Kim Oh 2: Real Dangerous Job (The Kim Oh Thrillers) by K. W. Jeter Page A

shouldn’t use the word relationship around them. It weirds them out.
     
    “What I should’ve done,” said Cole, “was tell you that you were out of your freakin’ little school-girl mind. You’re not cut out for this.”
     
    “Not cut out for it? What’re you talking about? We’ve been putting in the hours out at the quarry –”
     
    “Oh, yeah. Very impressive. If you were looking to be a stone cutter, maybe.”
     
    “And I blew away Pomeroy. What about that?”
     
    “You got lucky.”
     
    “ That counts as luck? Remind me never to go to Vegas.”
     
    “Do whatever you want,” said Cole. “But I’ve made up my mind. I’m pulling the plug. On the whole operation. We’re not going after McIntyre.”
     
    “You’re kidding.” I stared at him. “Why not?”
     
    “Because you’ve got a family –”
     
    “I’ve got a brother.”
     
    “That’s enough. For this whole thing to be a bad idea.”
     
    “You knew about him before.”
     
    “Yeah,” said Cole, “but I hadn’t met him. Now he’s real. Inside my head. You shouldn’t have brought me over here.”
     
    “But . . .” I had to grip the edge of the table with both hands, as the room started to tilt around me. “What am I going to do?”
     
    “What are you going to do? Number one, you’re not going to get killed. This isn’t a game. You’re in way over your head.”
     
    I knew I wasn’t making a very good case for myself, to be considered as a real killer, by starting to cry. But I couldn’t help myself.
     
    “No . . .” I laid my head on top of my arms on the table and wept into them. “You don’t understand. What am I going to be? ”
     
    “What you were.”
     
    “But that wasn’t anything.” I lifted my reddened, tear-wet face toward him. “This is something, at least. This is my only chance.”
     
    “You’re screwed up, Kim.” His face was set tight as he regarded me. “To even be thinking like that.”
     
    I slumped back in my chair, defeated.
     
    “You don’t understand.” I couldn’t see him or anything else in front of me. “There was this guy . . . an older guy . . . at McIntyre’s company.” For some reason, the memory came up before my eyes. “He was already working there when I started. He ran the mail room or something. I’m not sure what. But he was a real nice guy. Kind of quiet. He and I used to talk.” I wiped my nose with my sleeve, then went on. “He’d never done anything in his whole life. Just went to work, then came home, then went to work again the next day. Except one time. He saved up his money and quit whatever job he’d been working then, just so he could go overseas and hike around Northern England and Scotland for six weeks. Why there, I don’t know. He told me it was just what he wanted to do. But the thing was, he’d never even flown in an airplane before. This was the first time.” I could hear the guy quietly speaking inside my head. “And something happened when the plane took off. He’s sitting there, crammed into his little economy seat, and one of the engines blows out. And the plane starts to go down. And he can see out the window next to him, the plane’s tilting to one side, and he can see the ground coming up at them. And you know what he thought? What he told me?”
     
    Cole didn’t say anything, but just sat and listened.
     
    “The guy thought, At least I got this far . That’s what he thought. At least I got this far . And he was so happy. Happier than he’d ever been in his whole life. And then the pilot got the engine started again, the plane leveled off, and everything was fine. But it would’ve been fine, anyway.”
     
    I nodded slowly, thinking about the rest of the story.
     
    “Then he left,” I said. “Left the company, I mean. He quit. McIntyre got on his ass about something, some petty bullshit, and he just said that was it, and he left. Went down the elevator and out the building lobby. And I liked him