Read Killer for Free Online

He’s dead.”
    I make a face as if I still don’t believe it. “In that case, I better fucking make sure, huh?” I pull my arm free from Hank’s grip, grab a lead sap that I keep under my waistband, and hit the dead man hard enough in the skull to leave a three inch dent. I let go of the body and it drops with a thud to the floor.
    “Fucking vicious sonofabitch,” Charlie says, but he’s laughing softly, maybe even with a little admiration. The two of them are taking it better than I would’ve thought.
    Because it was only supposed to be a shakedown, none of us bothered wearing gloves. Hank and Charlie have been in the game longer than me, and they start walking around the room wiping off fingerprints. I bend down over the dead man, wipe my sap clean using his shirt, and pull out his wallet. There’s three hundred dollars in it. He was on the books for five grand, but at least this is something. I tell Hank and Charlie about the money. “I knew the cocksucker was holding out on us,” I say. I kick the body a couple of times in the chest, hard enough to have killed him if he wasn’t already dead. I’d rather have Hank and Charlie think I’m a psycho then give them any hint about me worrying how Vincent DiGrassi is going to take this. And I am worried.
    Hank and Charlie have worked their way to a back entrance. Hank tilts his head to one side, signaling for me to join them. I kick the dead body once last time and, as nonchalantly as I can, leave with them.
    We walk quickly down an alley, then once we’re a block away, at a more normal pace to a side street where we left the car. It’s late, the streets are empty. Charlie’s laughing softly, puts an arm around my shoulder and comments how I’ve got antifreeze running in my veins. Hank looks deep in thought. After Charlie pulls away, Hank moves close to me and tells me softly enough so only I can hear that DiGrassi isn’t going to be happy. As if he’s telling me something I don’t know.
    We still have some time before last call. I’m driving so I stop off at the Broken Drum. Since I’m the one who fucked up, I buy us each a half a dozen rounds, beating last call by minutes. The bartender’s not happy pouring out so many rounds that late knowing how much longer he’s going to have to keep the bar open, but he knows who we work for so he doesn’t say anything. While we’re drinking I notice for the first time how swollen and cut up my knuckles are. None of us talk much, it’s almost as if we’re at a wake. It’s not as if the fucker didn’t deserve a beating, but I don’t think he’s what any of us are thinking about – at least he’s not who I’m thinking about. When we’re done with our drinks, I drive Charlie and Hank back to Revere where we hooked up earlier, then I drive across the bridge to Chelsea and to my apartment.
    It’s not until three days later that I meet with Vincent DiGrassi again. It’s in the backroom of a club in Revere. I feel some relief over where we’re meeting. If he’d been planning to make an example of me and have me taken out in a bag, we would’ve been meeting someplace else, someplace more private, like that house in Winthrop where I’d had my initiation.
    When I walk into the backroom, DiGrassi’s waiting alone, which is another good sign. He gives me the evil eye and keeps it fixed on me while I take a chair across from him.
    “You fucked up,” he accuses me, his tenor’s voice shaking with anger. “’Cause of you I got a dead business partner and five grand pissed out the window. What the fuck you have to say about that?”
    I took the three hundred dollars that I had gotten off the corpse and toss it on the table. “You’re better off without him,” I say. “And this three hundred dollars is more than you were ever going to get willingly from that cocksucker. The other forty-seven hundred I’ll make up on my end, which won’t be all that hard once the other deadbeats out there hear about