Mission: Earth "Death Quest" by Ron L. Hubbard Read Free Book Online Page B

Bad planning or you just shot them yourself for kicks. Turn the card over and you'll see an address. Take the card there, present it and you'll have your hit man. You can make your own arrangements, buy his insurance and, probably, bury him or not as you please."
    "Wait," I said. "Something tells me there's something wrong with this guy."
    "Well, frankly," said Razza, "there is. He's such a dirty, rotten (bleepard), nobody will hire him anymore unless they are so God (bleeped) mad at the victim they want something awful done. Lawyers won't hire him anymore. He's got a twist. Filthy."
    "What's this hit man do?" I said, startled. If somebody was too bad for the Mafia it must be pretty awful.
    "Find out for yourself," said Razza.
    "But I have to have somebody who can shoot straight and will kill."
    "Oh, he'll do that, all right. It's how he does it that turns your stomach. But there's your hit man, Inkswitch. Exactly as agreed. And if you get this one wasted, you'll be a (bleeping) hero. So good-bye, Inkswitch, good-bye."
    The address was way out in Queens and I rode endlessly on subways getting there. The neighborhood had not ever seen better times: it had been built originally in total decay. The house was on a side street and apparently part of it was rented out. I picked my way over a broken walk, I walked up some broken stairs, I rang a broken bell.
    My presence had been detected. With a yank which almost blew my hat off, the broken door burst open.
    An enormous woman was standing there. She had a mustache like a cavalry sergeant. She glared. I gave her the card defensively. She looked at it and then swept me into the hall with it and closed the door.
    "So you want to see my no-good, worthless son, do you? You'll find him in the basement with the rest of the rats."
    I don't like rats. I said, "Can't you ask him to come up so I can talk to him?"
    "Blood of Christ, no! He's hiding out!"
    "From the police?"
    "The rotten filth isn't even that respectable. Bill collectors! Every day, bill collectors! I can't look out a window I don't see bill collectors! But will he go out and get a decent job? No. Will he support his poor old mother that suffered to bring him into the world? No. All he do
    is hide in that basement! So what the Mafia want with him now? I thought they through with him and good reason."
    I was a bit staggered by this huge monster. I said, timidly, "I may have a job for him. Then he can pay his bills."
    "Hah! You give him money, he no pay his bills. He go out and philander. Just like his no-good, rotten father that's joined the angels, God rest his rotten, stinking soul! Philander, philander, philander, that's all he good for, the filth. I beat him and beat him. I bring him up right. But he got rotten, putrid blood in him. The blood of his rotten, putrid, no-good father! So you give him a job. He sneak out and blow the money. But he can't get out. The bill collectors!"
    "What are these bills?"
    "The God (bleeped) hospital. Five hundred dollars a day they throw away saving his worthless life. Oh, I sneak him out when I hear but not in time. He owe $4,900 already! And just a lousy auto accident! He got enough sense to get shot like his no-good father? No! He's got to get himself in an auto accident and he hasn't even got the sense to get himself killed."
    I had an inspiration. "I could give you the money and you could pay the bills and then he could work for me."
    "I don't take no blood money! You think I want blood money on my soul when I go to my final reward? Any bills paid, you pay."
    "Well, let me talk to him, at least," I said.
    "On your responsibility, not mine. I'll be no party to the rotten things he does. You want to talk to him, go down through that door. And if you want to shoot him, I close my ears."
    I went down some dusty, grimy stairs into a dusty, grimy basement. Back of a dusty, grimy furnace, on a dusty, grimy bed, lay a man with penitentiary stamped all over him.
    He was cowering back, holding a