When the Killing Starts Read Online Free PDF Page A

who was plowing through the crowd with his aluminum tray at arm's length over his head. I hoped somebody didn't tickle him.
    He stopped at our table and dropped four draft. The Soldier of Fortune would have outdrawn Billy the Kid to get his cash on the table. He tipped a quarter. The waiter sniffed and left.
    He pushed a glass toward me. "Down the hatch," he said almost jovially.
    "Here's looking up your address." Freda, if you could only see your boyfriend now!
    I can see why women are reluctant to let a guy pay for their drinks. It gives him a share of your life. Even if you gulped it down, you couldn't leave without giving him what he considered his money's worth of time. Maybe more for a woman. He flung the questions at me like incoming fire. I could soon tell that he was a reader; he knew the history of the war better than I did. But I guess a ringside seat gives you perspective that the fighter in the ring never gets. I sat and answered questions for twenty minutes, nursing that first beer while he finished his two, and started my second, waving to the waiter, who had developed short sight as far as our table was concerned.
    "Where were you wounded?" he was asking when I held up my hands to stop the questions, doing it slowly enough that he could see the white slash across the underside of the left arm, where my radius bone came up for air.
    "No more questions, okay," I said, but he was peering at the wrist.
    "Hell, that looks like it was painful."  
    "It was." I took another little nibble at my beer. "But tell me, if you're this interested, why don't you join the marines yourself? They're still looking for recruits." It was like fishing. I let the line go slack here by adding, "And right now there's no chance of getting shot at."
    He straightened up again. "Yeah. You unnerstan' I'm not gung ho or nothin', but I don't wanna sit around polishin' brass. I wanna see some combat."
    I gave the fishing line a tiny tug. "Well, you ask me, the marines is your best bet."
    At last it was his turn to act superior instead of humble, and he clenched his jaw again, managing to smile as he did so. He looked as if he had heartburn. "Oh, no," he said. "Oh, no, it ain't."
    I laughed. "There wasn't any war on last time I saw the papers."
    "Plenny of 'em," he said. "You gotta know where to look."
    "Yeah?" The old soldier kidding.  
    "Yeah." He was bursting to tell me now. "Like you won't let this go any further, okay?"
    "Hell, I don't even know your name," I said.
    "Baks," he said, and stuck his hand out. "John Baks. I'm from Huntsville."
    It's a small town up in the bush, nothing much there but a sawmill and a Canadian tire store. I said, "Oh, sure, I know Huntsville."
    "They oughta call it Dullsville," he said.  
    I laughed again, Uncle Tomming.
    He smiled, then clenched his jaw. It must be tired by now, I figured. "Two hundred a week, working at the feed store. Not for this sucker. I'm heading for big money."
    "Gonna rob a bank?"
    He shook his head and leaned forward, almost whispering, although he could have shouted under the bass voice of Johnny Cash with "Sunday Morning Coming Down." "No. I'm meeting a guy here tonight, gonna head south, see some action, earn some real money."  
    "Doing what?" I stared at him suspiciously, dumb. "That's classified," he said happily. He sat hugging his snug little secret, smiling his tight-assed smile.
    "Well, what kind of money? How much?" I put enough disbelief into my voice that he had to prove his superiority. He bit.
    "Two grand a month, plus uniforms, plus food." He did the little trick with his eyes, lowering his head a fraction and sagging the chin for a moment. It only ever makes sense as a send-up, but guys like Baks do it all the time, for real.
    I acted impressed, anyway. "Who'd you have to kill?"
    He snorted with laughter and buried his nose in his beer glass.
    "I ain't met the guys yet," he said. I scratched my chin and looked at him slyly. "Listen, sounds interesting. You