Good As Gone Read Online Free PDF Page B

said.
    I immediately grabbed Geoffrey by the shoulders and spun him around.
    “I need to have a brief talk with Remy,” I said.
    Geoffrey began to protest in French, but I slapped a hand over his mouth and told him to calm down and remain silent. I flung open Remy’s door without knocking, holding Geoffrey in front of me in case Remy had a piece.
    On the bed a naked young woman screamed.
    “Geoffrey, tell her to keep quiet and put something on.”
    Panting, Geoffrey said, “She understood you.”
    “Good,” I said. “I’m not here to hurt anyone, but, Remy, I’m going to need a few answers from you. You speak English?”
    “Who the fuck are you?” Remy shouted.
    “I’ll take that as a resounding yes,” I said.
    I grabbed Geoffrey’s wrist and twisted it behind his back till he howled in pain. This was the problem with going private and not carrying a badge or a gun. You always had to display something to assert your authority, and brutality was often all you had.
    “Remy,” I said, “grab that pen over on the nightstand and start me a list of everyone you sold 007s to in the past ten days.”
    “Why should I do that?”
    “Because if you do, I’ll go away. If you don’t, I’ll stay. And take my word, Remy, you don’t want me to stay. I get bored very easily, and when I get bored, I tend to break things. Your flatmate’s arm, for example: it’s all but begging to be fractured. And that’s just a start.”
    Remy reached for the nightstand and snatched the pen. As he did, I inched closer to the bed.
    “I have no paper,” he said.
    “Get creative.”
    Remy reached to the nightstand again. This time he opened the drawer. Slowly and just enough for his hand to fit through. I noticed his wrist tense, as though his fingers were closing around something. I glanced at his bare chest; his breathing was growing more rapid.
    At that moment, I threw Geoffrey hard into the wall, reached under the sheets, and gripped Remy by the ankles. The girl screamed again. I pulled with everything I had. Remy hung on to the edge of the drawer, pulled it out of the nightstand, its contents crashing onto the floor. Remy’s naked body flew off the bed like a kid’s at the end of a water slide. Only Remy’s body didn’t hit pool water; his back hit the hardwood with a harsh thud.
    I glanced at the spilled contents of the drawer on the side of the bed. A bunch of pill bottles, a few vials, a number of one-inch glassine bags. And a .38 Special snub-nosed revolver.
    “That was a mistake,” I said, grabbing Remy by his thick, curly hair. I dragged him across the wooden floor, past his fallen friend, toward the spilled drawer. I knelt and picked up the gun, felt its weight in my hand. It was loaded. I stood, pushed Remy facedown onto the bed. Cocked the hammer.
    “All right, you want to do this the hard way?” I said. “Fine by me. The first bullet goes into your Achilles tendon. Never seen it done before, but I imagine it hurts like hell.”
    “Non, s’il vous plait,” Remy muttered. “Please, I’ll do anything.”
    “Now there’s the French spirit. Tell me, Remy: in the past ten days, how many individuals did you sell 007s to? Lie to me, and I’ll put a bullet in you.”
    “About six, maybe seven people.” He was already short of breath.
    “How many of those were women?”
    “Three.”
    “And the men, what were their names?”
    Remy hesitated. I pressed the gun into the back of his skull to help him along.
    “My friend Andre,” he rasped, “and his cousin Louis. The two others, I don’t know their names.”
    “Your friend Andre, where can I find him?”
    “He and Louis left on holiday to London last week. That is why he wanted the pills.”
    “And the other two,” I said, “how did you meet them?”
    Deep breaths. “I met them at a pub in the Marais.”
    “What did they look like? Where were they from? Were they residents or tourists?”
    “Business,” Remy said. “They told me they were here on