City of the Lost Read Online Free Page B

the empty bucket as I splutter water out of my mouth.
    Hands cuffed above my head to half a shower fixture jutting out of the tiled wall. Dirty water dripping from busted ceiling pipes swirls down rusted drains. A single light hangs from the ceiling, throwing out a flickering pool of yellow.
    The walls are covered in gang signs, the floor in broken bottles and crack vials. Stink in the air like meat gone too long in an unplugged fridge.
    Last thing I remember is Julio crushing my windpipe, squeezing me like an overripe tomato. Breathing feels funny, air not coming in quite right. Something wrong with the sound in the room. Quiet in away I can’t place. Something missing.
    I run through my catalog of injuries, and they’re all coming up blank. Throat, knee, all those old aches and pains that I’d learned to ignore are gone, conspicuous in their absence. The fuck is wrong with me?
    I tug on the cuffs, more to give me something else to think about than from any realistic hope of getting out.
    “Sorry, son. Police issue. They’re not coming off.”
    Giavetti crouches, far enough away that I can’t get to him, jaundiced in the dim light. He’s got a blue polo shirt, chinos, pair of slip-on loafers. If not for the Beretta in his hand and the gleam of insanity in his eye, he’d look a lot like my grandfather.
    “How are you feeling? Wondering when you were going to come back.”
    “Fuck you.” I give the cuffs another tug. Like I could be anywhere else.
    “Now there’s a pity. I was hoping for better than that. Fact you can talk at all’s a good sign, though. Let’s try something else. What’s Simon’s problem?”
    I give him the finger, just in case he didn’t catch me the first time around.
    “Interesting. That’s different. That’s good. What if I said please?”
    I stare at him for a good long minute, and with each passing second he’s getting happier and happier. I finally open my mouth just to burst his bubble.
    “Simon didn’t send Julio to kill you. Just wanted to talk. Find out if you knew what happened to the guys you hired from him.”
    “Just talk,” he says. “Right. So he sends his goddamn gorilla over with an ax handle? Just like London.” He twists his mouth and a pretty good impersonation of Simon comes out. “ ‘No ’ard feelins. Bygones ’n all that.’ Limey cocksucker. They’re dead. He knows why. And what about you? Suppose I’d be seeing you for a ‘talk’ sometime? No, not a goddamn thing’s changed.”
    “The fuck do you want, anyway?”
    The question seems to surprise him. “You’re always this inquisitive, aren’t you? That’s really good.” He pulls up a half-burned sofa cushion and sits back on it. “I want to be left the fuck alone. I want Simon to hold up his end of the bargain and not try to rip me off again.”
    “The man’s got people lining up to suck his dick. What the hell could he possibly want from you?” The longer I stall him, the better chance I have of getting out of this mess.
    Giavetti belts out a laugh like a mule. “Oh. You poor, dumb bastard. You’ve no idea what this is about, do you?”
    He settles in on the cushion, cross-legged. Like he’s about to tell stories to the third graders.
    “Immortality,” he says. “Living forever. It’s a neat trick, if you can pull it off.”
    If I hadn’t already known I was being held by a psychopath this pretty much clinches it. Play along, Sunday. Stall for time. Talk slow to the crazy guy with the gun and maybe you’ll walk out of here. Oh, and ignore that whole zombie Julio problem that’s banging on the back of your skull.
    “Suppose you can do it, huh?”
    “Of course I can. And Simon knows it. That’s why you’re here. Betting he fed you a load of horseshit, but trust me, that’s the reason.”
    “Is it now? And here’s me thinking I was coming to feed you to a woodchipper.”
    “The thing that gets me,” he says, ignoring me, “is how he’s able to get you stupid fuckers to