Every Last Drop by Charlie Huston Read Free Book Online Page B

wiping the last of the blood from his hands and neck and drops the towel in a bag held open by one of his men.
—No, Pitt, nor would I expect you to. But seeing as you spent this evening being waylaid by teenage delinquents, and having your anatomy masticated by the crippled and the aged, you will understand my lack of alarm as regards your threat.
I feel my pockets for a smoke. —Yeah, fuck you too.
He looks down at his blood-ruined suit. —Would you excuse me for a moment, Pitt.
He starts for the door, the question not actually being a question.
I settle in my chair, feeling the drug dealers blood slide deeper into my wounded guts, burning cold as the Vyrus colonizes it and recoups strength. —Take your time.
I raise a hand.
—Hey, don't suppose you've started smoking since the last time I saw you?
The door closes, leaving me with the two button-lipped enforcers, the squeak of their rubber boots and the swish of their rags in the bloody mess.
Naw, he's not gonna kill me. He was gonna kill me, he wouldn't have given me the blood to put me right and get me on my feet. Not that he and his boys couldn't still gang me and take me down, but blooded up like this I'd be sure to make it hurt. Not like Predo to make a job harder than it has to be. He was gonna kill me, he would have done it while I was wrapped in barbwire and leaking all over the fucking place. Or at least he would have left me that way till it got to be daylight so they could pitch me easily out of doors and watch me blight in the sun.
The last of old Mrs. Vandewater goes into the bags and bucket and the enforcers take a look around for anything they might have missed before hauling the remains away.
Of course, figured another way, it would be just like Predo to fill me with blood and get me back to something like health and wellness. Figure he might play it that way if he wanted to keep me kicking while these cleaning laddies found what few bits I have left to hack off. But figure he'd only bother with that kind of production if he had questions to ask me.
The door opens and Predo comes back in, a suit, all but identical to the one
he was wearing before, cinched into place on his narrow frame. Really, it is identical, just without an old lady's blood all over it.
He waits at the open door as the enforcers exit, closes it behind them, comes to the circle of light cast by the bright floor lamp set next to the desk and two chairs here in the middle of the ballroom, and settles into the chair on the boss side of the desk. —So, Pitt.
He makes a slight adjustment to his silver tie bar. —Let me ask you a few questions.
I wait for the arms to encircle me from behind, for the garrote to drop around my throat, the gun to be placed at my temple.
And when none of the above occurs, I let the knife Predo used to kill Vandewater slide from the sleeve where I'd tucked it after the enforcers clipped me from the barbwire and dragged me across the floor past where it had been dropped, and I throw it sharp and hard and straight and it wings past Predo by a good two feet and thunks into the wall outside the light.
He  raises an  eyebrow,  turns,  looks  off at the gleam of the blade  in darkness, and turns back to me. —You'll find it, I believe, Pitt, somewhat of an adjustment now that your vision
is no longer triangulated.
I scratch the side of my neck.
—Well, if you'll just sit there while I go fetch the blade, Mr. Predo, I'm pretty sure I can do better the second time around.
Just because he's not going to kill me right now doesn't mean he doesn't want me dead.
He wants me dead.
I'm not saying my name is at the top of his list, but it is in the upper ten percent. Yeah, he's the kind of guy who keeps a list. That comes with running the Coalition's security arm. An organization like that, they just love lists.
List of friends. List of enemies. List of subversives. List of agents. List of counteragents. List of those at the top. List of those at the bottom. List of