Hunting Season
All Eddie Bostic ever wanted was a little action and he usually found it if he waited long enough on this dark street corner. This Labor Day weekend in the Big Apple promised some very profitable results in the way of tourists not paying attention to their open wallets or their surroundings. That fact alone made this hunting time rarely a waste. For the King of the Predators, it was merely an investment against future gains.
He lived by the code of the streets and a work ethic that was, strangely, almost as principled as those of his victims. It had its boundaries, all clearly defined by the street thugs who scavenged the periphery of the various territories. This stretch, along Eighth Avenue between 46th and 50th Streets, was his turf and his alone. None of the others, and there had been many over the years who had tried to muscle in on his action, even questioned it anymore. He had earned his reputation as that dark stranger parents warned their children about, the psychopath for whom womens' bodies were vinyl purses, to be stolen, ripped apart at the seams and then disposed of.
When the police were after him, which could happen to anyone with a record once in a while, he would slither uptown where he came from. Here he would lay low at his favorite Pool Hall or one of his other local haunts. There they asked him no questions and he told them no lies, but he always returned to his favorite corner, which he considered home. Here he preyed on vulnerable tourists, hookers and addicts who had not yet learned to fear him. It wasn't fair, because rarely were any of his victims ever given a second chance.
