of firing the.357 magnum—it was a hell of a weapon, something you really had to respect—but he had never quite had the opportunity to do it until now. He lived the kind of life where generally speaking he was protected against the kind of violent confrontations that the.357 was good for. Well, that meant that he had been living wrong all the time. This was a hell of a lot of fun. He should have done it before.
Through the aperture of the skull, Carlin could see Joe’s brains as if they were a living thing, a vegetable-like growth moving through the foliage of his hair and outward. The brain was under terrific compression by the walls of the skull. Shooting a man in the head enabled the brains to do what they had always wanted to anyway, which was to find more space, come out for air. Laughing, he looked at the thing on the floor and grinned as the brains drove through to find their new space, the feet on the floor kicking reflexively as if in ecstasy at the way in which all of the inner tensions had been resolved. Maybe that was what made people crazy. Maybe that, more than anything else, was responsible for all the tensions of modern society, the fact that people’s brains were always compressed. Why, sheer pressure on the brain, Carlin thought. That alone could make a man tense and unhappy. Look at all the facial expressions that had danced across Joe’s face, look at the way that the bastard had always been trying to find an attitude, never had been quite happy with any.
Well, the poor bastard was out of his misery now for sure. Whatever the explanation, Carlin had neatly solved all of his problems.
There was nothing else to do. He holstered the.357, dragged up his valise, and left the room. If there was any purpose to his staying, he would have; he would have done everything he could have to give Joe a decent burial just as he would have done the same for Janice … but what the hell. What did it matter? What difference was there in any of it? Dead was dead; to pay ceremony to them was merely for the convenience of the living. It certainly would make no difference.
To Mexico City, Carlin thought, and let the other one, let Dick find the mess here and deal with it. Dick was a resourceful type; he would think of something. Maybe he would take all of the blame on himself.
Carlin headed toward the door giggling, tugging the valise, the valise rapping against his ankles, tripping him a little but not impeding his flight, speeding it in fact.
Just as he got to the door, however, the phone rang.
Shit.
Being a conscientious man now without a houseboy, Carlin went back and answered it.
X
Narco had been just swell. Narco had been contrived as the biggest, nicest present that they could give Wulff, a returned Vietnam veteran, decorated in combat no less, as a kind of gesture of their appreciation for what he had done, which was mostly to louse up the figures on all the guys who hung out at the bars saying that Vietnam was a great cause, it was just a fucking shame that they were draft-exempt because they had a more important duty here on the front lines of America, defending it from the scum right on the doorstep, otherwise they’d be out there catching Charlie’s flack. All of them looked pretty lousy next to Wulff, who had passed up the exemption on the grounds that if the war was to be seen then someone from the supposed front lines of the city ought to see it. It had created quite an uneasy feeling in the department, and there were even a few people around at the headquarters level who weren’t shy about saying that Wulff had to be crazy; any man who would buy himself a piece of that when he had an exemption had to be out of his mind. Still, they felt guilty, they wanted to do something nice for him, the PD had a long and not entirely untruthful reputation for taking care of its own. So they put him on narco.
Narco was second to vice of course, which was the greatest thing in the world altogether but strictly
Through the aperture of the skull, Carlin could see Joe’s brains as if they were a living thing, a vegetable-like growth moving through the foliage of his hair and outward. The brain was under terrific compression by the walls of the skull. Shooting a man in the head enabled the brains to do what they had always wanted to anyway, which was to find more space, come out for air. Laughing, he looked at the thing on the floor and grinned as the brains drove through to find their new space, the feet on the floor kicking reflexively as if in ecstasy at the way in which all of the inner tensions had been resolved. Maybe that was what made people crazy. Maybe that, more than anything else, was responsible for all the tensions of modern society, the fact that people’s brains were always compressed. Why, sheer pressure on the brain, Carlin thought. That alone could make a man tense and unhappy. Look at all the facial expressions that had danced across Joe’s face, look at the way that the bastard had always been trying to find an attitude, never had been quite happy with any.
Well, the poor bastard was out of his misery now for sure. Whatever the explanation, Carlin had neatly solved all of his problems.
There was nothing else to do. He holstered the.357, dragged up his valise, and left the room. If there was any purpose to his staying, he would have; he would have done everything he could have to give Joe a decent burial just as he would have done the same for Janice … but what the hell. What did it matter? What difference was there in any of it? Dead was dead; to pay ceremony to them was merely for the convenience of the living. It certainly would make no difference.
To Mexico City, Carlin thought, and let the other one, let Dick find the mess here and deal with it. Dick was a resourceful type; he would think of something. Maybe he would take all of the blame on himself.
Carlin headed toward the door giggling, tugging the valise, the valise rapping against his ankles, tripping him a little but not impeding his flight, speeding it in fact.
Just as he got to the door, however, the phone rang.
Shit.
Being a conscientious man now without a houseboy, Carlin went back and answered it.
X
Narco had been just swell. Narco had been contrived as the biggest, nicest present that they could give Wulff, a returned Vietnam veteran, decorated in combat no less, as a kind of gesture of their appreciation for what he had done, which was mostly to louse up the figures on all the guys who hung out at the bars saying that Vietnam was a great cause, it was just a fucking shame that they were draft-exempt because they had a more important duty here on the front lines of America, defending it from the scum right on the doorstep, otherwise they’d be out there catching Charlie’s flack. All of them looked pretty lousy next to Wulff, who had passed up the exemption on the grounds that if the war was to be seen then someone from the supposed front lines of the city ought to see it. It had created quite an uneasy feeling in the department, and there were even a few people around at the headquarters level who weren’t shy about saying that Wulff had to be crazy; any man who would buy himself a piece of that when he had an exemption had to be out of his mind. Still, they felt guilty, they wanted to do something nice for him, the PD had a long and not entirely untruthful reputation for taking care of its own. So they put him on narco.
Narco was second to vice of course, which was the greatest thing in the world altogether but strictly
Similar Books
