Read Online The Perfect Crime by Les Edgerton - Free Book Online

around, seeking out the German shepherd. Once in his sight, he held the zoom button down until the dog looked like he was only ten feet away.
    “Now,” he said to Eddie.
    Eddie held the Futaba out away from him at arm’s length and closed his eyes and pressed the red button. For a split second nothing happened and then…
    “Holy fuck!”
    The dog evaporated. Half his back disappeared. Flat-out disappeared. The odd thing was, he remained standing. For a second. His back was gone and half his head, the top half, but he remained standing. A frozen millisecond and then the dog collapsed and sank to the ground. Smoke and chips and chunks of metal flew in every direction, but none came as far as the car. They could see small flames sprouting up on the stump the dog had been tied to.
    “Hot damn! Would you look at that, Reader! Man!”
    “Yeah. Did a number, didn’t it? Took out Rover, killed half his family.” He turned off the camera, tossed it into the back seat.
    “What’s the camera for?”
    “We’re gonna have a private viewing in a few days. You, me and Mr. Clifford St. Ives, the Third.”
    Eddie’s forehead wrinkled, making his eyebrows arch.
    “That’s the mark, huh? Who’s--”
    “President of Derbigny State Bank. He’s going to see what one pipe will do. Being as he’s gonna have three wired to his ass, I think we’ll have his attention.”
    “ Three pipes? Why three? That dog’s vaporized. Half that damn stump’s gone, too. Only take one to do the job.”
    “That’s right, Eddie.”
    He opened the car door and got in. Eddie got in his side. Reader started the engine and turned around in the road and began driving slowly back the way they’d come.
    “Mr. St. Ives will see what one pipe will do. When he knows he’s got three hooked to him we’ll have his complete attention. Taped to his back, close to his spine and his kidneys and six dozen major arteries. His suit will hide it. Coats usually hang away from the body there. C’mon, get in. We got things to do, some more stuff to pick up.”
    “Why we gotta go to all this trouble? You got me running here, there for all this crap when most of it we could pick up in one store.”
    Reader sighed. He’d told Eddie a few details, enough for most people to grasp the idea, but Eddie didn’t seem to get it.
    “I told you, Eddie. Every single thing connected to this job has to be gotten separately and in ways they won’t remember who they sold it to. Like our friend out there. You go to the pound and somebody remembers your face. You buy a mutt off some local yokel, nobody knows nothing. Why do you think I drove over a thousand miles to get this Futaba clear up in Ohio? I coulda picked it up in town.”
    “Well? Why didn’t you?”
    “Because, moron. Because some of the stuff I got doesn’t get sold every day. This job goes down--the Feds--everybody--will be all over the place. They’ll know every piece of equipment we used and if they trace it there’s a chance they’ll get a description. I walk into Radio Shack and buy a fine-ass remote controller like this Futaba and the FBI sends a sheet around to all the dealers in the country. About that time, some citizen out in Metry says, ‘Oh, yeah. I sold one of those to a guy looks like this.’ They bring one of them computer artists in and they get together and in two hours they have my face on Unsolved Mysteries in thirty-six countries. That’s why, you idiot.”
    Reader tapped out a cigarette, got it going.
    “Most fucks who do a job like this go in with guns drawn, lots of firepower showing. Fucking major mistake. For one thing, we can’t go in when the bank’s open because of all the problems I went over. The electronic shit. Now. St. Ives gets the money on Friday evening when the bank’s closed. Don’t ask me how I know this, I just do. It’s fucking drug money he launders for this outfit.”
    “Ain’t no way to take it off?”
    Reader looked at Eddie and the word moron went