Suckers - J.A. Konrath

ut this was the first one to take place on top of a mutilated corpse.
I grabbed the corpse's arm and smacked Harry in the face with it. That seemed to anger him
for some reason. I tried to knee him in the groin, but he moved out of the way just in time and I
kneed the corpse in the groin instead. I had a flash of the poor dead guy standing in front of the
pearly gates, suddenly doubling over in agony.
Harry got in an admittedly good punch to my chest. I got in a much better punch to his jaw.
His eyes crossed in a most unattractive manner. I wrenched the gun out of his grip, punched him
again, and then pressed the barrel against his forehead.
"You're a dick," he said.
"Behave," I warned him. I eased myself off the dead body, keeping the gun pointed at him.
"These were new pants."
"I weep for your loss. By the way, there wasn't really a roach."
"I guessed that."
"I bet you didn't."
"Look here, Malox—"
"It’s Mayhem. You don't get to make fun of my name unless you're holding the gun."
"Whatever. Give it back to me before you hurt yourself."
"I don’t think so."
"What are you gonna do? Shoot me? You don’t have the stones."
I would have loved to shoot him to prove him wrong. But he would've been dead and the
irony would have been lost on him.
"Why do people always say that in the movies?" I asked, using my free hand to massage my
aching jaw. "It's sort of like saying 'I double dare you to kill me.' I once ate spoiled oyster on a
double dare, and let me tell you, the nightmares from that were a hell of a lot worse than any
nightmares I'd get from killing you."
"Put down the gun."
It wasn't Harry who said that. I wished it had been. Instead, the voice was to the left of me.
A bald, overweight guy in his mid-thirties dressed entirely in black. He held a shotgun.
I lowered the revolver. I really should've considered that there was probably somebody else
in the house besides the corpse. Of course, Harry should have considered that too, so he gets half
the blame.
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