Dead of Winter Read Online Free PDF Page B

range shit. From that day onward, I’ll be able to see the pores in their skin, instead of this grainy shit. It even comes with crystal clear audio.’
    ‘Would you be able to run this tape through your HD when it arrives, get it clearer?’
    ‘No. Incompatible. Sorry, man.’
    ‘No need to be sorry. You did great, pal. I suspect whoever was driving that car spotted the cops, panicked, and then discarded their unwanted cargo. At least now I can relax. It was random, rather than being deliberately dumped at my doorstep.’
    ‘You…you’re not going to tell the cops about this. Are you?’ Richard suddenly looked jumpy. ‘I could get into all sorts of crap with these cameras.’
    ‘Don’t worry. The cops don’t even know you exist. The less they know, the better.’ Karl slipped Richard a twenty.
    ‘You don’t need to pay me. I’m more than willing to do this after you got me a good deal on this place.’
    ‘Stop thanking me. I only did it because you were becoming an eyesore, sleeping in my doorway, scaring away potential clients.’
    ‘You’re not the hard man you let on to be.’
    ‘Hard? Me? The only things hard about me are my socks and underwear.’
    ‘Hey, man, now that I have you here. I’m doing a showing of
Star Wars
, back to back, tonight, with a few mates. You’re more than welcome to join us. I’ll even supply you with a lightsabre.’
    ‘Er, thanks for the offer, Richard, but I’ve a poker game tonight. Some other time, perhaps?’
    Richard looked crestfallen.
    ‘Okay, man. Some other time…’
    Karl made his way to the door and opened it.
    ‘One word of warning, though.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I find out you put my naked arse on the Internet, I’ll come back and kill you with one of those ninja swords on the wall.’
    Richard’s mouth gaped open like a frog’s.
    Karl smiled wickedly before exiting.

CHAPTER SEVEN
THE NAKED CITY
    ‘We’re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life!’
    Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending
    S now was dropping like dead feathers from the heavy night sky as Karl waited for the traffic lights to change. Overhead, telephone wires tensed tightly and deadly, like garrottes waiting for an unsuspecting victim’s neck. He glanced from the telephone wires to the luminous face of the impressive Albert Clock, standing in the night’s darkness like a sentinel. The hands of the colossal clock were touching the dangerous side of three in the morning.
    ‘Shit. Is
that
the fucking time?’ He glanced at his watch. Worst fear confirmed. Ten minutes after three. He’d be in for it from Naomi, having said he’d be home by one. But lady luck had steadfastly refused to leave his side at the poker game, and his endurance was rewarded with a tidy pile of winnings. He’d let Naomi ice-cube him for a day, then, when her anger had defrosted, give her lots of something nice, made of paper with the word fifty written all over them. She liked nice things like that.
    ‘Come on, lights.’ The red traffic light seemed to be stuck, itsglow washing over his fingers tapping impatiently on the steering wheel.
    Glancing out the side window, he could see three scantily dressed women gathering at the corner of Victoria Street, studying him studying the red light. They seemed an apparition in the swampy snow.
    It was then he recognised her, and did a quick and illegal U-turn, pulling up alongside the trio, before cranking the window down.
    ‘Lipstick?’ he said, to the youngest of the three whose skin was practically a pale blue hue from the cold. Her face was covered in make-up and bright red lipstick. To Karl, the lipstick looked like a bloody mouth wound.
    ‘Hey, handsome. How about you and me doing…? Oh, Karl…’ The young girl’s forced smiled quickly disappeared.
    ‘Get the hell in!’ snapped Karl.
    Lipstick’s face went serious while reluctantly easing her slight frame into the car.
    ‘Arse is frozen off,’ she managed to say,