mobius condo 2/3

Chartreuse picked up the card table and hurled it in Billy's face. Cards, glasses, and the revolver sprayed across the floor. Billy sprawled on the floor, blinking through blood and beer, as Chartreuse turned and leaped across the hole in the floor. He was apparently trying for the family room. He didn't make it. His fingers scrabbled at the carpet on the far side of the hole. He hung on for a moment and was gone.

Emily dashed in from the kitchen. "Oh Billy," she cried, "what shall we do now?"

At first he had no answer, and then the beginnings of a hideous plan began to crystallize in his brain like mold forming in chicken soup left far too long in a plastic box in the refrigerator. He examined it from every angle, as it drifted downward...yes, the plan was perfect. And he grinned.

"Billy," quavered Emily, "what are you looking at me like that for?"

Her grammar was execrable. But no matter. None of that mattered now, not her hairlip, her political connections in Cleveland, nor the worthless fish-and-chips stock on that