The Price of Malice by Archer Mayor Read Free Book Online Page A

up smelling, looking, and falling apart.
    Les climbed the steps slowly, hoping to control his sweating. Behind the closed doors he passed, he heard children crying, TVs blaring, and inanimate objects being shifted, dropped, or thrown around. Arguments delivered with more or less effort formed a muted chorus overall, making him feel he was swimming within the circulatory system of a large, unhealthy, living entity.
    At the top landing, he was faced with two apartment doors, one muffling more of the same audible chaos, the other obstructing what appeared to be total silence.
    Hoping for a peaceful start to an onerous process, he pounded on the silent door.
    The effect was startling, immediate, and painful. With his hand still in the air, Lester saw the door fly back on its hinges and a small, round-shaped man barrel out at him like a two-legged cannonball, catching him in the solar plexus and sending him staggering back against the far wall, where he smacked the back of his head and collapsed.
    “
Runner
,” he shouted weakly as his attacker took the steps two at a time.
    On the second floor, Sammie heard the crash of the door, followed by Lester being sent flying. She had just had her own door opened before her, revealing an oversized woman with a baby bottle in her hand.
    She quickly said, “Please close the door, ma’am,” and braced herself for whatever was coming.
    Lester’s nemesis appeared at a dead run, bouncing off the wall at the bottom of the stairs so that he could better sprint the length of the landing.
    In the two seconds allowed her, Sam took in her surroundings tactically, assessed her opponent’s size and speed, and chose how to stop him.
    Shouting, “
Stop. Police
,” she went at him like a linebacker, at an angle to shove him up against the landing’s railing, and maybe even over its top. Being a small woman—and ex-military at that—had trained her to fight dirty when necessary.
    The idea half worked. She did clip the man, and he did go careening against the railing, but she was the one who went over, ending up like a damsel in distress, hanging by her hands over the void, while the man with a plan kept charging like a miniaturized rhino on speed.
    “
Runner
,” Sam screamed in turn, swinging her feet over to the banister below and letting go to make a clumsy landing on the uneven steps. “
Stop that man
.”
    Outside, Joe Gunther had just exited his car and was about to call to Zippo, still positioned at the crime-scene building, when Sam’s voice came echoing into the street two doors down.
    Both men stared in astonishment as the runner in question blew out of the entrance, leaped off the front porch in one jump, landed on the sidewalk in a crouch, and took off like a sprinter for the far distant junction of Manor Court and Canal Street.
    He didn’t make it. Cops were all over that sidewalk. And within several paces, one of them stuck his foot out and tripped the fleeing man, just as four others landed on him like bears on a seal.
    They were still sorting out who was who when Sam appeared anddove into the pile, pulling away cop after cop to reveal the man who had run her over.
    She grabbed him by the shirtfront and yanked him to his feet. “You little peckerhead,” she yelled into his face. “What the
fuck
do you think you’re doing? You are under arrest. Do you understand that?” She shook him until his head was a blur, adding, “And count yourself lucky I don’t shoot you right now.”
    She felt a hand calmly settle onto her right shoulder and twisted around angrily to stare into Joe Gunther’s eyes.
    “It’s okay, Sam,” he told her quietly. “We got him.”
    She opened her grip and let the little man fall into the arms of the cops around him.
    “Right,” she said, regaining composure. “Sorry about that. He surprised me.”
    Joe smiled. “I got that part.”
    She suddenly asked, “Where’s Les?”
    “Why?”
    “He was with me in there. This guy hit him