Dark Heart Read Online Free Page B

momentum of his weight to drive his elbow into the guy’s solar plexus.
    The man gasped, doubled over, and Madrone brought the butt of his pistol down hard on the guy’s neck. The man hit the pavement like a sack of wet cement. Madrone grabbed his collar, hauled him to his feet, and shoved him up against the wall.
    “The position, asshole. You know the position. Assume the fucking position!”
    He realized he was shouting. He forced himself to take a breath as he patted the guy down. No weapons. He stepped back, slipped his pistol back into its holster. Thank God he hadn’t had to shoot the fucker. The paperwork would have been enormous.
    “ID,” Madrone growled. “Let’s see some ID.”
    “Does it matter?” the thin Chinese man said. He met Madrone’s gaze calmly. Now that the dancing was over, he looked like an out-of-place accountant. “I meant you no harm.”
    “Yeah, right,” Madrone said. “You got a fucked-up way of showing it. Listen, you stupid asshole, I’m a fucking cop, and you’re under fucking arrest! You gotta right to remain silent—”
    “I want to help you, Officer Madrone,” the Chinese man said, his voice as calm as if he were reading numbers off a spreadsheet. His mouth thinned to a tight line as he looked at Madrone.
    Madrone blinked. “You know my name? I don’t think I know you. Do I know you, asshole?”
    “No, Mr. Madrone. You don’t know me. But that doesn’t matter.”
    He raised one hand as Madrone glared at him. “Leave the skin, Mr. Madrone,” he said. Madrone stared at him in disbelief. Was that pity in his eyes? The hair on Madrone’s neck stood up. He felt a chill, as if chips of ice were slowly condensing in his veins.
    “I asked you how you know my name, asshole,” Madrone said.
    But the Asian ignored the question with that same frigid, infuriating accountant’s calm.
    “You have no idea how much disaster you are calling down upon your head,” the Chinese man said. “That is why I am here. Leave the skin behind. Leave this place and forget Carlton Wheeler. You cannot change what happened to him. If you do as I say, you can save yourself.”
    Madrone stepped back, confusion rippling his sunken features. “Carlton Wheeler? What the fuck does this have to do with Carlton Wheeler? Who are you, asshole?”
    The Chinese man let out a slow breath and fixed Madrone with an intense stare. “That skin will be the death of you.”
    Madrone made up his mind. “That’s it, Charlie Chan. Hands behind your back, cross your wrists. Come on, do it! ”
    A loud scrape echoed suddenly behind him. He turned for just one second. But it was enough. The Chinese man jerked away from him. He was ten feet away and pounding for the mouth of the alley before Madrone could even blink. Madrone lunged for him, slipped, and landed hard on his ass.
    “Jesus!”
    But the man was gone. The sound of his rapid footsteps lessened, then vanished entirely, leaving Madrone sitting flat on his butt, utterly confused.
    Carlton fucking Wheeler?
    Madrone shook his head to clear it, levered himself to his feet, then picked up the skin again. Limping slightly, he walked out of the alley onto the sidewalk of Dearborn, turned right, trudged to the corner of Ontario, and made his way past the club entrance. The trendy yuppies still standing in line peered out from under their Versace umbrellas at him, their expressions saying they wouldn’t be inviting him in for a drink any time soon. Madrone felt them staring—though it was a different feeling than the watchfulness he’d felt in the alley—and supposed he couldn’t blame them. Then the wind turned and he got a good whiff of what he smelled like. It was a miracle the yuppies weren’t running screaming into the night.
    He was already soaked, too wet to get any wetter without drowning, so that even though the incessant downpour pattered on his head and his clothes, it didn’t add new dimensions to his misery. It just made him feel more like an