Free Kim Oh 2: Real Dangerous Job (The Kim Oh Thrillers) by K. W. Jeter Page B

.”
     
    “Nah – then you’d have been even more invisible. It’s like going through security at the airport. Wave a cardboard scimitar over your head and shout, Death to the infidel!  – they’ll invite you to sit up front with the pilot. In the meantime, you’re off the hook. Nobody’s looking for you.”
     
    “Story of my life.” I set my backpack down on the warehouse floor.
     
    “Trust me. It’s what you want.”
     
    “Did she say those guys – the ones who got blown up – that they were terrorists? Because if that’s what that Braemer guy was, I’m not impressed.”
     
    “She said links.” Cole pointed to the TV. “Connections. As in selling stuff to people, that they shouldn’t have.”
     
    “Like you.”
     
    “At least I know what I’m doing. I don’t blow myself up with it.”
     
    “Neither did they.”
     
    “Yeah, but that’s what the police and the federal types will think happened. Great thing about nitwits like that getting hold of dangerous stuff, they tend to eliminate themselves before they can do too much damage to anyone else. As a general rule . . .”
     
    I wasn’t really listening to him. I was trying to work out the numbers for my personal ledgers, inside my head. Just goes to show that you can make the girl into a killer, but some part of her is still going to be an accountant. The way I figured it, I had definitely killed that old man Pomeroy. So that was a solid one in that column. And now that Braemer guy and his equipment dealer buddies – that was another half-dozen, after the police coroners had gathered up all the bits and pieces. But I hadn’t been really trying to kill them – I’d just been the one who’d pushed the button on my cell phone. That whole thing had been more of Cole and Monica’s doing. But still, I should get at least fifty percent credit for that last bunch. So add in another three in the kills column.
     
    “This sucks,” I said aloud. “I’m racking up numbers like crazy here. And I still haven’t gotten around to killing the person I want to.”
     
    “Take it easy,” said Cole. “It’ll happen.”
     
    “I don’t know.” I dragged over one of the chairs and dropped myself into it. “This doesn’t seem like progress to me.”
     
    “You’re not giving yourself enough credit. You’re already sounding more like me than what you used to.”
     
    “Like I said.”
     
    “Seriously,” continued Cole. “Normal people don’t react to these things they way you are. Just adding up the numbers. With civilians, there’s usually more of an emotional response. But you’re cold, Kim. Like a psychopath. Like me.”
     
    “Huh.” I had to think about what he was saying. “So this is what being a psychopath is like?” I shook my head. “I would’ve thought it’d be more fun than this.”
     
    “Why would you think that?”
     
    “I don’t know. Maybe my expectations were too high. I mean – look at that Hannibal Lecter guy.”
     
    “He’s not real. Fictional character, right?”
     
    “Yeah, I know . . .” I was still trying to work it out. “But you see him in the movies and he’s always got a smile on his face.”
     
    “Comes with being nuts.”
     
    “Not for me, it doesn’t. He’s out there, killing people – and eating them, even – and having a fine old time. Meanwhile, I’m worried about paying the rent.” Another shake of my head. “I’m not getting it. If I’d known ahead of time that this was what killing people was like, I might not have put in for the job.”
     
    “But you did.”
     
    I remembered what Monica had told me, what seemed a long time ago now. About still having options. And then what she had told me much more recently – that I didn’t have those options anymore. She was right, I knew.
     
    “All right.” I took a deep breath and straightened myself up in the chair. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s listening to people whine about