Free Corsican Death by Marc Olden Page B

head, pushing his lower lip out further, slowing down as he came close to the rear of an orange-and-black school bus. “Bad news, as you say. He’ll remember you. And he’s a Corsican.”
    Bolt, listening to his empty stomach growling, nodded. “Corsican” meant Alain Lonzu would kill him if he had the chance.
    “I got five days. No one knows I’m here. I can be waiting for him, grab him, or at least get some information from him; then I’m gone. Long gone, baby.”
    Jean-Paul was beside the school bus now, speeding to cut in front of it. Bolt looked out of the window and up at the faces of the French schoolgirls looking down at him. He waved, smiled. Three of them did, too. None of them looked any older than fifteen, which was the problem, because two of them looked damn good. I’d better cut out thinking like that, thought the narc.
    A truck was heading directly toward Jean-Paul, its driver leaning on the horn.
    Christ, thought Bolt, his head snapping from the girls and toward the front of the car. We’re going to crash, we’re fucking going to crash, and I’m going to die out here on the highway. …
    Jean-Paul swerved to the right, turning the wheel again and again, getting out of the path of the oncoming truck, missing it by less than three feet, slipping between it and the school bus, which braked, its horn blaring.
    Without looking back, Jean-Paul kept on driving, a small smile on his mouth. Why not? Jean-Paul was a good driver.
    Bolt, in the back seat, sat up straight, papers and photographs all over his lap and on the floor. Nervous? Damn, he was ready to pee. Down his leg and into his shoe. “Jean-Paul …” he screamed, unable to say more.
    Jean-Paul shrugged. “Read the information, John. You will need to know it. I went to much trouble to get it for you, eh?”
    Bolt, his head cool and light, because it isn’t every day you miss getting crushed on a French highway between a speeding truck and a school bus, sighed long and loud, then whispered, “I hate you, Jean-Paul.”
    Jean-Paul smiled and shrugged. “Welcome to France.”
    The woman screamed, feeling pain stab her skull as the Algerian yanked her hair. The Algerian, big and dark, his face greasy and pockMarced, smiled down at her, bringing the shiny pair of scissors to her face.
    Remy Patek, standing behind them, said, “No, not her face. Her hair. Cut it.”
    The woman, on her knees, small hands gripping the Algerian’s thick wrists, screamed, the sound piercing every corner of her small Paris apartment. Her name was Cloris, and at twenty-four she had been one of Alain Lonzu’s women for the past two years, dancing in a Paris club owned by Count Lonzu.
    “Oh, please, please, don’t! Please!” She wept, begged, a breast slipping from her thin blue dress.
    The Algerian, pleased to be allowed to hurt the woman, smiled and opened the scissors, catching thick blond hair between the shiny metal blades. This was his job, doing as Remy ordered. The Algerian’s name was Ahmed, and he was muscle and a trigger finger working for the Corsican.
    “No, oh God, no! Oh, please …”
    Fear made her incoherent, and her face, red and swollen from crying, looked up at the Algerian smiling down at her. What had she done? These men, four of them, had burst into her apartment, mentioning Alain and warning her. Warning her.
    “I want Alain to know,” said Remy. “You tell him that I am looking for him. When he comes back, you tell him that, you understand?” Remy’s narrow, cold face stared at the woman as though she were garbage. He wanted Alain Lonzu to know, wanted him to be afraid.
    “Oh no, please don’t, please …”
    The blond hair fell softly to the light green carpet, and the Algerian smiled, his thick fingers moving slowly, carefully, enjoying what he was doing to the woman, now on her knees in front of him. Shit, it was sexy as hell to do this.
    Let Remy and the other two guys watch. Ahmed wanted to do this, because he was feeling good,