Atomic Underworld: Part One by Conner Jack

Author:Conner, Jack [Conner, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jack Conner
Published: 2016-04-28T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

“Ouch!”

“Is that all you can say?” She pulled another suture tight, cinching closed more of the wound along his ribs. His shirt and pants were off and he lay on her kitchen floor atop a towel that, while clean, had seen better days. He wore only his boxers and socks. With the hand not propping himself up he drank from a bottle of Urzan whiskey: thick like honey but with a smoky, almost clove-like flavor.

“That’s not even a straight line,” he said, eyeing the stitching.

She started to sew another stitch, tugged on it. When he gasped, she smiled, “Now might not be the best time to complain.”

“Afterward will be too late. I thought I was the one that was drunk.”

“Not my fault you can’t pace yourself.”

“It damn well is.” He glanced at the ragged wound on his thigh, which she had already stitched up. Blood caked the towel underneath. “I wouldn’t drink so much if you could sew straight.”

“Maybe I like seeing you drunk.”

“So you admit it! You’re sewing crooked on purpose.”

“Got to take life’s pleasures where we can.”

“I knew it!”

For a moment their eyes met, and he was uncomfortably aware of her body bending over him, of her firm breasts straining against the fabric of her white uniform just inches before his face. He could smell her, over the antiseptic and alcohol, a sort of rose scent. Then she placed a hand on his chest, which was tacky with sweat, and pushed him down. Her fingers were very warm.

“Two more,” she said.

He drank. Her apartment was small and tidy. A neon sign flashed through the window, illuminating the rooms in strobes of red.

She scanned his torso, and he saw her eyes linger on his new scars, on the tattoo over his right breast, a serpentine lion coiled around a flaming sword.

“What have you been up to the last few years?” she said.

“I thought you knew all about it.”

“Only the cheating and the getting kicked out of clubs. I used to think you were intentionally getting kicked out of clubs up top so you would be forced to return down here. But you never showed up. You kept finding ways to remain up there, gambling in taverns, rooftop gardens.”

“Yeah, well, I had to balance things out. You were upwardly mobile, I had to be downwardly.”

She started on the last stitch. “So where’s your laundry case?”

“At the dry cleaner’s, where else?”

She tugged the stitch tight, using more force than she had to, and he hissed through clenched teeth. Instead of tying it off or snipping it, she pulled tighter. “I’m going to ask you something, Two-Bit, and I want an honest answer.”

“If I have strength left.”

“Those sirens earlier, the fire at the Lavish, and the police rushing up to the Singh-Hiss on our way here—that was you, wasn’t it? Whatever you’re involved in?”

“What, no—”

She tugged the stitch tight, and he groaned. Blood leaked down from the wound.

“Yes, all right, yes.”

She released the pressure, but did not snip the line. “What’s it all about, then?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

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