The Wages of Sin (Blood Brothers Vampire Series Book Two) by Greg Sisco Read Free Book Online Page B

you?”
    “Not that I can think of…”
    “Big angry guy, talks real quiet, threatens people
with a carpet stapler.”
    “Not ringing any bells.”
    “You’d remember.”
    “He was here?”
    “Couple hours ago. I think he’s looking for a girl
you went home with.”
    Shit. Those weren’t words Thor liked to hear. Being
a suspect in any disappearance meant dealing with human authority
figures and that was a pain to say the least.
    “Is he a cop?”
    “Eh, maybe. Don’t think so though, ‘cause of the
carpet stapler.”
    “Ah. Right. Carpet stapler. Who is he then?”
    “Don’t know. But he’s pretty serious about talking
to you.”
     
    Sometimes a pneumatic stapler is
used as a carpet stapler, though the two aren’t technically the
same thing, no matter what Clyde might have said or thought. Carpet
staplers are typically small devices carpenters operate by swinging
them into the floor with a lot of force. They go bap! Some people use
electric ones, which are a little scarier. They go zik-zik-zik , pretty much
as fast as you want them to. But the pneumatic stapler, that big
Co2-powered bastard Horace swings around, it’s the only one that
goes CLACK!
    As a general rule, pneumatic staplers are powered by
a hose that compresses air, but Horace’s stapler ran on the kind of
cartridges you use in paintball guns. Probably he didn’t buy it
like that. Probably he made the damn thing himself or borrowed it
from a homicidal friend who was an amateur engineer.
    “A girl named Samantha. Comes here often. Hasn’t
been around the last week or so. What do you know about her?”
Horace asked Clyde when he walked into the club two hours
earlier.
    “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
    “Point me to somebody who’s here more often than
you.”
    “Hey dude,” some idiot a couple seats down shouted,
holding up an empty shot glass.
    “Look, pal,” Clyde said to Horace. “Buy a drink or
go home. I’ve got a lot of customers to serve.”
    As he poured a shot of Buffalo
Trace for the bro, there was a CLACK! next to Clyde’s hand and he
jumped back to see a staple an inch long with its two spikes barely
sticking into the marble countertop.
    “I’m not here to bother anybody,” said Horace. “I’m
just trying to track somebody down.”
    Clyde drank the shot he’d poured for Mr.
Awesome.
    “I don’t know who she is, the girl you’re looking
for,” said Clyde, giving Horace a little more attention than he had
a moment ago.
    “I’ll say it again,” said Horace, “Point me in the
direction of someone who knows the customers better than you.”
    “Dude, seriously!” shouted Brother Dudeman with the
empty shot glass.
    “He does,” said Clyde, pointing to the belligerent
prick. “He’s here all the time.”
    It wasn’t exactly true. The kid was there on a
semi-regular basis, but he mostly hung around with a couple of his
dude-bro buddies and got rejected by loose women for being a
dumb-shit. It was a busy night though, and sending Big Bastard
after Dumb Bastard solved two problems at once, at least for the
time being.
    Horace took the kid into the bathroom to talk to him
and a few minutes later the kid came out grabbing his thighs with
bloody hands. Apparently he’d been at least vaguely familiar with
the girl in question and remembered seeing her with another
customer, because the big guy came back to the bar and put the
staple gun down.
    “If you didn’t call the cops, he will, so I’ll make
this quick,” he said. “A blonde-haired kid, early twenties, comes
in pretty regularly, always leaves with a pretty girl, sometimes
two or three. He’s got to attract some attention. You know
him?”
    “Yeah. Sure.” Clyde probably would have lied about
this if it weren’t true.
    “I’m writing my phone number on this napkin. Next
time he comes in you call me and I’ll come have a chat with him.
And this probably goes without saying but don’t give my number to
the cops or I’ll come back