The Big Stiffs by Michael Avallone

Author:Michael Avallone [Avallone, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Published: 2016-04-19T22:00:00+00:00

"Rome wasn't built in a day."

Legendary

THE COLOSSEUM CAPER

I had to do something, though. You always have to do something. No matter what. Or else we're all just a bunch of poor jackasses who have absolutely nothing to say about what happens to us. With no control over the cards that fall our way. Kate Arizona had given me five mismatching pasteboards, no two alike, not even a flush in spades. She held all the aces. The Schmeisser, the situation, Captain Michele Santini and my fair body. I was lying in on a rigged game, with no chance of winning, but there is something in me that never will sit still for Terror and Death.

Or Brutality.

With or without .45 Colt automatic, I'm dangerous.

Always a threat.

I rolled around on the floor, forcing myself half-erect by shinnying up on my haunches, using my lashed arms and legs as levers to accomplish the contortion act. Kate Arizona watched me with cold and curious satisfaction, towering upward so that her dark head almost touched the low ceiling of the room. There was a bated, fixed and ominous set to her hawk face. Her full red lips were closed together in a fierce biting arrangement. The tell-tale signs of sadism or voyeur's pleasure at the wriggling of her victims. Full-length she was a monstrous shadow. Behind her, Santini's solid form was like a Mutt and Jeff contrast. Santini seemed frozen in ice. He was motionless again. An onlooker who might not condone what was supposed to take place but clearly would take no action to stop it. The Schmeisser rested against one of the three legs of Kate Arizona's stool. The pliers dangled with limp reality from the fingers of her powerful right hand. For a long moment, nobody was talking. Everybody was just looking at me, as if wondering what I was going to do next. The night was young, obviously, and Miss Arizona was in no hurry anymore to start counting my short hairs.

A warm wind fanned in through the rectangular window. The hurricane lamp, protected by glass and metal, did not bat an eye. The clustered stars still twinkled but the moonlight had moved a little. Nothing sounded from outside. Nothing at all. Not even a passing jetliner. The Forum probably had never resembled a cemetery more.

Breathing hard, holding my lashed hands as a brake to the floor beneath me, to remain sitting, I stared at Kate Arizona.

She stared right back at me, enjoying every insane second of the situation. Maybe reveling in the prospect of unclothing a man. Her eyes gave her away even more than the carmine mouth did. She was in full fly, now. Exposed in all her brutal glory. Perversion, as well as greed, ran whatever motors she owned. I kept that in mind as I launched into the last remaining fight left in me.

The gleaming pliers flexed in her hands, suddenly. The metal jaws clicked impatiently as she made snipping motions with it at the empty air between us.

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