Jass: A Valentin St. Cyr Mystery Hardcover - 2005

Antoine Noiret came awake with a start, as if he'd been jerked out of sleep by a rough hand.

He groaned, dead tired. The crazy bitch had kept him up for two hours after they had stumbled home from the saloon, and that was after playing for six with nary a break. He thought she was going to let him pound her hips for his trouble, but all she wanted to do was rail at him, and once she got going, she screeched like she was mounted on his yancy and thrashing for all she was worth. He didn't quite understand what all her fussing was about. At one point, she pulled open her shirtwaist and hiked up her petticoats, demanding to know if that was what he wanted.

Indeed it was; otherwise, what was she doing in his room at that hour? She was the one who had come sniffing around him, after all, first watching from the back of the hall, then coming around to whisper in his ear as she made promises with her eyes. He had hoped to finish out his grueling night with a good fuck and then sleep like a dead man through the dawn and well into the day.

She had other ideas, and when he reached for her, she dropped her skirts and went to stalking about the room, a sweaty, half-dressed mess, her rouge and mascara running in clownish streaks, calling curses down on his worthless self. After a few minutes of this abuse, she wound down and lurched into the hall, slamming the door so hard it shook the walls. Antoine was baffled.

It didn't matter. He grunted with relief, glad to be rid of her and her noisy, filthy mouth. It was just as well; he had no business bringing her there in the first place. Not after what had happened before.

Her steps had barely faded off in the hallway when he dropped into an exhausted slumber, like he had fallen into black water. Time passed until he came half awake to someone moving about in the darkness. He let out a silent groan, praying that she would just go away again and leave him alone. He was done for the night.

He pulled the damp, dingy pillow over his head, hoping she'd get the idea. The air stirred as footsteps padded up to the bed. Then he heard a dark cough and felt something push into the pillow, a finger perhaps, poking for attention, and it began to dawn on him that there was something wrong about it.

Because it wasn't a finger at all-it was the tip of the blade of a ten-inch hunting knife. With a certain and sudden precision, the blade plummeted through the pillow and tore into Antoine's neck, just behind the jaw and below his ear. He felt a raw shock of pain and tried to bolt up off the mattress. Though he was a big man, a bigger weight held him down as the knife pinned him like some insect. He thrashed about, his thick arms going weaker and weaker as blood soaked the sheets.

In less than twenty seconds, he had gurgled a last breath and his hands flapped a final time before dropping over the side of the mattress.

The knife slid back through the pillow that had muffled his dying grunts. A moment later the door opened and closed like a quiet breath and the footsteps pattered away.


Copyright © 2005 by David Fulmer

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