Cut Throat Dog Read Online Free PDF

obscenities and curses.
    The longer the outpouring of curses continues the more certain Shakespeare becomes that the voice over the phone is indeed that of Tino the Syrian, in other words ‘Tino Rossi’, who he himself had given the name of ‘Adonis’ when he came up with the first plan to liquidate him with the help of a Lebanese hunter who received a handsome sum in the course of a nocturnal boar hunt in the valley of Lebanon. Certain as he is, all he has to go on is the sound of the voice implanted in his memory, which he learned to know in the course of listening to Adonis’s phone calls. But the more he tries to concentrate on this voice, the more the memory dims, until he begins to doubt whether it is indeed the velvety voice that caressed his ear two decades ago. He needs to make him go on talking.
    What exactly did the prophets say? he throws him a bone.
    They said that you’re all a terrible plague, that there’s nothing healthy in you, that you’re a rotten stinking sore that can’t be cured, from head to foot.…
    ‘From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it’, he hears the voice of Meir Blechman, the Bible teacher, who liked to stand before the class and declaim the terrible lines from Isaiah with pathos: ‘Wounds and bruises and putrifying sores: they have not been closed neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.’ And Tony continues:
    Your lips tell only lies, and your tongues speak only evil, and your hands are filthy with blood!
    ‘Your hands are full of blood’, he hears Blechman’s voice again, getting in the way of his attempts to identify the familiar stranger.
    You should all be loaded on old freighters, and drowned in the middle of the sea, like rats in a trap!
    Do you know who you’re talking to? Hanina tries a different tack.
    I know, says Tony, I’m talking to a rat.
    What do you know about this rat that you’re talking to? asks Hanina.
    I know everything I need to know.
    Did you ever meet him, this particular rat who’s talking to you now?
    It’s enough to know one rat in order to know all there is to know about all rats, pronounces Tony.
    I’m afraid you don’t yet know everything about rats, says the rat.
    You’re all sons of dogs, sons of apes, sons of asses! The zoologist gets carried away.
    Make up your mind, says the rat, sons of dogs, apes or asses?
    You think you’re so smart? You’re always smarter than everyone else. You think you can screw the whole world. You treat other people like animals. Like insects. You think you’re permitted everything, because of what was done to you. Let me to tell you: what was done to you is nothing compared to what’s waiting for you. This time nobody will come to your defense. This time we’ll finish you off.
    Why don’t you start with one rat? Hanina suggests. No reply. Hello? calls Hanina, hello? Mister exterminator? Hello?
    Hanina decides to use his final weapon:
    Sir, I’m sorry to inform you that you’ll never see Miss Winnie again. Not on the second of January and not ever. You can cross her off the list of the girls who work for you.And that’s just the beginning. I’ll take them all away from you, one by one.
    The silence on the other end of the line goes on for two or three seconds, and then the stranger’s voice comes on again, and it seems to have undergone a change:
    Why are you provoking death?
    It’s a habit, replies Hanina.
    Wait till we meet! Tony says in a menacing voice.
    Why wait? Give me your address, and I’ll be happy to pay you a visit right away, says Death and winks at Winnie, who looks at him with wide open eyes.
    I know where you are, blusters Tony, and you won’t get away from me.
    I’m always at your side, says Death.
    What do you mean? Tony loses his confidence.
    Your hands sweat, your pulse is rapid and irregular. Your heart’s not healthy. You’re not at your best. I won’t let go of you until you’re mine. And let me tell you, my word is worth