Stiffed Read Online Free PDF Page A

Street, Boston.  As for what kind of neighborhood it is, I can’t say.  If Junior’s living there it probably isn’t great.  If it’s Barry White’s neighborhood it probably fits every urban dystopian stereotype one can think of, though the scary dude was driving a Lexus.  Who knows?  Suffice to say, they’re from the big, bad city.
    The iP hone needs a four digit code to access its functionality, which renders it inert for now.  The handgun is a Kimber Raptor.  It has a stainless steel body and a wooden clad handle.  I wouldn’t know a Kimber Raptor from any other gun.  To me they are all just gun-shaped and fire bullets.  I have no use for one and I never want to use one. 
    Frankly, it being in our possession makes me nervous.   More nervous than I already am and I’m well up whatever scale they measure nerves by.  The sphincter scale, probably.  I’m at the ‘insides writhing, buttocks clenched’ level. Guns and bad things happening go hand in hand.  Or at least hand in hand of whoever is holding one.
    Annabelle and I have left Jason in his basement with a set of tasks: find out more about Carter; discover a way into his iPhone; and organize a vehicle suitable for getting rid of Marino, Junior and my blood stained mattress.
    The first two tasks should be relatively straightforward.  The big man spends most of his day messing about on the Internet, or fiddling about with bits of computer equipment or gadgets, or programming code for a company in California that he freelances for, or playing World of Warcraft, which he does for hours on end. 
    He’s connected to the whole world, but spends the majority of his time staring at two screens in his basement , hammering at a keyboard.  Fit fingers, fat everything else.  The main thing is, he’s a friend, he’s trustworthy and he’s now bound into this mess whether he likes it or not. 
    The street is quiet.  That eerie calm before the day breaks and people scurry out from their homes into their cars and head for a day of making ends meet.  The neighborhood is part of an inner suburb of Folk Victorian units built in the 1920s to cater for an emerging middle class that then almost got wiped out by the depression that followed.  Each house is a slightly different design and is set near to the road, with a front porch and a slither of front garden, and separated by enough space to get a car between to access back garages. 
    Number 67 looks fine except for the broken pane in the front door and the need for a fresh lick of paint.  Kate’s Carrick Crusaders cap is on the front porch.  I pick it up, widen the strap and put it on.  Kate rarely left the house without it.  Baseball was one of the few things on which we just about always agreed and we barely missed a game at Spring Stadium - buckets of popcorn, 16 ounce beers, chili hotdogs and the occasional home run. 
    I open the door and stand in the hallway. 
    Nothing but silence . 
    And no sign that Marino had tumbled down the stairs or Junior’s brains had been splattered across the wall. 
    To the untrained eye at least.
    ‘ Come on, let’s get started,’ Annabelle says, brushing past me, heading for the kitchen.
    I duck into the front room and glance around.  The clock above the fire place reveals the time to be 5.35am.  The day is barely a few hours old, yet it already seems to have lasted a lifetime.
    ‘Tadhg!’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘You better get in here.’
    ‘Now what?’ I mutter to myself.
    Annabelle has her foot on the pedal that opens the large metal waste bin.  Under the raised lid a blood stained shirt is clearly visible.
    ‘I think we now know what happened to Marino’s clothes.’
    ‘Shit!’
    ‘We need to go through the pockets.’
    ‘Be my guest.’
    ‘Get a spine, Tadhg.  You’re in freefall on the manliness scale.’
    ‘I was barely on the manliness scale.’
    ‘You managed to bash Psycho-Bitch over the head and drag her into your cave.  Mind you, she was