Lone Wolf #7: Peruvian Nightmare Read Online Free PDF

For what? The poison would just be pumped into a different place. From San Francisco to Boston to Havana to Las Vegas back to Chicago and now to the Andes that weariness had pursued him, and now once again it struck. There were too many of them; there was only one of him. He had fought and would continue to fight, but would it make any difference? Did any of it? All that he could do was to struggle. If ever he became too temptingly dangerous as he had to Calabrese, then he was pure target.
    It was just too much.
    The gun, along with part of his resolve, hit the floor. He turned then, looking at the little man on the bed. His small bald skull was gleaming, the eyes reflecting amiability, and underneath it was a pain which Wulff could see as well but never touched, his tiny mouth creased into a deep, greeting smile. He might have been someone’s grandfather appearing at a wedding after a separation of decades, the difficult reunion accomplished through great effort, collisions, concern, trains ripping through the night. Now, panting from his efforts, at the wedding at last, he bestowed upon assembled relatives that smile of great kindness.
    The little man waved his gun at Wulff as if Wulff were the orchestra, the gun the baton, and then put it inside his jacket with a flourish. He raised his hands. “I see no need to hold a gun on you now, Mr. Wulff,” he said. “I merely had to assure myself, you see, that you would not do anything rash until I had a chance to talk to you. I know that you’re a sensible man and I merely wanted the opportunity now to talk sense.”
    He turned, looked at the corpses huddled against one another next to him, his mouth still kindly but the eyes showing a pleasure, even an ecstasy, which that mouth would never admit. Wulff felt the coldness begin to spread within him: he knew the little man now, he knew the syndrome; this was another one who got his kicks from death. “Our interests, you see,” the little man was saying, “are almost entirely the same—not only in this but in most instances.”
    “Are you sure of that?”
    “I’m really quite positive. I merely had to assure myself that this reputation of yours was deserved. There is so much deceit in the world—so much misdirection—huge corporations which have no purpose in life other than to spread lies. As individuals become dedicated to the lies, it is more and more difficult to ferret out the truth. I am devoted to the empirical method and I’m happy to say that you have confirmed my hopes in every way. You really do excellent work.” The old man patted the corpses, his hand smoothing the dead forehead of one of them as if he were coaxing splinters from a plank of wood. “Really excellent work,” he repeated.
    Wulff held his ground. When there was nothing to say, you simply left it that way as long as you could; sooner or later the situation would finally come around. In the meantime silence was the answer. He estimated his distance from the little man, and then with an imperceptible shake of the head that he knew could not be caught decided against jumping him. No. No, it would not pay. He had an excellent chance of disarming this man—a better chance, once that was done, of killing him—but then what? For what?
    He would still be in a room, with three corpses instead of two, in a hotel in a city he hated; his prospects would be worse than ever. Much worse. He did not know this assailant at all but one thing was clear: he was not Calabrese’s man. He was no one’s man. And that meant that their interests, after all, might be in common.
    The little old man curled on the bed like a fish, held that fixated smile on Wulff as if he had measured his prey’s own line of calculation and had found it good. “You understand, of course,” he said as if they already knew each other quite well (and in a sense they did, so well that conversation could be shifted from one point to the other with a shared line of association), “that