The Butcher's Boy by Thomas Perry Read Free Book Online

back at him was a thin, nondescript man in his early thirties who looked as if he'd walked away from an airplane crash. The right side of his face was already beginning to blacken and swell, and a thin trickle of blood was beginning to snake down from his temple. He watched it saturate the sideburn and then quickly curve down the cheek to the chin. As he leaned closer to search the face, the drop reached the point of his chin and fell, making a bright blotch in the sink. He carefully washed his face, then ran the water in the bathtub.

    He sat on the edge of the tub and stared at his knee while he waited. A scrape, a cut with a little dirt in it maybe. He flexed the leg, studying the pain as though he were finetuning it. No cracks or chips, he thought. Just a scratch is all.
    But the face—he wasn't ready to think about that yet. He padded out into the other room and turned on the television. The news was just coming on. He caught sight of himself in the other mirror, sitting naked on the bed. A small, whitish animal with a few tufts of hair. And hurt, too. As he watched, the injured face in the mirror contracted a little, seemed to clench and compress itself into a mask of despair. A sigh like a strangled squeak escaped from its throat. He said aloud to the face, "You sorry little bastard." And then the moment was gone. The people on the television screen seemed to be dancing around, celebrating something having to do with a little car parked behind them. He wished them all dead.

    Then the newsman came on. He padded back into the bathroom to check the water. It was beginning to get deep enough now, so he turned the tap off and tested the temperature. Too hot: time enough to watch the news.

    When he got back to the bed, Claremont and his aide were descending the ladder of the plane. It was pretty much what he'd pictured—a white-haired, stiff-necked old coot in a three-piece banker's suit of the sort you could hardly buy in a store anymore, followed closely by a neat, short-haired, 24

    milkcomplexioned young man who appeared to be the prototype of a new doll.

    He studied their moves as they approached the terminal. The Senator looked old and frail and a little tired. Then there was a different scene, at a podium bristling with microphones. He was saying, "We're going to fight it through this time to the end. We've got key people from both parties working very hard in Washington and in their home districts."

    Claremont looked old and vulnerable all right. Too old to run or fight, probably too old to even make much noise. He had that sharp-eyed hawkface look that old people got sometimes, and his temples were marbled with blue veins. The picture changed and the newsman was talking about something having to do with some dark, intense little men in olive-drab fatigues. He switched off the television, went into the bathroom, and slowly settled himself into the hot tub. He studied the knee again, watching the tiny pink cloud swirl away from the cut like liquid smoke. Then he settled back, relaxing every muscle in his body. In a minute he would submerge his head and try to clean those wounds too. That would hurt but it had to be done. No sense getting an infection.

    He tried to think the situation through. He couldn't travel with a face like that. People remembered things like black eyes and bruised faces. And in the morning they'd find the two bodies, and start looking for somebody who'd been in a fight. The first place they'd look would be in the hotels and motels around here, starting with the cheapest first. It would look like a gang fight, but not enough like one to keep them from checking out transients right away while they could still put their hands on them. He'd paid in cash for the room, three days in advance, like always. And then there was the charter flight for Las Vegas —paid in advance too. But that didn't leave until Thursday night. Too soon for the face to get back to normal, and too long to wait while the