The Hunter's Prey Read Online Free

crowding around me. I liked the sound of that and tried to live up to the name. I dressed like a vamp and I had fun like a vamp. Isn’t it crazy, the things you do when you’re young?  
    One day, Johnny started having trouble with another speakeasy owner. Police raids had always been just a nuisance before but now they started coming by all the time and even destroying things. I lost a fine set of champagne flutes once. It was dreadful.  
    So of course, Johnny’s friends made sure that the police treated the other man’s place similarly. Matters became more exciting when the young toughs were involved. One time, some of Johnny’s young men even sprayed the other speakeasy with gunfire. A handful of guys were killed too.  
    Once, the other owner sent a few boys past Johnny’s place to shoot things up. A truck was delivering some wine at the time. Both the driver and all his stock were lost in the gunplay. The street was red for days until the next hard rain.  
    Johnny took me out to dinner at a fine steak house to get my mind off that bloody street. The restaurant was famous for the best steaks in Texas but it looked very old-fashioned with its dark woods and scarlet drapes. It even had steer horns on the walls.  
    They seated us in one of the private rooms, so everyone could pretend that we weren’t going to drink alcohol. Johnny ordered his usual fancy French wine. (You’d know about expensive wines, wouldn’t you, sugar?) But the waiter said they didn’t have any of that vintage. Johnny got angry and started fuming. He just wasn’t used to anyone saying no to him. Why, his face even turned red.  
    The waiter called in a fancy Frenchman, short and pretty as a girl, with blue eyes and light brown hair. I didn’t pay much attention to him because he was too pretty. I could see that Johnny wasn’t paying much heed either to all the Frenchie’s talk of other wines. Johnny just kept getting louder and louder as he demanded the wine he always ordered.  
    The commotion brought another man over. The waiter really snapped to attention at his arrival and called him Don Rafael. Don Rafael explained that his supplier had lost a deliveryman in the current troubles, the same deliveryman who had died outside Johnny’s place.  
    Well, Johnny didn’t like this explanation but Don Rafael and I worked together to quiet him down. Don Rafael was a big Mexican—well, he was taller than any other Mexican I’ve ever seen. But he had black hair and black eyes, like most Mexicans, and his nose hooked like an eagle’s. With that nasty scar over one eye, he didn’t look the type to get ruffled by the loss of a wine shipment. His calm helped settle Johnny down.
    Finally Johnny let himself be bribed by the promise of a special show, featuring me and one of the hat-check girls back at the speakeasy. Don Rafael treated us to some fine brandy before we drove back to Austin. I always drank fine brandy after dinner with Johnny…  
    Thank you, sugar. A new cocktail tastes really good right now. I haven’t thought of that dinner in years. I’ve never spoken of it before, even to Johnny.  
    It was right after that when the drifter showed up. Johnny had put out the word in Dallas and Kansas City that he was looking to hire. A number of young toughs showed up but most of them weren’t worth the time of day. So Johnny and I would both audition them and then let them go.
    But this fellow was different. Tall and slender, with blond hair and hazel eyes, he moved like a cat. All quiet-like and very dangerous. You knew that this one had killed before. That his crotch was well-filled out was an added bonus to my way of thinking.
    He sat down at the bar, just sipping on a whisky and watching the room. Our fellows noticed him immediately and passed the word to Johnny. One of the cigarette girls mentioned him to me when I was freshening up after a quickie with the bouncer. Of course, I went out to see the drifter too.
    I perched myself next