Read Online Lone Wolf #13: The Killing Run by Mike Barry - Free Book Online
Authors: Mike Barry
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one flowed the deadly silvery milk of heroin, which had first killed and was now embalming the corpse in clear frozen strips of hard poison, which yet glinted like something beautiful in the darkness. The vision of what drugs had done to his country was beautiful to Wulff only in the way that total disaster, utter corruption could be, but he did not think of this as slowly he pulled the folds of the tent which was Shreveport aside, looking for the place in which Cohen lived. When he found the man, he was going to kill him.
No question about that. He was, in fact, going to kill them all; he had passed now over any line which separated intention from execution. The Carlin kill in Mexico City had been the start of it, absolute ruthlessness, but the Díaz kill had launched him all the way: now and for the first time Wulff found that he was taking an almost physical pleasure, great chunks of open sensation, from the act of murder. In the beginning it had been revenge; later on, past the first clean, mass kills and long-distance snipings, it had been business, but now it had launched itself into a third stage, and he could see that killing could become an end in itself. It was something that it was possible to enjoy on its own terms, like alcohol or sex, needing no rationalization past the necessity and the feeling it evoked upon discharge.
Of course, he was killing scum; that made it much easier for him and meant that he did not have to deal with the more complicated issues of exactly what it meant to be a man who enjoyed killing. As long as it served the right function, that was sufficient. Still, he had a lot of time on the way to Shreveport to think this over, to decide what he was becoming and whether he liked it, and what it came down to, he guessed, was that if you appointed yourself on a mission of revenge against the worst elements imaginable in the realization that anything you did to them was deserved … well, if you became that, then a little bit of them would have to rub off on you, too. You could fight them only by using their methods, in other words, but so much of these men
was
the method that they had adopted. There were risks. You had to face that. There was the possibility that you could become something like them. But essentially Wulff wanted to believe that there was a difference, that there was a whole level which separated him and them. If that level were ever obliterated, it would be time to get out.
But in the meantime he could enjoy the killing. Hell, it was one of the few bonuses that his job afforded. He might as well take pleasure out of it; it wouldn’t make much difference either way, and it would keep him functioning.
In Shreveport, by the freeway, in the lair to which he had tracked the man named Cohen, Wulff came in fast, backing the man up the long mouth of the hallway, then found himself in the bright, aseptic spaces of the living room, Cohen backing into a wall, his eyes the largest part of his face, glaring, glaring. He was a short man in his late forties, a little overweight, maybe a hundred and seventy pounds spread over five and a half feet, his breath coming out in uneven little gasps, his hands shaking as he held them in front of his face. Obviously he had just taken a dose; the rush had stained his cheekbones as if a faucet had sprayed blood against dark glass. He backed against the wall until he could go no further, holding his hands poised, tried to say something, failed, tried again. His voice came out in a thin, wailing scream. How could a man like this even be on Díaz’s list as a possible rival? Wulff wondered. But then again, he had gotten to know Díaz pretty well before he had killed him; this was exactly the kind of customer that the man would pick up. Weakness. Díaz loved it; fastened upon it. And in the new cast of the network, with the top echelons gone, scum like this of course would now represent the top. Discouraging, Wulff thought, and gun extended, came on the
No question about that. He was, in fact, going to kill them all; he had passed now over any line which separated intention from execution. The Carlin kill in Mexico City had been the start of it, absolute ruthlessness, but the Díaz kill had launched him all the way: now and for the first time Wulff found that he was taking an almost physical pleasure, great chunks of open sensation, from the act of murder. In the beginning it had been revenge; later on, past the first clean, mass kills and long-distance snipings, it had been business, but now it had launched itself into a third stage, and he could see that killing could become an end in itself. It was something that it was possible to enjoy on its own terms, like alcohol or sex, needing no rationalization past the necessity and the feeling it evoked upon discharge.
Of course, he was killing scum; that made it much easier for him and meant that he did not have to deal with the more complicated issues of exactly what it meant to be a man who enjoyed killing. As long as it served the right function, that was sufficient. Still, he had a lot of time on the way to Shreveport to think this over, to decide what he was becoming and whether he liked it, and what it came down to, he guessed, was that if you appointed yourself on a mission of revenge against the worst elements imaginable in the realization that anything you did to them was deserved … well, if you became that, then a little bit of them would have to rub off on you, too. You could fight them only by using their methods, in other words, but so much of these men
was
the method that they had adopted. There were risks. You had to face that. There was the possibility that you could become something like them. But essentially Wulff wanted to believe that there was a difference, that there was a whole level which separated him and them. If that level were ever obliterated, it would be time to get out.
But in the meantime he could enjoy the killing. Hell, it was one of the few bonuses that his job afforded. He might as well take pleasure out of it; it wouldn’t make much difference either way, and it would keep him functioning.
In Shreveport, by the freeway, in the lair to which he had tracked the man named Cohen, Wulff came in fast, backing the man up the long mouth of the hallway, then found himself in the bright, aseptic spaces of the living room, Cohen backing into a wall, his eyes the largest part of his face, glaring, glaring. He was a short man in his late forties, a little overweight, maybe a hundred and seventy pounds spread over five and a half feet, his breath coming out in uneven little gasps, his hands shaking as he held them in front of his face. Obviously he had just taken a dose; the rush had stained his cheekbones as if a faucet had sprayed blood against dark glass. He backed against the wall until he could go no further, holding his hands poised, tried to say something, failed, tried again. His voice came out in a thin, wailing scream. How could a man like this even be on Díaz’s list as a possible rival? Wulff wondered. But then again, he had gotten to know Díaz pretty well before he had killed him; this was exactly the kind of customer that the man would pick up. Weakness. Díaz loved it; fastened upon it. And in the new cast of the network, with the top echelons gone, scum like this of course would now represent the top. Discouraging, Wulff thought, and gun extended, came on the
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