Made to Kill Read Online Free

care in the world.
    I looked at the gold. I looked at the bag. I wondered how much it was all worth. It bothered me quite a lot and I said so.
    “Easy, Ray.”
    “Someone might want it back,” I said.
    There was a pause and a ticking sound.
    “Go on,” said Ada.
    I levered the chair back to the upright and kept going, reaching for the gold ingot and holding it up between an articulated forefinger and thumb. I turned around in the chair. There was a window behind me, a big one, and it was full of sunlight. So I held the bar up to that sunlight. I wasn’t sure what that was going to tell me but I was looking for options. The bar glinted a little, but not a lot.
    “The gold isn’t hers,” I said. “I mean, not personally. It can’t be. Nobody keeps gold like this.”
    “Lots of people keep gold,” said Ada. “Governments, for example.”
    “And big banks and Fort Knox,” I said. “Yes, I get it. But not like this. And not regular people.”
    “So she isn’t regular people.”
    I considered. Maybe Ada had a point. The girl had been young and pretty, dressed casually but in expensive gear and she had expensive hair. The bag itself, even without the gold stretching the seams, was top drawer. She wasn’t short of funds.
    She had also been strange. No name. No conversation. She was afraid but calm at the same time. If it was an act, it was a good one. She’d kept her cool.
    But it still didn’t fit. People didn’t have gold. Which meant she got it from somewhere. And the way she acted, I figured she didn’t want anyone to know she’d come calling.
    Which meant the gold not only wasn’t hers, she’d taken it without permission.
    Our mystery girl was a thief and that’s what I said to Ada.
    “She’s also our client now, Ray,” said Ada. “And she’s paid in advance.”
    “Someone might want it back,” I said again, making sure Ada hadn’t conveniently wiped over that part of the conversation on her great big magnetic memory tapes in the other room.
    “Ray, don’t tell me Thornton programmed you with a conscience?”
    I laughed. I’d been practicing. It sounded like two rocks going for a joyride in a clothes washer.
    “Maybe he did,” I said. “You know I think about him, sometimes.”
    For a moment it felt like Ada took a drag on a cigarette, and then the image was gone.
    “Yeah,” she said. “That was a terrible accident he had.”
    “It was.”
    “Very sad.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Don’t worry. We sent flowers.”
    “Good.”
    “And you should keep your mind on the job, chief. She gave an address. You should go take a look.”
    “Okay,” I said. I lifted the hat from my desk and I stood up. I kept a firm grip on the telephone because something was bothering me.
    “The girl…” I said.
    “What about her?”
    “She knew about me. She knew where to come.”
    “These are true facts.”
    “I’m going to have to find her and kill her too, aren’t I?”
    “At least she paid in advance.”
    “Seems a shame.”
    “She made the choice to come here, chief. We are obliged to take precautions.”
    Ada was right and I knew she was right but I still thought about it for a few seconds as I stood by the desk.
    “First things first, chief,” said Ada. “You’ve got work to do.”
    I frowned. Then I hung up the phone and lifted the hat from my desk. I put it on, made sure it was straight, and then headed out the door and locked it behind me.
     

 
     
     
     
4
     
     
    It was a hot day. That’s why I liked LA. I was good with heat. Kept the circuits ticking. Some people said that this town got too much sun for its own good, but I didn’t remember where I had heard that. Maybe it was from Thornton. I could remember his pipe and his glasses and the heavy suit he always wore, and he seemed like the kind of guy who liked to stay inside. More echoes from his template I guess. But although my electromatic brain might have been based on the mind of my creator, I wasn’t really him. I was