Read Online Armistice by Nick Stafford - Free Book Online

acknowledged that fear prevented him from acting as he might. But also, fear had sometimes saved him. No, fear wasn’t the problem here. Nor cowardliness. Not his, anyway.
    Had he done absolutely everything he could have? Yes and no. But the sense of injustice was always burning within him; it never died down except for the brief periods when he was totally intoxicated. It burned mostly on a low flame, but the times it flared up were maddening to an intolerable degree because they were a reminder that he knew in his heart of hearts that someone was still getting away with about the worst thing that they could get away with. And he didn’t know how to rest because of it.
    He turned left at the top of the stairs in the nightclub and entered a medium-sized room suggestively lit by chandeliers of red bulbs. In the nearly colorless, airless room cigarette smoke curled down from the ceiling, deepening the sense of being slightly underground rather than three floors up. He’d been oblivious on the stairs to the normal goings-on but now he saw what he expected to see: men and women in various states of intoxication having a damned good time even if it killed them. More women than men, of course. More young women than young men, anyway. And a few of the young men had visible disfigurements. The post-war euphoria had worn off to be replaced by quiet desperation as it became progressively more unclear exactly what it had all been for.
    He nodded to a middle-aged woman, dressed for the night in a slick gown and gauze veil, sitting on a bar stool smoking a cigarette in a long black holder. Didn’t know her name. Didn’t want to. She nodded back and, with an incline of her head activated a grizzled hulk of a man, unlikely in evening-wear, to come to Jonathan’s side. He barely paused as Jonathanslipped money into his paw. While waiting for the return part of the transaction Jonathan’s hand went to his scalp, to his scar. He absentmindedly ran his fingers along it, while trying to imagine how and when Philomena would discover what the “fuss” was about. Could he trust her, if he told her, to not let on it was him she had learned it from? Obviously he took the threat of libel seriously. But if she heard it first from someone else what version would she be given? No, not what version; whose version? And what would she think of him? He watched the woman at the bar accept his money and give her simian emissary a tiny packet in return. Was this subterfuge really necessary? Now the stuff had been deemed illegal, then yes, he supposed it was. The grizzled man neared. Jonathan got his prickly feeling at the back of his neck. This sensation had saved his life on more than one occasion so he paid it due attention. Stepping sideways, he gave a discreet hand signal to the deliveryman, who changed course, looking slightly puzzled. Jonathan maneuvered himself so that he was able to see what was behind him. His heart skipped a beat and the blood roared in his ears. What had triggered his sixth sense was Anthony Dore, around the corner of the bar, taking a seat. The human being he loathed above all others was calmly sitting down alone, oblivious to being glared at.
    Shocked to find his enemy in one of his own haunts Jonathan slipped directly behind Anthony Dore as he settled. Jonathan studied the crown of his foe’s head as he sipped his drink, and not for the first time, but never before in such proximity, contemplated smashing it in some way. The various times hehad followed Dore about the streets he had fantasized about hurting him, and now as Dore held his glass to his lips Jonathan imagined reaching over to ram it hard into his face, breaking glass against skull, changing grip, screwing glass into tissue, gouging, tearing and severing.
    Why couldn’t anyone else know what Jonathan knew? Or did they know but didn’t care, had no stomach for the fight? What fight? The fighting had stopped, hadn’t it?