Nightmare City Read Online Free PDF Page A

up, stretch and pad towards them.
    ‘ Exactly? A grotty rundown disco with a bar and a late-night
food licence ... and if I put some money in it I might make some
back. Eventually. What’s your interest?’
    They were now strolling side by side along the
enclosure.
    Walking next to them, staring at them and grunting
frighteningly was the lioness, her muscles tensing with each step
under the tawny coat. Rider couldn’t tell if she was feeling
playful or hungry, but the size of her massive jaws and paws made
him relieved there was a strong fence between them.
    ‘ Partnership,’ stated Conroy.
    Rider stopped in his tracks. Conroy carried on a few steps
before realising he was alone.
    The lioness stopped too, lifted her black nose and looked down
its length through haughty black eyes.
    ‘ Fuck off!’ blurted Rider. ‘Why should I want to go into
partnership with you?’ He pointed at the lioness who had settled
back on her haunches to watch the discussion like a tennis umpire.
‘I’d rather climb in with her.’
    ‘ Oh, come on,’ began Conroy.
    ‘ I’ll head back to the car, if that’s all you came to
say.’
    Rider walked away, leaving Conroy open-mouthed and on the edge
of anger. The lioness growled at him, emitting a sound which seemed
to emanate from her belly, gathering momentum as it passed through
her throat into her mouth. Conroy jumped. He stuck two fingers up
at her and said, ‘You can fuck off too.’
    He stormed after the disappearing Rider. No one had walked
away from him whilst he was talking in the last ten years. People
listened to him. If they didn’t, they got something
broken.
    By the time he caught up with Rider, he’d adopted a pleading
tone of voice which held just the merest hint of threat in it.
Rider knew his way of speaking well.
    ‘ Look, John, I expect you’re wondering why I want a piece of
action up here, by the sea.’
    ‘ To peddle drugs, I imagine, which is your main source of
income,’ Rider said through the side of his mouth, still
walking.
    ‘ John, stop and fucking listen to me!’ Conroy took hold of
Rider’s arm and yanked him to a standstill. Rider halted abruptly,
faced Conroy and looked dangerously down at the hand which was
wrapped around his upper arm. Then he stared into Conroy’s
eyes.
    The hand dropped away.
    ‘ Sorry,’ mumbled Conroy. Good, Rider thought. He’s still
afraid of me. ‘I want to explain something.’
    ‘ You gotta minute.’
    ‘ I need to expand. I own the east of this fucking county, all
the way up from Blackburn to Colne. Clubs, pubs, council estates.
All mine, but I need to move on. They’re poor people across there,
only so much money. I’m stagnating and Blackpool has got to be the
place for my next move. So what better, eh, John? You’ve got a
club, and those doss-houses you run . . . let’s get back together
again and make some fucking bread.’
    Rider folded his arms defensively and looked into the
enclosure at which they were now standing. There was a high wall
surrounding a dry moat and a circle of grass with a few trees in
the middle of it. On one of the trees sat a huge, Silverback
gorilla, arms folded like Rider’s.
    Rider couldn’t help but smile.
    ‘ This place has great potential. Eighteen million visitors
every year. Pubs, clubs ... that gay scene - those twats love the
speed - no real organised stuff here, just two-bit villains with no
strategic mind like me. We’ll make a fucking killing. Me and thee
... like the old days.’
    They were standing more or less shoulder to shoulder, looking
at the gorilla as they talked, and he at them, as though
listening.
    ‘ He could be a doorman,’ Conroy laughed.
    Rider gave Conroy a sidelong squint. There was something not
quite right about this but he couldn’t pin it down. ‘Ron, you’re
lying about something here. I can tell when you ain’t telling the
truth. Your nostrils flare when you talk.’
    ‘ Eh? I am not lying, John,’ Conroy said earnestly, his
nostrils