Read Online Fuzzy Navel by J. A. Konrath - Free Book Online

start yelling.
    “I’m the leader of The Urban Hunting Club,” he says, his voice as calm and patronizing as a grade school teacher’s. “I’m the one who brought us together. I’m the one who picked the targets. I’m the one who came up with the plan.”
    Munchel rolls his eyes at Swanson, then nudges Pessolano.
    “Hey, Paul, how many confirmed kills you got?”
    “Eighteen.” Pessolano’s voice is rough, like he doesn’t use it much.
    “I’m almost caught up to you. I just got twelve.”
    “You got eleven,” Pessolano says. “One of the cops lived.”
    Munchel shrugs. “Fine, eleven. Still pretty good my first time out.”
    Swanson realizes that he probably shouldn’t have trusted guys who answered an ad in the back of
Soldier of Fortune.
But he didn’t have a choice. Where else was he supposed to find mercenaries? Swanson works in a home improvement store, in the plumbing department. He isn’t a killer.
    Well, technically, he
is
a killer now. But he wasn’t a few hours ago. And he wasn’t a few months ago when he placed that ad.
    When Swanson’s wife got…
attacked
… five years ago, he’d been devastated. Jen was, is, his everything. Then the bastard who did it got out five years early – for good behavior, what a fucking joke. Swanson couldn’t allow that. He had to kill the guy. For Jen. For himself. For society. It was more than just revenge. More than justice. The punk needed to be killed, and Swanson felt the need to perform that particular public ser vice.
    But he knew that if he offed the guy, suspicion would immediately fall on him. The authorities would look at his victims, following the revenge angle.
    Unless it looked random.
    Thus, The Urban Hunting Club was born. All Swanson needed were a couple of like-minded guys who hated perverts, and then Rob Siders’s death would be blamed on vigilantes, not on an angry husband.
    But Munchel has ruined the plan. TUHC has gone from being a group that might have been respected, even admired, straight to Public Enemy Number One. Cops never forget when you murder their own. They’ll be hunted for the rest of their lives. All because Munchel got himself a kill hard-on.
    “We need to break up,” Swanson says. “Go our separate ways, never see each other again.”
    “Why would we do that?” Munchel asks. The waitress brings his beer, and the idiot continues to talk in front of her. “We make a great team. We got rid of some real scum today.”
    The server leaves, and Swanson leans over, jutting his chin at Munchel.
    “And now we’re wanted for killing ten cops,” he says through his teeth.
    Munchel smiles, takes a sip of beer. “Collateral damage. Couldn’t be helped.”
    Swanson looks at Pessolano, who is stoically picking his teeth with his fork. He realizes he has to distance himself from these two loonies. Hell, he should probably run straight home, grab Jen, and move to California. That might look like an admission of guilt, but Munchel is going to get caught, and when he gets caught he’ll talk. Swanson doesn’t want to be implicated in any cop killing case, especially in a state that has the death penalty.
    “I’m ditching the gun, and getting the fuck out of town.”
    Swanson stands. Pessolano clasps his hands together, puts them behind his head.
    “You ain’t ditching shit. Those are my rifles, and they’re worth more than you make in a year.”
    “Fine. Let’s go out to the parking lot, you can have your guns back right now.”
    Munchel finishes his beer, lets out a weak belch. He meets Swanson’s stare.
    “Before you go running home to Mama, crying like a little girl, we have to take care of one more problem.”
    Dread creeps up Swanson’s shoulders and perches there, like a gargoyle. “What problem?”
    “That chick cop. The one who fired back at me.”
    “What about her?”
    Munchel wipes his mouth off with his sleeve. “She saw my face.”
    Swanson sits back down. This isn’t happening. This can’t be