Nightmares and Geezenstacks (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) by Fredric Brown

Author:Fredric Brown [Brown, Fredric]
Language: eng
Format: azw
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2015-04-14T04:00:00+00:00

It wasn’t Duke’s job; he could have gone back and reported. One of the muscle boys would have been sent around. But it was so easy.

He gave Larkin the back of his hand across the left side of his face and knocked his glasses off, then smashed the palm of his hand across the other side of the face, stepping in as the florist stepped back.

Then again, rocking the little man’s head back and forth before he stepped in with a hard jab to the pit of the stomach. Larkin doubled over and retched.

Duke stepped back. “That was a sample. Still think you can’t rake up forty bucks?”

Duke got the forty bucks. On the way back to headquarters, he bought himself a cigar. He didn’t like the taste of it as well as cigarettes, but from now on he was going to smoke them. On his lapel was a white rosebud he’d taken from a vase on his way out of Larkin’s.

He got his shoes shined, too, although they didn’t really need it. He felt pretty good.

Nick Chester looked at the white rosebud. His left eyebrow went up half a millimeter, which wasn’t enough for Duke to notice.

Duke got friendly with Tony Barria—as nearly as anyone could ever get to being friendly with Tony.

Tony was a little guy, too, like Larkin had been, but Tony wasn’t the kind of little guy that you shoved around. Tony was a torpedo.

He was cold and tense and he moved with a smooth grace that seemed jerky because it was so fast. Nobody ever felt at ease with Tony, really; you sort of got the idea that if you clapped him on the back, he’d explode. Maybe they tailored that word torpedo just to fit Tony Barria. But shoot a couple of snooker games with him and then you could loosen his tongue with Chianti, which is an expensive word for Italian red wine. And because Duke wanted to learn something that Tony could teach him, he kept Chianti in his room. He took a lesson from Tony in things an ambitious young man should know.

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