Black Juice Read Online Free PDF

pink and gold silks wouldn’t be seen from back down the street, I squeezed. The Fiore
thunked
softly, like a high-class staple gun. Tiny starfished, fell and curled up like a prodded caterpillar. ‘He’s down.’ The relief was a spout of iced water in the middle of my back; I’d wanted a good start.
    ‘Dugald. Ugly mug. Pokes kiddies, too.’
    ‘They all do, if you listen to some people,’ I said quickly. I didn’t want him to start on
those
stories, thank you. ‘There he is, peeing on a tree.’
    ‘Excellent. Get him like that.’ Jelly scrambled around to look.
    Thunk
. In the sights, Dugald arced over backwards, and his pee arced after him. He planted his face in the soft earth and lay still. ‘See the backflip?’ crowed Jelly. ‘Even
I
saw that!’
    ‘So I’ll get the hobbies?’ I hunted through the sights.
    ‘Naah, I’ve changed my mind. Let’s not waste ammo on ’em. Let’s only go for name brands, hey?’ He cackled and got out his notebook and pince-nez and push-pencil. ‘Ones we know and love,’ he added in an acid, upper-crust voice. He’d come a ways, too, only downwards.
    Jelly wrote the two names carefully in the book. He had quite a list already. ‘How’s it looking?’
    ‘Someone in white. Big.’
    ‘Could be Parrot?’
    ‘I thought Parrot was all colours. Um, like a parrot?’
    ‘Not these days. He went
ironic
, didn’t he?’ I could almost hear Jelly’s eyes rolling. ‘Set up a
dialogue
, you know? An opposition? Between signifier and signified? Tedious.’
    ‘Well, he’s got a green wig.’ I sensed there were a lot of rants and raves ready to run out of Jelly and pin back my ears.
    ‘Oh, it won’t be him, then.’
    ‘It’s written on him … Mint Patty.’
    ‘Course. Yeah, brrr. The ukelele man. What a gimmick. Yes, we have no bananas. I’ve got a luvverly bunch of—’
    ‘And Mista Glista.’
    ‘Blast him out of his sequins.’
    ‘They’re going off together, down towards the Palais.’
    ‘Anyone else with ’em?’
    ‘No, the others must be going to Nero’s. You rapid-fired with this thing?’
    ‘You bet. No problem for the Cha-cha to take ’em both out.’
    But they lined up so neatly I got them in one. ‘Will you look at that?’ I stepped back so he could check through the sights the puddle of white silks and orange sparklies, dropped neatly round the bend in the boulevard.
    ‘Very nice,’ he said smokily.
    I quite liked the smoke smell, and I could see what he meant about the feeling when you breathed it. I could take it up myself. But there were too many other things to spend money on right now. The borrow of this weapon, for a start. Tools to improve the world with. Tools for doing good.
    ‘Oh, look, they’re flooding out!’ Jelly was still at the sights. ‘Blackbird, Prince Prawn, the Tumblin’ Dice. Wouldn’t I like to put a rocket into that lot! Ants ’n’ Pants … Look, a Flying Orologio Brother! What a colourful band of beloveds. Which one’ll I pick off?’ He dialled with his cigarette hand, the smoke muddling the air around his fingers. ‘Ah, Your Highness. Not a good idea to split off to the pie shop today.’
Thunk
, said the Fiore gently, as if it knew it had to stay secret. ‘And Blackety Blackbird, lighting up at the park gate? I don’tthink so.’
Thunk
. Could I ever be patient enough to save up for a Fiore of my own?
    Jelly stood back, coughing. ‘Here, you better get those Dice—they’re heading Dugald’s way. Any old sec they’ll turn and run.’
    ‘I’m onto it.’
    I caught them in the cross-whiskers just as they stopped and baulked.
Thunk-thunk
.
    ‘And then someone’ll see
them
,’ grumbled Jelly, ‘and someone’ll see
that
someone, and before you know it we’ll have a trail of ’em leading out into the open and the rest’ll go to ground.’
    ‘Yeah, but we’ll have got so many.’
    ‘But we won’t have
chosen
. We’ll just have dropped anyone who happened by.’
    I shrugged. ‘It’s all