Dead Heat Read Online Free PDF Page A

his regulars, a good payer either in cash or blowjobs, but usually he dealt with her in another location, out in the streets. She had been to his flat occasionally, but it was only yesterday he had supplied her with a quarter gram of heroin. He did not expect to see her so soon – and certainly not at his abode.
    His hands hesitated on the numerous locks and bolts which secured his steel-backed door. Something did not feel quite right. ‘I only saw you yesterday, girl. Our next meet is tomorrow. You know that. I don’t deal from here.’
    â€˜I know man, I know,’ she’d pleaded convincingly. ‘I’m desperate, had a really bad night, really withdrawing, shaking like mad.’
    Goldman knew what that was like, for he, too, was an addict. Aches, tremors, sweating and freezing, sneezing and yawning. Any combination of these effects. He felt for her.
    â€˜You got cash?’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜Show me,’ he insisted through the door.
    â€˜Oh, fuckin’ hell, Goldy,’ she whined.
    â€˜Look, you’re a day early and I’m a nervous guy.’
    â€˜Yeah, I know I’m early Goldy, but I’m fuckin’ desperate. I need it now and I’ve got the cash . . . look.’
    Goldy saw her wave a handful of notes up to the spy hole.
    â€˜OK, OK, hang on.’
    â€˜Yeah, thank fuck for that, Goldy,’ she said and stepped away from the door as he unlocked it.
    The heavy door swung open, its hinges well oiled and maintained. Goldman appeared on the threshold and looked down at Denise as she wobbled and reached for the burning cigarette on the worn floor. He immediately noticed her missing trainer.
    She caught his eye as she glanced up and in that split second Goldman knew he had been set up by one of his best customers.
    He was already moving backwards into his flat when Turner leapt up from his crouch and swung the baseball bat in a wide arc at Goldman’s head.
    It connected with a hollow smack, right across the bridge of his nose, which crumbled instantly, sending him staggering backwards down the short hallway, into the living room, pursued by the vengeful forms of Turner and Newman, coming after him like a pair of devils.
    Goldman’s nose had broken marvellously, blood gushing everywhere down the front of his T-shirt, which originally had been white.
    As Turner roared from the hallway into the living room, he wielded the bat again, this time whacking it sideways across Goldman’s temple, knocking him to the ground, senseless. Behind Turner, Newman ducked and weaved to get the best angles he could in order to record the terrible assault on camera. He got one great shot of Goldman as he pitched floorwards, then another, as on the way down, Turner managed to get another blow in on the back of the drug dealer’s skull.
    Goldman lay between his furniture, writhing slowly and moaning piteously face down in the pool of blood spreading underneath his face, bubbles foaming as he laboured to breathe.
    Turner’s chest rose and fell from his short burst of exertion. There was a large smile on his face, one of victory.
    â€˜Here – get one of this,’ he instructed Newman. Turner bestrode Goldman’s prostrate form, rested the tip of the bat in the middle of the injured man’s back, between the shoulder blades, and placed his hands one on top of the other on the tip of the bat, as though he was a great white hunter astride a kill.
    Newman fired away.
    â€˜Now this.’ Turner reached down and grabbed Goldman’s ponytail. He heaved his head up and held his blood-drenched face to the camera. ‘Get this,’ he told Newman.
    â€˜Got it!’
    Turner dropped Goldman’s face back on to the carpet. It smashed into the puddle with a squelch. Now he was not moving at all.
    â€˜Think he’s dead?’ Newman asked.
    â€˜No, he’s still breathing . . . I think.’
    More often than not, surveillance operations