by Pat Connid
I’d lost about fifteen pounds, another twenty to go I guess, because walking dogs means you’re walking, which can peel the weight off. I probably would have lost more if I’d cut back on the beer, but I’m not a masochist.
Most of the cuts and scrapes healed or left very slight scars.
There was nothing they could do to restore the hearing in one of my ears. A couple plastic surgeries, though, and at least it looked like the other one. I knew that because Pavan had finally stopped laughing at the sight of it.
At the front steps of the beach house, I stopped for a moment and breathed in the salty night air. I could hear the rolling waves and found it very soothing. Sure, I was now half-deaf but for a man who remembers nearly every word and sound, it seemed like things could be worse.
The door came open with a twist, as expected, and I entered the foyer. It looked the same as it had early that afternoon when I’d broken in except for the windbreaker hanging on the hook by the door.
Earlier, when I’d been inside putting the poison into meats, milk, olives, anything that would hold it, I got a call from Doc on my flashy mobile phone.
It seems Tiffany was, finally, in a “pink” mood. I asked Doc why he’d even broken away to call me, and he said he was “recouping.”
When I entered the kitchen, I saw him slumped on the floor next to the table.
The sliding glass door was open and some of the sea spray was getting on the deck, so I walked up and closed it.
Then, I flipped The Mentor over and slapped on a recently purchased pair of drug store handcuffs. They were good for the price. Good enough.
As I lifted the man off the floor onto the couch he stirred a little from the drugs I’d spiked his food with. When I tossed him down, his head hit a little hard and that made me feel pretty good.
He pried his eyes open, groggy. And laughed.
“Holy shit. Dexter, my man,” he said through those perfect teeth. “How’d you even find me?”
I punched him on the mouth. That felt pretty good, too.
“No time for questions,” I said. “You need to listen nice and close. At the higher altitudes, your oxygen saturation will have fallen. You need to drop because your judgment will be impaired. Too long that high up, you’ll hallucinate. ”
“What the fuck is this about?”
I hit him again and his eyes rolled for a moment. I slapped him back.
“No, no. Stay with me. And you want to get down below 17,000 feet. If you don’t your body will continue to deteriorate—muscle atrophy, mental instability—your body is literally eating itself for energy.” Sitting on the coffee table behind me, I plucked a grape out of the bowl. I hadn’t tainted those. “But, first you’ll have to get below the 25,000 feet mark. Appropriately, that’s called the ‘Death Zone.’”
“I’ll kill you. You’re out of your league,” he said looking at me as his eyes lolled around slightly, but the veins in his neck popping. “You don’t—“
“Hey!”
“What?”
I stood and pulled my arm back, made a fist. A half-second before I hit him square in the face, his body going limp as a doll, I said: “Lesson begins.”
Then, I added, making it my own: “Asshole.”
Table of Contents
Copyright © 2012 by Pat Connid
For My Wife
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-fourRain.
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
