The Big Reap Read Online Free Page B

gleaming pate of my taciturn companion brought me back to the here and now right quick. If only I had a better handle on where here was, or what was gonna happen next. This steroided-out hunk of lab-grown meat didn’t seem too likely to fill me in on either.
    â€œWe’re here,” he said. “Get out.”
    I got out. Looked around. Saw nothing familiar, not that that surprised me any. London wasn’t really my beat. In all my years as a Collector, I’ve never been able to suss out any geographic rhyme or reason to the assignments on which I’ve been sent, but for whatever reason, I’ve never snatched a soul in London proper. Oxford, sure. Manchester once or twice. Snagged a couple dozen sinners in Ireland in my day, a Scot or two – and one very surly Welshman. But never London. So unless this suited ape had dropped me on the banks of the Thames within spitting distance of Big Ben, it may as well have been Sheboygan for all I knew.
    But what I did see suggested Sheboygan might’ve proven a step up.
    The driver and I stood on a narrow strip of weed-split sidewalk hemmed in on one side by the low-slung curves of his boss’ vintage Bentley, and on the other by a crooked, handbill-plastered plywood construction barrier whose panels zigged and zagged as though tacked up by a cadre of impatient drunkards, none of whom had any facility with a hammer. The building beyond was gargantuan – occupying an entire city block, as near as I could tell – but its shape and purpose were lost to me behind layers of sheet plastic and scaffolding and yet more plywood, which was tacked over what few windows faced the street. Truth be told, it was a hard place to pin down; it seemed to resist being looked at. And when I tried to force myself to do so, I got the disquieting impression those blank plywood eyes were looking back at me.
    Spooked, I diverted my gaze. The feeling passed. I tried to play it off like I was taking in the neighborhood at large, but from the smug grin on the driver’s face, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t buying it.
    Across the street from us sat an ugly yellow brick building stained gray by exhaust and tagged here and there by artless vandals. Its tired façade and the makeshift curtains that showed in its windows – a tapestry here, a beach towel there – suggested low-income housing. Despite the chill and the escalating rain, several of the building’s windows were open, and from them poured an olfactory cacophony of discordant yet not altogether unpleasant spices representing at minimum three continents’ cuisine, and the song and conversation to match.
    To my right, across a narrow side street, was a shuttered convenience store, its dented stainless steel overhead doors down despite the fact it was scarcely midday. The cars that lined the street’s low curb were old and cheap and not worth stealing. The Bentley aside, of course, since it was parked along the curb as well – its driver had somehow managed to not only find a space that accommodated this beautiful behemoth of an automobile with scant inches to spare, but to parallel-park said behemoth without disturbing my beauty sleep until the deed was done. An impressive feat, to be sure, but not half as impressive as simply having the balls to leave such a stunning work of automotive art parked in a dodgy neighborhood without so much as locking its doors.
    I stretched, then, working the sleep and tension from my limbs, and turned to ask the driver, “What now?” But the words never passed my lips.
    Because that’s when I noticed the gun in his hand.
    For such a big guy, it was a dainty, slender little thing. A Ruger Mark Two, unless I was much mistaken – and believe me, I’ve been on the barrel-end of enough firearms in my time, I know most of ’em on sight. A good half the bastards who pointed ’em at me even pulled the trigger, which is how I knew the dinky