Kiss Her Goodbye (A Thriller) by Robert Gregory Browne Read Free Book Online Page B

and started the engine.
     The whole operation took less than forty seconds.
     On his way out of the parking lot, Gunderson paid the attendant five bucks (and they called him a criminal), rolled the Suburban up the ramp into traffic, and headed back the way he’d come.
     As ripe little Jessie exchanged shy glances with the pimply-faced geeks in her biology class, Gunderson thought about his sweet Sara lying silently in her hospital bed and allowed himself the slightest of smiles.
     Retribution is a wonderful thing.

11
     
    W HEN THE BUZZER buzzed, Bobby Nemo’s muscles tensed. An instinctive reaction. He’d been on edge for weeks.
     “Oww,” Carla groaned, “you’re hurting me.”
     “Shut up,” Nemo said. He got off her, told her to get dressed, then pulled his pants back on and eased onto the sofa, letting his gaze drift to the television set across the room. ESPN extreme sports.
     He was trying to look relaxed, but he didn’t feel so relaxed.
     “That’s it?” Carla said. “We’re not gonna finish?”
     The buzzer buzzed again.
     “Get your clothes on and answer the goddamned door.”
     Carla pouted. Pushed her lips together and got all teary-eyed. Nemo hated when she did that. Made her look like some needy skank, especially when she sat there on the floor with her tits and ass hanging out. He knew what was coming next.
     “You don’t love me anymore.”
     “Jesus, Carla, don’t start, okay?” He picked her T-shirt up off the carpet and threw it at her. “Just shut up and get your ass in gear.”
     She got quiet then and pulled the T-shirt on, the words MAN BAIT plastered across her surgically enhanced chest. She reached under the sofa for her panties, started to slip into them, then had a sudden change of heart and flung them at Nemo instead. “Asshole.”
     She got to her feet and sashayed toward the door, the T-shirt barely covering the crack of her ass. She was planning to give their caller a beaver show, doing it to spite Nemo, because she knew how much he hated it when she did that.
     Of course, Carla made her living giving beaver shows. Let guys stick dollar bills up her snatch even though a sign at the back of the club where she was headlining clearly said TOUCHING OF DANCERS STRICTLY PROHIBITED . God knows what she let them do during the private dances.
     But that was work. This was different. Nemo had been staying with Carla for a few weeks now, and this was the second time she’d gotten pissed enough to go to the door bare-assed. Last time some poor geek of a Mormon kid got a glimpse of that little Brazilian wax job of hers and almost shot his wad right there in his Fruit of the Looms.
     Carla had laughed like a friggin’ hyena, but Nemo didn’t think it was funny. Not one bit.
     The buzzer buzzed a third time. Nemo’s hand slipped under the seat cushion next to him and touched the grip of his Desert Eagle.
     Carla called out, “Who is it?”
     “Chu’s Chinese. I’ve got your order.”
     About goddamned time, Nemo thought, and withdrew his hand. His muscles relaxed. Everything was cool. Nothing to worry about.
     For now, at least.
     The first time Nemo saw his face on TV, he almost shit a brick. This was the day following the Northland First & Trust disaster, when he, Alex, and that dimwit Luther were nursing their wounds at a house on Lake Shore Drive, a big mother of a place owned by Sara’s brother, Tony.
     Reed was an unwilling participant in the proceedings, a petulant little prick who spent one minute crying about his kid sister and the next threatening to call the police. So Alex wasted no time setting him straight.
     They were watching CNN on Tony’s big screen, watching a report on the robbery, when Nemo’s face filled all sixty-two inches of the thing, some candy-assed news anchor telling the world what a fuck ball he was.
     Nemo didn’t feel like a fuck ball, and he sure didn’t feel like spending the rest of his life in a federally