Читать книгу Medusa´s child - Bernhard StoEver - Страница 8

With screeching tires Henri drove the black Citroen into the tight corner. The swirling dust settled like a dirty pall on the shiny asphalt.

He had been commissioned by the bosses to take care of the old man. Even now they were afraid of him. And it was his job to take away their fear. Somehow he liked the old man. He was a tough dog during his reign and the boys were devoted to him.

Henri squeezed the heavy car into the only vacant parking space and jumped out. Impatiently, he followed the meticulously laid gravel path that meandered past flowering acacias, through the lush green of a manicured lawn. In front of the glass door, which was wide enough even for wheelchairs, he paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and pushed it open. He hated hospitals, they made him feel his vulnerability.

Determinedly, he crossed the sterile entrance hall and hurried to the reception. "Piere Melvin, where can I find him," he asked the pretty Muslima, which was reading a fashion journal and now stared at him with wide eyes.

"Two inquiries in five minutes, had not thought that somebody would come to visit him," she mumbled in surprise. "Fourth floor, room 18, and you're already the second to ask about Melvin."

Henri frowned in annoyance. His eyes touched her breasts, which were much to big for her slim body. "You assured us that he would have his rest in front of visitors." His eyes wandered up her throat to the blood-red lips.

"Turn to the ward nurse," she hissed at him angrily.

Upset he went to the staircase, he had no patience to wait for an elevator. His legs became heavier and heavier with each step. But it was not the muscles that threatened to give up their service, it was the whole atmosphere and what he had to do now that weighed on him. He looked down the hall and counted the doors: "16, 17, 18, it must be the last door." He quickened his pace.

With an ugly squeak the elevator came to a stop. The doors opened noisily and a tall, sporty woman entered the hall. She looked around searchingly. Suddenly a few feet in front of her a door jumped open and a thin black man in a short-sleeved shirt burst out. His hair was twisted into small braids that crowned his head like dead trees crowned a charred forest. When the draft began, the shirt blew open briefly and Henri could see the muffler-equipped barrel of a revolver, which clamped under his belt. "A weapon with a silencer," he registered in astonishment. His eyes searched the man's eyes. "That must be the guy who'd asked about Melvin."

At the same moment, the slender man who had followed Henri's eyes snatched the revolver out of his belt, stabilizing the shot-hand from below with his left hand, and shot three times in Henri's direction. “Bloop”, the glass door shattered with a thud. Apart from a cold breeze, the bullet left a bloody streak over his right ear. “Bloop, bloop”, he felt an impact in his chest, was thrown back and fell to the ground.

The young woman reacted instinctively. With a violent kick, she catapulted the weapon out of the hand of the killer. A second kick hit his head. He dropped to his knees, scrambled to his feet again and stumbled out through the cracked door.

Henri tried to get up, stammered something. His glassy eyes wandered around disoriented and lost in nothingness. Then he collapsed again. The bullets had hit him deadly.

As if in a trance, the young woman went back into the elevator. Before the old wooden doors closed behind her, she could take a look into the opposite room. An old man laid lifeless in his bed. A bullet had spread his brain over a pillow, from which the blood drops into a red puddle on the floor.

With a jerk, the elevator began to move.

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