Joe Pitt 5 - My Dead Body Read Online Free PDF Page B

the cold if a bust comes down. Or any kind of stalker trouble. I ran security on his studio more than once. I won’t lie and say it was a happy place, but I never found anyone shooting up to get loose for an anal gang bang, or being slapped around because they didn’t want to do a face fuck.
    All in all, Chubby’s a gentleman scumbag.
    I find the other item I was looking for. A one-foot length of bicycle inner tube packed tight with sand, stitched shut at both ends with heavy thread. Lighter than you expect when you heft it, it’ll drop just about anyone when you lay it across the back of their skull. It goes in the pocket opposite the wire saw.
    --Sure then, you know a lost soul when you see one. The boy was a helpless kitten looking for acceptance in a cold world. So why’d he take your daughter somewhere you can’t find?
    He shakes his head.
    --It’s not me they ran from, Joe. The boy.
    He brings the cigar to his lips, realizes it’s gone out and lowers it.
    --The boy was pledged to the Coalition.
    I’m looking at the gun I took from Dallas, checking to see if it’s anything I can rely on. I look up from it.
    --Shit.
    Chubby nods.
    --He crossed onto Society turf to meet my daughter. And stayed.
    --Shit.
    He takes a step my way.
    --Things up there. Joe. In the past, if I wanted to know anything about what was happening, it took an effort. Subtlety. One had to mind one’s Ps and one’s Qs. Simple awareness of the Vyrus was a threat. Now. It’s … hectic. Word of bizarre goings-on reach my ears unbidden. There are rumors. Not among the straight citizens, not yet. But at the borders and fringes. Things are being said. In barrooms, massage parlors, shooting galleries, after-hours clubs, street corners, and, I’d dare say, in police precinct rack rooms when the bottle is being passed about. Things are being seen. Disbelieved most often, but they are seen. And reported on. Blogs. The tabloids even. Serial killings unlike anything since Jack the Ripper. That is the tone. There is a palpable tension on the street. Anyone who lives close to the edge of things feels as if something is coming. The straights itch. A second shoe is expected. An ill wind. Metaphors of every kind. In an atmosphere such as that, it takes very little for tempers to flare.
    The gun is OK. It’s an automatic. It’s black. The barrel has a hole at the end big enough for something serious to come out of it. The clip is loaded. And I can’t find Made in China stamped on it anywhere. It’ll do what it’s supposed to.
    I stick it in my belt at the small of my back and pull the jacket down over it.
    --What happened, Chubby? Straight.
    --What happened.
    He snaps the cigar in two pieces and lets them drop from his fingers.
    --Terry Bird accepted the boy into the Society. He cannot compete with the Coalition in terms of troops and arms, but he is an effective propagandist. Young man crosses battle lines for love, to the only place where such love will be accepted. Society turf. Infected and uninfected.
    I grunt.
    I can hear Terry pitching it in my head. It’s, you know, Joe, it’s exactly what we’ve been talking about. A story of acceptance. This is the kind of thing, this is a uniting kind of thing. Or some shit like that. Playing with his John Lennon specs and his ponytail, selling his version of the revolution. Years of old blood dripping from his hands the whole time. A show I’ve seen before.
    Chubby places the toe of one of his formerly well-shined shoes on half the broken cigar and grinds it into the dirt.
    --It raised Dexter Predo’s ire, having one of his own raised up as a Society poster child. And then things became rather more complicated.
    He places his hands on either side of his belly.
    --She started to show. Needless to say, the idea of this baby has generated passionate debate. Bird seems to think it could be the thin edge that would allow him to take the Vyrus public. Predo sees the opposite. Interrace breeding has always