Lone Wolf by Nigel Findley Read Free Book Online

parking tickets in Milwaukee ... in the sum of 0.00. But it’s been almost eighteen months now and, if anything, my cover only seems more bulletproof, but I still sometimes wake up in a cold sweat waiting for the Mexican frag-up.
    After all that effort—the Star’s and mine—I’m in place and making my reports, but my superiors sometimes don’t seem to pay much attention. I think it’s only twice that I’ve actually been told to pay attention to something specific, and that just doesn’t seem like the most efficient use of me as a resource. Of course, during the two times I’m talking about, the drek was fragging near running down my legs while I was trying to ferret out what the Star wanted. From a theoretical standpoint, they should give me more guidance. But, from a personal point of view, I’m much happier this way, and much more likely to live to collect my pension.
    To hell with that drek anyway. Chewing it through now’s probably just a way of distracting myself from the fact that the blue sky I saw over downtown has turned out to be as dependable as a politician’s promise and that the hard rain’s started up again. By the time I reach Ravenna and find a good place for my bike, I’m soaked to the fragging skin. My apartment’s in a building called the Wenonah, a low-rise that’s about twice as old as I am. It used to be painted, I think, but the solvent they call rain in Seattle has seen to that. The building’s just bare concrete now, stained and pitted and streaked with pigeon-drek. (Query: With so many other species going out forever, how the frag do those flying rats people call pigeons manage to hang on? End of digression.) I jander up the stairs to the front door, push it open.
    The Wenonah used to be a “security building,” and the notice to that effect is still bolted to the wall over what used to be the intercom panel. Of course, the panel’s been stripped, lo, these many months now, with all the electronic hardware peeled out and probably sold. Doesn’t matter worth a drek anyway. About the same time the intercom panel went west, somebody took a shotgun and blew the locking mechanism out of the door. The property management company responsible for the place keeps promising they’ll replace it Real Soon Now.
    I swing up the stairs, superstitiously stepping around the stain where one of my erstwhile neighbors bled out after a minor difference of opinion with his girlfriend. Making my way down the dark and narrow hallway toward the back, I hear music coming from inside my doss even before I get close enough to see that the door’s open a crack. My H & K’s in my hand and I’m reaching for the wire, moving forward as quiet as a ghost, ready to make my grand entrance and deliver a three-round lesson on the sanctity of private property.
    But then I listen to the music rather than just hear it, and I know who’s inside my place. The song—and I use the word loosely—is “Scrag ’em All” by Darwin’s Bastards, one of the more in-your-face bands on the trog-rock scene. If you didn’t know this drek was supposed to be music, you’d probably mistake “Scrag ’em All” for the noise of street repairs around the sprawl.
    I engage the safety on the H & K, but don’t slip it back in the holster. Can’t be too friendly here. Then I stride up to my door, push it gently with a boot, and step to the side. Just in case. I don’t really expect trouble, but now’s not the time to start any bad habits.
    As the door swings open, the only offensive force that comes through the opening is more of Darwin’s Bastards, now grinding their way into a trog-rock cover of “Stairway to Heaven”. Scary stuff. In some ways, a burst of autofire would have been more comforting. But I don’t let my face show any reaction as I move into the doorway.
    The first thing I see is drek strewn everywhere—over the floor, over what little furniture there is, and heaped in the corner. It looks like