Read Online From Filth & Mud by J. Manuel - Free Book Online

his serpent skin and to Shango for peace from the storms. Now as he stood before his tormentor, he sang for sweet release from his corporal and spiritual pain. The smell of cigar tobacco and rum overwhelmed him as he let go. Flow was saved.
     
    John carried Flow toward the front of the sedan, which still hummed idly. He quickly placed him into the driver’s seat, pulled out his suppressed .380 caliber pistol, and put all six rounds into his chest. No sense in leaving any doubt that this was gang retribution.
     
    John checked Flow’s neck for a pulse. He hated using such small 90-grain rounds to begin with and then having to suppress them was a nightmare. The suppressor reduced most of what little punch the rounds delivered in the first place. There were a couple of occasions when he’d emptied a magazine of small caliber pistol rounds into a target only to have to manually finish the job. His preferred cleanup method was strangulation by constricting the carotid arteries with his fingers. This not only ensured death, but allowed him to feel the life as it left the target, his guilty pleasure. The sensation of the throbbing arteries as they tried to carry what precious blood remained up past his obstructing hands was invigorating. His fingers tingled at the rhythm of the morbid tempo as it slowed and faded like a solitary snare drum playing the last measures in a drumline of death.
     
    Satisfied that the job was done, he scanned the garage once more. Nothing. John placed the body sideways; the head slumped on the passenger’s seat, just out of view of any distant passerby. He strode calmly to a gray minivan parked a couple of spaces down, behind the silver-gray sedan and sat in the car for a couple of minutes. He scanned the garage to ensure no witnesses appeared. He chirped his mic and received two chirps back. The spotting team had not seen any activity either. He was clear. John carefully exited the parking lot and drove out of the apartment complex toward a rendezvous with his team behind a scrap-metal junkyard just outside of the district. He pulled alongside a stationary, white, utility van and handed the man inside a large Styrofoam coffee cup; the small murder weapon inside.
     
    “We got it from here,” the man in the van said as he shot a glance around the junkyard.
     
    “You’ve got a couple of hours before Dante comes back from his parole officer’s appointment.”
     
    “We’ll put it back where we got it.”
     
    “And the tip?
     
    “Yeah we’ve got that covered. We’ll call the Metro P.D. tip-line tonight.”
     
    John nodded his approval to the driver . “Get it done.”
     
    “Oorah!” came the reply.
     
    The two vehicles left unnoticed in their separate directions. John had a flight to catch. By the time he landed, Metro police would be circling in on their suspect following an anonymous tip to their Crime Stoppers line. The tipster had informed them that a known gang member, Dante Cummings, had threatened a few people at an after-hours club with a gun. Dante was on parole for a robbery he had committed a year earlier and weapons were a serious violation. Police and his parole officer would search Dante’s apartment and find a .380 caliber pistol inside of a small lock box in a closet. They would run ballistics as with every confiscated firearm and would match Dante’s pistol to the gun, used in the killing of Philip “ Flow ” Williams, a known banger, and ex-con with outstanding warrants.
                 
    The police chief and the mayor would hold a press conference for the second day in a row, proud of the fact that they had managed to track down a homicide suspect. Crime was under control in the district, and criminals were being put on notice that they would be caught and brought to justice, an example of fine police work indeed.

CHAPTER 10
     
     
    Spring 2015:
     
    After a long afternoon of toiling with Hail Mary solutions, William left the Syracuse lab on a trip