Write to Kill [antikvár]

Chapter I IT ALL STARTED with a Sentence trotting through my mind: "Death is an on-coming processr The sort of snappy sentiment you'd expect to come across in some trendy Yank airport novel. I was just wondering where I'd read it, when the giant burst into my office. Before my door had even had time to slam shut, he was already towering over me. "You're Malaussene, aren't you?" A massive bone structure wrapped up in vague contours. Bones like shillelaghs and a scalp covered with crew-cut bristles. "So, are you, or aren't you?" Bent like a long-bow over my desk, vwth his huge hands throttling my armrests, he was holding me prisoner in my chair. Prehistory in person. Crushed into my seat, writh my head shrinking down between my shoulders, I was incapable of saying whether I was me or not. All I was wondering about was where I'd read that sentence: "Death is an on-coming process!' Had it been in English, in French, from a translation? That's when he decided to put us both on the same level. With a mighty heave he hiked us up, me and my chair that is, right up off the floor and onto the desk. Even then, he still stood a good head taller than me. Beneath the prickle bushes of his eyebrows, his wild eyes ferreted around inside my brains, as if he'd lost his car keys there. "Do you get off on torturing folk?" His voice sounded strangely childish, with an agonised tone that was supposed to be threatening. "You do, don't you!" While up there on my throne, all I could think about was that sodding sentence. It wasn't even elegant. It rang false. Like a Frog trying to croak like a Yank. Where the hell had I read it? "You never worry that some day someone'U come along and smash your face in?" 3