handgun from the dangling holster. The rum had vaporized my synapses. I was running wildly out of control. Uncovering Ariel’s single eye, I jammed the barrel of the weapon against it and pulled the trigger.
    CLICK!
    No ammo. I should have known.
    As Ariel’s hands grabbed my throat, I kneed him in the jewels as hard as I could. The next instant he was writhing on the floor like a dying insect.
    Tucking the empty .45 in the top of my jeans, I catapulted over the bar; then dashed down the room, out the smudged glass doors and across the observation deck. A drainpipe descended at one end. I made for it, and hoisting myself over the railing, eased down the galvanized pipe to the ground.
    There was still plenty of chaos out on the tarmac. Emergency vehicles parked at odd angles. Firemen, medics and security milling about.
    Unobserved, I trotted in the direction of the garages for the emergency response vehicles, just beyond the terminal to the east. As luck would have it, a new silver-gray Mitsubishi Shogun was parked beside the garages, the driver’s door open, its motor idling.
    Moments later I drove the off-road vehicle hell-bent for leather through the airport exit and turned onto the main highway into Saint Hippolytus. No one was following.
    I needed to find a hiding place as quiet as a grave to hole up in and figure out what the hell was going on.
     
    Abraham Swallow was a second cousin twice removed on my mother’s side. His job was caretaker of Death Shall Have No Dominion Cemetery, the original cemetery in Saint Hippolytus.
    Nowadays most dead people in Saint Hippolytus were buried in the new cemetery called Happy Rest. This was because Death Shall Have No Dominion was just about full up. But somebody still had to mow the grass, whack down the weeds and pour poison on the