A Prayer for the Dying (v5) by Jack Higgins

Author:Jack Higgins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-03-16T03:09:34+00:00

Fallon was standing at the washbasin, stripped to the waist, lather on his face, when she knocked on the door and went in. He turned to greet her, a bone-handled cut-throat razor in one hand.

She leaned against the door. 'Sorry about the razor. It was all I could find.'

That's all right.' He smiled. 'My father had one of these. Wouldn't use anything else till the day he died.'

A line of ugly, puckered scars cut across his abdomen down into the left hip. Her eyes widened. 'What happened?'

He glanced down. 'Oh, that - a machine-gun burst. One of those times I should have moved faster than I did.'

'Were you in the army?'

'In a manner of speaking.'

He turned back to the mirror to finish shaving. She moved across and stood beside him. He smiled sideways, crookedly, stretching his mouth for the razor.

'You look nice enough to eat. Going somewhere?'

There was that warmth again, that pricking behind her eyes and she suddenly realised, with a sense of wonder, just how much she had come to like this strange, small man, and in the same moment remembered Billy watching her every move on the other side of that damned wall.

She smiled archly and ran a finger down his bare arm. 'I thought I might stay in tonight. What about you?'

Fallon's eyes flickered towards her once, something close to amusement in them. 'Girl dear, you don't know what you'd be getting into. And me twice your age.'

'I've got a bottle of Irish whiskey in.'

'God save us and isn't that enough to tempt the Devil himself?'

He continued his shaving and she moved across to the bed and sat down. It wasn't going right - it wasn't going right at all and at the thought of Billy's anger, she turned cold inside. She summoned up all her resources and tried again.

'Mind if I have a cigarette?'

There was a packet on the bedside table and a box of matches. She took one, lit it and leaned back on the bed, a pillow behind her shoulders.

'Have you really got to go out?'

She raised one knee so that the skirt slid back provocatively exposing bare flesh at the top of dark stockings, sheer black nylon briefs.

Fallon sighed heavily, put down the razor and picked up a towel. He wiped the foam from his face as he crossed to the bed and stood looking down at her.

'You'll catch cold.' He smiled softly and pulled down her skirt. 'If you're not careful. And I'm still going out, but I'll have a glass with you before I do, so be off now and open the bottle.'

He pulled her up from the bed and pushed her firmly across the room. She turned at the door, fear in her eyes. 'Please?' she said fiercely. 'Please?'

He frowned slightly and then a brief, sad smile touched his mouth. He kissed her gently on the lips and shook his head. 'Not me, girl dear, not me in the whole wide world. You need a man ... I'm just a corpse walking.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.