The Darkness - Jason Pinter [13]
Those rocks are life, man."
"I'm glad you're satisfied with our product," she
said, "but that does not change the fact that this transaction is done."
"Man, fuck y'all," Culvert said. "You gonna be like
this, I'm gonna have to take over your operation. Buttercup, gut this bitch."
Buttercup went for the gun in his waistband, but before
his hand ever got there the woman ripped a blade from
inside her coat and ripped it through the soft meat of Buttercup's throat. The wound yawned open a ghastly red,
and Buttercup made a choking sound as he dropped to the
ground, flailing. Blood poured from the severed veins.
The woman wiped her hand on the couch.
LeRoy Culvert stared at the bloody mess. "What the
hell are you doing?" he said. "We're partners!"
40
Jason Pinter
"Yes, we are," the woman said. "You're going to help us
get the word out about our product. I'm just sorry that your
corpse is going to be the vehicle for delivering the message."
Suddenly Malloy pulled two machine pistols from his
coat, and in less than two seconds shredded Culvert's bodyguards in a hail of bullets. Blood and pillow feathers spattered the apartment, which was lit brightly by the gunfire.
When Malloy had stopped firing, he paused and saw
LeRoy Culvert cowering behind one of the couches. He
was muttering sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus over and over
again as he rubbed a gold cross hanging around his neck.
"Jesus won't save you," the woman said, walking over
to the cowering man. "But give him my best."
With one thrust, she buried her knife up to the hilt just
under LeRoy Culvert's jaw. He tried to open it, instead
aspirating a cloud of blood. When Culvert's eyes rolled
back in his head, the woman pulled the knife free.
Culvert's body toppled to the ground.
The woman looked at the bloody knife in her hand.
"Three days," the woman said to her associates. "Once
Paulina Cole does her job, and the police tie this into it,
we'll have enough product on the street to saturate the
entire city in less than a week."
Malloy stood there, staring at the bodies. He made the
sign of the cross. The woman turned to Malloy and put
her arm across his shoulder.
"I know you're thinking about him," she said. "But I
promise you, he won't have died in vain."
"Thursday," Malloy said. "I've been waiting for this
day for twenty years."
"Me, too," she said. "Now come on, we have some new
recruits coming in. I want this room to look like something
out of Stephen King's nightmares."
The Darkness
41
The woman took the knife and drew it across the wall,
leaving a bloody smear. Just a few strokes later, the F was
visible. When she completed the rest of the word, and the
apartment was sufficiently coated, they left the building and
waited for Detective Sevag Makhoulian to report the crime.
5
Amanda Davies arrived home at eight o'clock. She
called it home even though it was anything but. The
reality was it was the home of her friend and coworker
Darcy Lapore, and Darcy was campaigning for most altruistic human being on the planet by allowing Amanda
to stay there.
Living here wasn't what she'd expected after coming
to New York for law school. She figured she'd graduate
from NYU near the top of her class, which she did, then
find a cushy job in some high-profile firm and become
one of those high-powered career women who had brassy
blond hair (hers was auburn, so this would be tricky),
wear smart Hillary Clinton pantsuits, get married at
thirty-six, kids at thirty-nine, realize by fifty that you
never really spent much time with your family, sixty
before you realized you were never really happy in your
marriage and my, didn't life go by fast?
Instead, she met a guy named Henry Parker who changed
her world. Well, part of it was her own doing, choosing the
not-for-profit sector of legal aid rather than one of those
cushy jobs. She didn't make the money most New York
lawyers did, but she was pretty sure she slept better at night.
The Darkness
43
It took a few years, but looking back Amanda