Monkeewrench Read Online Free Page B

outfit. “Fat Annie is going to break some hearts today.”
    “You break hearts in burlap.”
    “This is true.” She sighed and stared at the dented elevator door. A lopsided, cartoonish stencil of a monkey’s face leered back at her. “How the hell could Roadrunner have screwed this up? He uses a T-square to line up the tops of his socks and he can’t level a friggin’ stencil.”
    Grace cocked her head at the monkey. “I don’t know why he didn’t just laser-print a decal with the real logo. This thing looks …”
    “Maniacal?”
    “Exactly. Maniacal.”
    Harley looked more like a Hell’s Angel than any Hell’s Angel Grace had ever seen—enormous, solid, tattooed,bearded, and intimidating. He was waiting to lift the elevator gate for them, a donut clenched in his teeth, a trail of powdered sugar leading back across the wooden floorboards of the second-floor loft. “Angels rising.” He grinned around the donut, little powdery pieces falling to his chest.
    “Cretin.” Annie pushed past him.
    “Hey, I opened the gate, didn’t I?”
    Grace gave him a commiserative pat on the cheek as she headed for the jumbled maze of desks and computer equipment in the center of the otherwise empty loft space. She lifted a hand in greeting to Roadrunner, a beanstalk of a man in a yellow Lycra warm-up suit doing yoga stretches in a far corner.
    “Grace, Annie, thank God. Voices of reason. Harley’s still pushing for a chop and dice.”
    “Like I said, cretin,” Annie grumbled, tossing her briefcase on her desk and glaring at a white bakery box resting on the slab of Harley’s right arm. “I
told
you not to bring that crap in anymore, Harley.” She continued to stare at the box. “Got any lemon custard in there?”
    He pushed the box in her direction. “Don’t I always?”
    “Prick.” She snatched the lemon custard Danish.
    Harley plucked out a bismarck and talked around his first bite. “You know, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. About killing this last guy? It’s gotta be messy, don’t you think, Grace?”
    “Nope.” She hung her duster on a coat tree by her desk. The gun was properly in its holster now, riding low under her left arm. The black straps disappeared against the black T-shirt.
    Harley plopped his bulk down in her chair and beamed up at her. “You look absolutely ravishing this morning. Downright beatific. Madonna-esque.”
    “Which Madonna?”
    “Whichever one you want.”
    “Don’t try to butter me up, Harley. We’re doing this guy just like the others.”
    “No changes,” Annie agreed.
    “Okay, I expected this. You’re women, naturally squeamish creatures, but you’re just not thinking this through. This is the guy who started it all. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have had to kill the rest of them. If we’re punishing anyone with a violent death, it should be him.”
    “Maybe if we’d killed him first,” Roadrunner piped up in midstretch, “but we didn’t. To tell you the truth, I’m so tired of this whole thing, I’d be just as happy if we didn’t have to kill another one at all.”
    “Are you out of your friggin’ mind?” Harley bellowed. “We
have
to kill him.”
    “Duh.”
    “
Horribly.
Maybe with a chainsaw.”
    Annie glowered at him. “You know what scares me, Harley? Your pervasive enthusiasm for this kind of thing.”
    “Hey, what can I say? I love my work.”
    Grace nudged Harley out of her chair and sat down. “A .22 to the head, just like the rest of them.”
    “Come
on
,” Harley complained.
    “Forget it,” Annie said. “You’re outvoted.”
    Harley threw up his hands. “You’re all a bunch of pussies.”
    “It has to make sense, Harley. We have to stick to the pattern,” Grace said.
    “Mitch ought to have a vote. Where the hell is he?”
    “Airport,” Grace reminded him. “And even if he voted with you, that would still be three against two.”
    “Goddamn pussies … oh, man …” He was watching Annie take off her