First Blood (1990) Read Online Free Page B

Philadelphia some guy had kept pushing ahead of him to see the go-go girl take off her pants, and he had broken the guy's nose for him. A month later, in Pittsburgh, he had slit the throat of a big Negro who pulled a knife on him when he was sleeping one night by a lake in a park. The Negro had brought a friend who tried to run, and Rambo had hunted him all through the park until he finally caught him trying to start his convertible.
    No, not for this, he told himself. You're all right now.
    It was his turn to smile. 'O.K., let's have another ride,' he said to Teasle. 'But I don't know what the point is. I'm only going to walk back into town
    again.'

    Chapter 6
    The police station was in an old schoolhouse. And red yet, Rambo thought as Teasle drove into the parking lot at the side. He almost asked Teasle if painting the schoolhouse red was somebody's idea of a joke, but he knew that none of this was a joke, and he wondered if he should try talking himself out of it all.
    You don't even like this place. It doesn't even interest you. If Teasle hadn't picked you up, you would have gone straight through on your own. That doesn't make a difference.
    The cement steps leading up to the front door of the station looked new to him, the shiny aluminum door was certainly new, and inside there was a bright white room that took up the width of the building and half the length and smelled of turpentine. The room was checkered with desks, only two of which had anybody at them, a policeman typing, and another policeman talking into the two-way radio that was along the right back wall. They both stopped when they saw him, and he waited for it to come.
    'Now that's a sorry sight,' the man by the typewriter said.
    It never failed to come. 'Sure,' Rambo told him. 'And now you're supposed to say, What am I, a girl or a boy. And after that you're supposed to say, If I'm too poor to get a bath and a haircut, you'll take up a collection for me.'
    'It's not his looks I mind,' Teasle said. 'It's his mouth. Shingleton, have you anything new I ought to know about?' he asked the man by the radio. The man sat tall and solid. He had an almost perfectly rectangular face, neat sideburns down to slightly below his ears. 'Stolen car,' he said. 'Who's handling it?'
    'Ward.'
    'That'll be fine,' Teasle said and turned to Rambo. 'Come on then. Let's get this over.'
    They went across the room and down a corridor to the rear of the building. Footsteps and voices were coming out open doors on both sides, office workers in most of the rooms, policemen in the rest. The corridor was glossy white, and the turpentine smelled worse, and down at the end there was a scaffold under a dirty green part of the ceiling that had been left unpainted. Rambo read the sign that was taped to the scaffold: OUT OF WHITE PAINT BUT WE GOT MORE COMING IN TOMORROW AND WE GOT THE BLUE PAINT YOU WANT TO COVER THE RED OUTSIDE.
    Then Teasle opened the door into an office at the very end of the hall, and Rambo held back a moment.
    Are you absolutely sure you want to go through with this? he asked himself. It's still not too late to try and talk your way out. Out of what? I haven't done anything wrong.
    'Well, come on, get in there,' Teasle said. 'This is what you've been working for.'
    It had been a mistake not to go in there right away. Holding back at the door looked like he was afraid, and he did not want that. But now if he went inside after Teasle had ordered him, it would look like he was obeying, and he did not want that either. He went in before Teasle had another chance to order him.
    The office ceiling came down close to his head, and he felt so closed in that he wanted to stoop, but he did not allow himself. The floor had a rug that was green and worn, like grass that had been trimmed too close to the earth. On the left behind a desk, there was a case of handguns. He centered on a.44 magnum and remembered it from Special Forces training camp: the most powerful handgun made, able to