Kill or Die by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2015-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

Brewster Ritter held up two fingers. “Two, and I want them alive. Bring them here. Understand?”

“Any two?” Jonas Neville said. Like his partner Arch Bayes he looked and dressed like a small-town parson, favoring a faded brown frock coat to his knees, a white shirt with a cravat of the same color and button-up knee-high gaiters.

“Any two. The choice is yours, boys,” Ritter said.

“We kill people,” Bayes said. He was a cold man that no human emotion could ever touch. The only Commandment he ever broke with regularity was the sixth. “You sure you want them alive? That is not our way.”

“In this instance, yes,” Ritter said. Talking to those two unnerved him. It was like trying to hold a conversation with a pair of hooded cobras.

Neville had the eyes of a carrion eater. “When?”

“As soon as possible, gentlemen. But tomorrow would be just fine.”

“When you are done with the people, we must kill them,” Neville said. “If we don’t, our job will not be completed and our reputation ruined.”

Ritter smiled. “Oh, you can be in at the kill, if you wish. I plan to hang them.”

“We wish it,” Bayes said. “And we have hanged people before.”

Ritter beamed. “Good, then it is settled. Would you boys care for a drink before you go?”

“Why would we drink with an employer?” Bayes said. “That is not businesslike.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Because we’re all friends here, I guess.”

“You are not our friend,” Bayes said. “Why would you say such a strange thing? You are our employer.”

“We don’t have any friends,” Neville said. “We kill people. Who knows, one day we may be contracted to kill you.”

To his annoyance, Ritter’s hand shook as he poured himself another drink. His smile was forced. “Let’s hope that never happens, huh?”

“We don’t care,” Neville said. “We kill people. That is our profession. Perhaps we already put poison in your glass.”

Horrified, Ritter jerked the glass from his mouth.

The grin of the alligators in the swamp was warmer than Neville’s smile. “I made a good joke,” he said. “It made you jump like a jack-in-the-box.”

“Yes, yes, of course you did,” Ritter said. He was sweating. “That was very funny.”

After the killers left, he tossed away the whiskey in his glass and took a long, shuddering gulp from the bottle.

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