The Deader the Better Read Online Free PDF Page B

exactly like
my parents’ house before the renovation. Big central staircase
leading down to the front door. Another, smaller set of stairs
leading directly from the kitchen. Easier on the servants, you know.
Bedrooms running the length of the back of the house. Assuming that
the door at the end of the hall was the master bedroom, nine bedrooms
in all.
    We got lucky. I don’t know how many
more doors I could have forced myself to open. The first one was
horrific. I pulled my head back through the crack and closed the
door. I must have looked bad. Narva stepped over, peeked in and had
the same reaction.
    “Yuk,” she said.
    Door number two. An older blond woman
in jodhpurs and riding clothes rode around the room on the back of a
younger man, flailing a riding crop at his naked buns. “Jump, damn
you,” she yelled as she swung. “Jump.”
    Door number three was locked. Narva
raised a finger. Walked back to the equestrian events, pulled open
the door and took the old-fashioned key from the inside of the lock.
When I pushed it into the lock, I heard another key fall to the floor
on the inside.
    He was struggling into a pair of blue
silk boxers when I pushed open the door. Looked like the Monopoly
man. Old, big white mustache. I’d have said distinguished if he
hadn’t been locked in a room with a naked thirteen-year-old girl.
“Now, see here,” he sputtered. “I was assured—”
    I gave him everything I had. Got a
good hip turn and rolled my shoulder over, getting my weight behind
the punch. Hadn’t caught anybody that clean in years. He hit the
wall on the fly and then slid to the floor in a pile. Misty McMahon
opened her mouth to scream, but Narva was on her in a flash, kneeling
astride the girl, stifling the shout with her hand. “We’re
friends,” she kept saying as the girl thrashed about. I knelt on
the bed beside her struggling form. “Your grandmother sent me,” I
said. She stopped thrashing and turned her frightened eyes my way. I
gave her the abridged version. “Do you want to go home?”
    She nodded and began to cry. Narva
removed her hand.
    “They won’t let me go,” she
sniffled.
    The Monopoly man flopped over onto
his back, groaning. He rolled into the thick red puddle his broken
mouth had left on the floor.
    The only clothes she had were in
something of a Catholic school motif. Our Mother of Hollywood. Plain
white blouse. Knee socks, a plaid skirt barely long enough to cover
her ass and a pair of patent leather shoes with the strap across the
top.
    While Narva got her dressed, I
checked the hall. “We’re going to march right down the front
stairs and out the door,”
    I said.
    “Angel will never let me—”
    I reached into my coat and brought
out the automatic. Thumbed off the safety. Folded my arm across my
chest so most of the gun was under my arm. “You let me worry about
Angel or anybody else who gets in our way. You just stay close behind
me and do what I tell you, okay?” I didn’t like the look in her
eyes. She was wired to the ears. Meth, probably. Wouldn’t want to
waste good drugs on a kid. “Okay?”
    She didn’t answer. I looked over
her to Narva. “Keep her between us and keep moving,” I said.
    I checked the hall again, still
empty. “Let’s go,” I said. At the top of the stairs, I pushed
the red button on G’s pager and started down.
    We almost made it clean. When the
front door first came into view, it was unattended. I checked over my
shoulder. Narva was close behind the girl, pushing her along. I took
Misty’s hand in mine and pulled her down the stairs behind me. Then
the voice. “So where’s dese players been usin’ my name in
vain?”
    Gunter came into view. The sight of
us standing on the stairs stopped him. He lifted a hand to his coat.
I pointed the Glock at his forehead. The hand flopped back to his
side. I slid the gun back under my arm.
    Angel Monzon was barely five feet
tall. He wore a stiff white shirt with a butterfly collar. Around his
neck