Stay Dead by Jessie Keane Read Free Book Online Page A

the phone, all those thousands of miles away, in London. Then he said: ‘What you going to do?’
    Annie drew in a breath.
    Composed herself.
    ‘I’m coming back,’ she said.

13
    For long moments after the man in the wheelchair killed himself, Max stood there in awe. He’d heard of it, but never seen it up close and personal.
This
was the
type of loyalty these people commanded, with their
omerta
, their code of endless silence. To death and beyond.
    He stared down at the corpse still half-propped in the chair, leaning way over to the left. The bullet had been high-calibre, and there was a lot of damage; death had been a certainty, no
chances taken. Blood and bone and brain matter had spewed out of the shattered skull in a fountain. Rather than talk and disgrace himself, betray the Mafia code he’d sworn to uphold, the man
had taken his own life.
    Crazy bastards
, thought Max as he took wheelchair man’s gun.
    But you had to admire them somehow.
    Antonio was moaning now, starting to come round.
    Max forgot wheelchair man and walked over to where Antonio lay bleeding on the ground. He picked up his gun, tucked it into the waistband of his trousers with the other man’s gun. Knife in
hand, he approached the man and looked down at him.
    Antonio stirred, his eyes flickering open. Crying out in pain, he put his right hand over his left wrist, where the blood was still pumping out.
    Max poked him with a toe and Antonio stared up at him with the pain-warped ferocity of a rabid dog.
    ‘My friend,’ said Max, ‘you’re going to bleed out in about forty minutes. You understand me, yeah? Because you were going to be the interpreter for that sack of bones in
the wheelchair. Right?’
    The man said nothing. His eyes flicked sideways, took in his dead companion slumped over in the chair, then back to the man standing over him.
    ‘Unless I get you to some help, you’re going to die,’ said Max. Judging by the way the other one had reacted, he didn’t hold out a lot of hope for this plan, but he had
to try. ‘So tell me where Gina Barolli is, and you’ll get it.’
    The man spat at Max.
    ‘That’s not nice,’ said Max, and put his foot hard on the place where the blood was spurting out. The man on the ground shrieked.
    ‘Tell me,’ said Max.
    The man writhed and cursed in Sicilian.
    ‘Don’t fuck me around,’ Max advised him. ‘Speak English. Tell me where she is.’
    ‘She’s in hell and so will you be soon,’ he sobbed.
    ‘She’s not in hell,’ said Max. ‘She’s been making phone calls, saying things. And I’m here to see her and find out what she’s on about. Only she never
shows, does she. Instead, she sends you two clowns – one dressed up like a pantomime dame and you without a fucking clue – to finish me off. Now why would she do that?’
    Antonio said nothing.
    ‘This is going to get very painful for you if you don’t start talking,’ Max warned with a sigh. ‘I’m going to see Gina Barolli, one way or the other. So you may as
well make this easy for yourself.’
    ‘Fuck
you
!’ shouted Antonio.
    Max leaned down over the man and opened up his other wrist, too. The man screamed like a little girl as blood spurted. ‘Now look. You’ve got trouble. Twenty minutes tops, I’d
say. People can live after this. If they get the right medical stuff done to them, and quick. But leave it too late, and you know what? Even in this hot sun, you’re soon going to start
feeling very cold. First comes the shivers, and then you’re weak and disorientated, and then you pass out and the next thing is – you’re dead.’
    ‘Jesus . . .’ the man wept, rolling from side to side while the life’s blood flooded out of him and was sucked up by the sand.
    ‘It don’t have to be that way, though,’ said Max. ‘Tell me where Gina Barolli is, and help’s on its way.’ Max frowned. ‘Think I can do a bit of first
aid, patch you up good enough to get you to the hospital. If you talk, that