Internecine Read Online Free PDF Page B

cocktail reception. Glib. Terrific. I needed to purchase a spare hour somewhere just to wrap my brain around the concept of this ninja-looking sonofabitch now standing in my very own living room, and until I found my voice I was going to sound like a complete tool.
    He leaned against the counter. “Suppose I cut you loose? You going to cause any trouble, you think?”
    He was making it my responsibility, and the implied threat was already lying dead on the floor. Smart.
    “I really have to go to the bathroom.”
    “Don’t want to leak all over on your Danish cowhide? The reason I ask is because I have to decide what to do with you, and we have to reach an accord rather quickly, and—what’s your name?”
    “Conrad.”
    “And, Conrad, time is of the essence, and I need you to promise me that you don’t have a hogleg hidden in the bathroom, or something equally laughable. I’ll know if you lie, and I’m faster than you, and a better shot, too.” A lockback knife appeared in his grasp as magically as the gun had. He snicked it open by thumb, without looking. It was narrow and mean, probably of German manufacture, with a clip-point blade.
    “Try not to cut the chair.” My follicles, from the back of my head to the cleft of my ass, were standing sharply to attention. Cold, sickly sweat had popped from my pores. I couldn’t play cool, even faking it. My whole body would betray me, and I knew this man would see it, smell it, just
know
.
    “Don’t worry about the chair.”
    I saw him use a fingertip as a depth guide and he slit the tape around my wrists, again without really looking. I peeled loose and he handed me the knife.
    “Well, go ahead, Conrad.”
    He had given me the knife and I clumsily freed my neck, then legs. It was a test, to establish fake trust. Dammit, that was one of
my
tricks.
    “Does this have something to do with Ripkin? With Jenks? With the election?” I’m afraid I babbled.
    “Don’t know any of them,” my intruder replied.
    I closed the blade and handed the knife back to him, leery, as though feeding a treat to a surly alligator.
    “Go. You’ve got two minutes.”
    I always try to default to levity. “Sure, I can have a nervous breakdown in two minutes.”
    “I mean it. Hurry.” He was really loving that apple juice.
    I walked like a zombie to the bathroom on numb, unresponsive legs. Closed the door. Didn’t lock it. Made the mistake of staring at myself in the mirror. A huge crimson-violet cloudbank of bruise joinedmy eyebrows and the moisture on my upper lip was not perspiration, but thin drops of blood. My lying bladder mustered a dribble that would barely top off a shot glass. I flushed anyway. Rinsed my face. It hurt to touch my head. I leaned on the counter and tried to remember how to breathe. Hurry.
    When I came out, the intruder was still in the same spot.
    “Good,” he said. “Now, Conrad, listen carefully because I don’t have the time to explain things in detail or repeat myself. If you came out of that bathroom with anything in your pants besides your dick, tell me now.”
    “I’m not armed,” I said. He patted me down regardless.
    “Okay. Do you have any guns in the house I should know about?”
    “Just what’s in that thing.” I indicated the Halliburton. “Can I please get some water?”
    I saw his eyes and mouth compose a frown, through the holes in his mask. “Fuck, Conrad, it’s
your
house; you don’t have to ask. I thought you said you didn’t need a beverage. And don’t play that phony courtesy shit just because I have a gun. That gets on my nerves.”
    I poured and drained a crystal tumbler of seltzer, imagining I could feel his gaze boring into my shoulder blades, or maybe the horripilation of a gunsight, trained there. But when I turned around, he wasn’t even facing me.
    “Conrad,”
he said peevishly. “You’re not my fucking
hostage,
okay? I ran a fast meditation unit while you were in the can and I’ve decided I can’t neutralize