Read Online Atomic Underworld: Part One by Jack Conner - Free Book Online

was that
of a man, naked, beaten and mutilated. His scrotum had been removed, leaving a
bloody wound, and it had been stuffed between the man’s jaws. Ragged bits of
flesh stuck out between cracked teeth.
    “Fuck,”
said Frankie, “it’s Serat.”
    Vassas
placed a hand to his forehead, as if a headache had come on him all of a
sudden. “Damn it all.” He swayed for a moment, then shook his head. For a long
time he said nothing, and Tavlin became aware of the sounds of the doctor
moving patients into his little office in the back of the building next to the
kitchens.
    “Who
was he?” Tavlin asked, realizing that the motorcyclists must have dropped the
body off.
    Vassas
didn’t answer, but Frankie did: “One of our boys. Came after your time. Boss
sent him to negotiate Peter’s return—that’s the fellow we, ah, questioned last
night. We couldn’t just give him back to his gang, that would look weak, you
know how it is, but we were gonna ransom him back and let them off with a good
bargain.”
    “This
is Grund’s crew you’re talking about, right, the ones you thought committed the
murders?”
    “Yeah.
Grund likes motorcycles. Don’t know where he got the cash for them all, though.
That happened real recent.” Frankie looked down at Serat’s body, grimaced, and turned away. “Anyway, Serat was our envoy. No one touches
envoys, not for a long time.”
    “Looks
like Grund wants a fight.”
    Boss
Vassas grunted, and when Tavlin peered at him he saw that the Boss had changed.
The mob chieftain was harder, grimmer, and there was a strange light behind his
eyes only hinted at by his unnaturally calm demeanor. “No,” he said. “It’s war
he wants. And by the gods, it’s war I’ll give him.”

Chapter 4
    Water
lapped at the pilings, and Tavlin felt the skin between his shoulder blades
draw tight. This really wasn’t a good idea, he told himself for the hundredth
time. Yet Boss Vassas had been so distracted organizing for battle that he
hadn’t been willing to give Tavlin the assistance he’d requested, which left
Tavlin no choice if he wanted something to get done about the murders and the
missing jewels. Now, however, as he rowed his boat beneath the raised pier of
the warehouse district, draped in shadow and all too close to the water, he
wondered if he had a choice after all.
    It
wasn’t as if he had to be here. No
one was making him. Sure, Boss Vassas was paying him, and the girls at the
Twirling Skirt expected it of him, but who was he to do this sort of thing? He
was a gambler, a former junkie and thief, a member of the mob, a lousy bastard
all around. Did he think this bit of skull-duggery was going to make up for a
lifetime of misspent energy? It was absurd. And yet, as if despite the rest of
him, his arms continued rowing the boat forward.
    He
made for the factory where the man who had killed Madam Elana had gone. 4302
Eversly. It was late at night, as the inhabitants of Muscud reckoned night, and
few sounds filtered through the boards and cement overhead, and what few sounds
did leak through were mostly soaked up by the vapor exuded by the water. Tavlin
tried not to think of the slimy things that lived just below him, things that
might regard an untainted human as a tasty snack.
    Rowing
forward, he began to hear faint sounds. The vapor created a fog of sorts, a
nasty, acrid exudation that constantly made him spit, but it was thin at the
moment, and concentrated only in pockets, so that he could see, from time to
time, a boat crew make an overnight delivery or drop-off at the trapdoor
entrances to certain factories and warehouses. There weren’t many such crews
about, but they were in evidence.
    The
trapdoors were marked with addresses so that the boat crews could find them. At
the dormant doors, Tavlin rowed close to find out where along Eversly Blvd. he
was. The numbers reassured him that he went in the proper direction. At last he
came within sight of the trapdoor to what must be 4302. He