Dressed to Killed by Milton Ozaki Read Free Book Online Page A

groin and smashed the side of a hand under his nose. He yelped like a dog whose paw has been stepped on—and loosened his grip slightly. I gave him the other knee and stabbed spread fingers at his eyes. He yelped again and backed up, giving me a chance to slip under his arm and away.
    Richmond bellowed, "You had the bastard! You let him get away!"
    Sam stopped rubbing his vitals and narrowed his eyes with new respect. "Me get!" he promised.
    I was short of breath and my heart was pumping like an old one-cylinder gasoline engine, but I had to make a noise like a man and keep anger clouding his one-way brain. "You muscle-bound ape!" I taunted.
    With a bellow, he rushed at me, thick arms punching away like pistons. His left grazed my ear and nearly removed it. As his right shot toward my face, I caught his wrist with both hands and jerked it with all my remaining strength. Realizing I'd tricked him into loss of control, he gurgled a hoarse scream and kicked his legs wildly. The momentum of his lunge carried him over my shoulder to smash head-first into the concrete floor. He twitched once and lay still.
    Sensing danger behind me, I spun around.
    Richmond, with a smile stiffer than a wrought-iron fence on his somber face, was closing in with a knife. The weapon had a long, slender, keen-looking blade, and he held it low in the loose, balanced way of an experienced slasher. His pale eyes, excited by the anticipated kill, had the translucent quality of seedless grapes, yet seemed more shiny, as if oiled by hate.
    I leaped sidewise, forcing myself to ignore the knife and to keep my eyes on his. As though we were treading pie crust, we circled cautiously, each trying to guess the other's next move. I started to give ground, hoping to maneuver my way across to the workbench and snatch a wrench or hammer before he closed in. He guessed my intent, and, without changing the tempo of the dance, began forcing me toward the other wall.
    "Is this the way you got Eddie Sands?" I said. Richmond was a fellow devoted to his work and allergic to conversation. Without varying the tightness of his smile, he crept closer, holding the blade close against his side. I caught a faint flicker in his eyes a split instant before the blade snaked toward me. I leaped into the air, rolled back, and kicked both legs into his belly.
    He bent double, groaning like a man who has lost a dear friend. The knife rattled on the concrete. I came down hard on my shoulders, rolled over, and crawled frantically toward the knife.
    I never reached it. I had forgotten Sam, but Sam had not forgotten me. A beam from the ceiling fell across the back of my neck.
 
    FIVE. The Passion Play
    A CLOCK was ticking. Each tick sent a long tentacle of feeling thrusting through my protesting body. I moaned softly. The tentacles reached my arms, then my legs. Something told me that I was prone and that I didn't want to remain that way. With considerable effort, I clicked at the mental switches which should have changed my position to supine. Nothing moved except a few sharp pains, which blazed through my legs toward the emptiness where my stomach usually was. I moaned again, not quite so softly.
    "He's coming to," a voice said.
    Stupidly, I listened to the voice, trying to understand what it said. The clock kept ticking, louder and more monotonously, and the tentacles kept reaching. Gradually, like scenes from a defective projector, things began flashing through the tired darkness of my mind: Sam. Richmond. Garage. Knife. Fight. Dead. That last was a definite thought which ballooned into a question: dead? It repeated itself several times, then triggered a rapid deductive process: Heaven? No. If so, not as advertised. Hurt too much. Probably Hell. No dancing flames, though. No naked devils. If not Hell, then—?
    "So what?" another voice asked. "He isn't going anywhere."
    This voice was familiar. The projector started flashing again and gradually steadied on an image. Richmond. The image