Black Juice Read Online Free PDF Page A

buffoon.
    The rain was only a spot here and there now, but thismorning’s storms had given all the gargoyles black beards, and hung drops from every stone leaf and berry. Rain-filled potholes glinted along the streets. We were crouched inside, in a mist of our own breath, the draught chilling our eyeballs. The filthy window was cracked open just wide enough for the muzzle of the Fioreschiacciare.
    ‘She’s a beautiful weapon, all right.’
    Jelly cocked his head, clicked his tongue in agreement, and kept fumbling in his jacket pockets.
    I stroked the curved clips remaining in the canister, awed at myself, how far I’d come. A top-of-the-line Fiore. Famous for her precision work during the Lemonade Wars, she was matt black, with the slender, high-haunched build of all the weapons Benato designed for Fiore. And totally focused on the job—no engraving, no mirror-plating, no fussy walnut work. The only mark on her was the serial number stamped into her barrel.
    Jelly dragged out a pouch and papers. I snorted. ‘With
your
lungs.’
    ‘Always feel like a ciggy after a good cough. For the dragging feeling.’ He flattened a hand to his chest and pulled in a breath of must and fog, pretending to swoon. Then he began the serious slow business of rolling a smoke.
    I went back to the sights. The view was as crisp and coloured as a spring morning; the Fiore’s cross-whiskers reached back through my eye to focus my very brain-stem. She had everything but a pulse.
    ‘We don’t want to drop ’em right there on the step.’ I tried to sound businesslike instead of excited. ‘Or no one else’ll come out. We want to get ’em along the boulevard, or once they hit the park there.’
    Jelly manoeuvred his back up the wall and squinted out the window-crack. ‘Hmmm.’ He slid down into his squat again, clinked open a lighter and set the rollie going. His eyes were puffy and bruised like a gangmaster’s, and his fingers had tiny shakes.
He didn’t make the auditions, this Jelly bloke
, Dogleg had told me.
But that’s all I know about him. ’Cept that now, his heart’s in the right place. You don’t need to worry about that
. ‘Some of them’ll just hang out there, for a smoke or some Dutch courage. On the step. Gabbing.’
    ‘Yeah, like Red Enjin, and Harry the Lair, and the ones in a troupe, like the Bangers or the Russian guys—they hang about together.’
    ‘We could do them all, last off,’ said Jelly. ‘Send a rocket in. Blow our cover and be gone.’
    ‘Except how would we know it
was
last off? Say we take out the Bangers—maybe Otto and his Atlantics were about to pop out for a smoke. It’d be a sin to miss them.’
    Jelly sucked on the rollie. ‘When we feel satisfied.’ He tapped his chest. ‘That’s when we’re finished. When we’ve made a dent in the program. When there’s enough gone to give us a warm fuzzy feeling.’
    ‘If you say.’ I didn’t often get those, myself. I got colder with every hit. Colder and more steely.
    Right on twelve hundred, a little flock of bouffons burst from the door, pulling out puffers and pill-bottles and chequered handkerchees. I startled—they were suddenly so close, I could see the sweat beading through their pancake.
    ‘They’re all in a clump, but moving,’ I said. ‘There’s Dugald, and Tiny Robins, and a few amateurs—do we want amateurs?’
    ‘Why not? Hobbies are the pros of the future.’ Jelly scratched his scalp energetically. Psoriasis lurked along the hairline, ready to run out and pink-and-white his face any second.
    ‘Well, they’re still all togeth—Hang on, they’re splitting. Tiny’s off by himself. He’s in a hurry somewhere.’
    ‘Tiny’s a good one to start with. Start off small, eh. Start off tiny. Geddit?’ Jelly didn’t laugh.
    ‘I will.’ I panned after Tiny along the boulevard towards rue Bleu. I knew he’d go up the little alley just before it, because Bleu was bad with the gangs. As soon as he turned in, where his