Zero at the Bone Read Online Free PDF Page A

trigger.
    Just do it. Fuckin’ do it. You can live with it. You cain’t live with what’ll happen if you don’t, and that ain’t no figure a speech. Only takes a second. Two shots. Shut them eyes a his lookin’ at you like they see through ta yer bones. Fucker; why does he keep lookin’ at me like that? Most folks look away. Look at the floor, at the ceiling, at their own hands, anywhere but at me. Biggest damned eyes I ever saw on any man, and bluer’n the sky down in Bryce Canyon. Big enough ta hold all the life in him so’s I can see it, the life they want me ta take, the life I’ll hafta stand here and watch leave him.
    Stupid motherfuckers killin’ their own and makin’ me clean up for ’em like they fuckin’
    branded me.

    Zero at the Bone | 13

    D sighed. It chapped his ass something fierce, but there was no choice.

    “YOU ain’t got no idea, doc,” HAL mumbled. Then, to Jack’s amazement, he reached up and removed his sunglasses. He shut his eyes before Jack could even see what color they were, his brow furrowing. With his free hand he pinched the bridge of his nose, like he was getting a headache. He sat like that for a few long moments. Jack felt like his senses were amplified, honed into hypersensitivity by the gun still grasped in HAL’s right hand.
    He was aware of the hum of his air-conditioning, the stickiness of his damp skin where it rested against the leather chair, the rustle of HAL’s clothes against the couch cushions, and the faint sound of cars passing and kids playing.
    People are living out there. How can they? I’m in here with some kind of hired assassin and he has a gun with which he might shoot me at any moment and meanwhile, people are driving to the grocery store and screwing each other and cooking meals and watching fucking Oprah.
    HAL dropped his hand and stood up. Jack managed not to recoil as he met the eyes of his would-be killer for the first time. Without the sunglasses, the machine quality was gone and he just looked like… a man. A man with strong, high cheekbones and brown eyes that might have been warm had they not been filled with such flat resignation.
    He sighed, the sigh of a man about to shoulder a heavy load. “Get up, Francisco,” he said.
    Somehow, Jack peeled himself out of the chair and stood up. His legs felt like Jell-O. “Want to look me in the eye when you shoot me?” he said.
    The killer gave him a little head shake that clearly said God, the idiots I have to deal with. “Pack a bag.”
    Jack blinked. “A… a bag?”
    “Yer comin’ with me.”
    “The hell I am!”
    HAL raised the gun again. “You forgettin’ who’s in charge here?”
    “Look, if you’re not going to shoot me, just get the hell out of my house and we’ll forget it ever happened.”
    The man shook his head again like he couldn’t believe Jack’s stupidity. “You think the brothers’ll forget? I don’t kill ya, they’ll send someone else who will, probly someone who’ll do it slow ’n’ messy.”
    “The program will move me again. They won’t find me.”
    “They found ya here. They’ll find ya again.”
    “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
    “D’you have a fuckin’ death wish?” HAL hissed at him. “Those fuckers are gonna come after me fer not killin’ you, and they’re gonna come after you fer not bein’ dead yet, and no one can protect you from them! No one, ya hear? Not the Marshals, not the police, not the goddamned Neighborhood Watch! Yer only shot is ta stick with me!” Jack blinked, not sure if he was hearing what he thought he was hearing. “What, you’re saying that… now you want to protect me?”
    “You wanna live? You gotta come with me. Is what I’m sayin'.”
    “You must be out of your mind if you think I’m going to trust you!” Jack shouted.
    HAL seized Jack’s shirt and yanked him forward until they were chest-to-chest, the gun barrel pressed underneath the shelf of Jack’s chin. Jack stiffened but didn’t drop