Bad Penny Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ed could shut his door. The Nissan hit the road with a loud scrape, swung around and stopped. Then Jesus threw it into drive and squealed out after Tony and the Nova, Ed’s door still hanging open.
    Frank’s mind reeled. What in the Sam Hill?
    A girl in the trunk?
    That Nissan wasn’t dirty. And they weren’t transporting drugs. It was a ransom. Or a hit. Except if you want to kill someone in Wyoming, there were miles and miles of lonely roads to do it on. No reason to give someone a bus ride in the trunk. Just do it and be done and leave her in the dirt. The vultures and skunks would be on her within twenty-four hours.
    Frank pulled out his phone, fumbled for Tony’s number.
    At the end of the street, the Nova squealed round the corner. It accelerated then squealed again. Tony was coming back along the street behind the house.
    There was no use using a phone when a face-to-face would do. So Frank stuffed the phone into his pants pocket and then sprinted into his backyard. He leapt onto a pile of old firewood that had been stacked against the fence and grabbed the top of the wooden slats. The junipers here were too thick to let him hop the fence, but he sprang up anyway, got a toe on the top of the fence and pushed his way through the prickly branches and fell into the neighbor’s backyard. He landed sideways and scrambled up.
    The neighbors had one of those little annoying white dogs with curly hair and weeping eyes that stained the fur on its face. It came yapping out from its spot in front of the sliding glass door. Frank ignored it. He ran past a kiddie pool, a ball, and some plastic toys that had been left out on the lawn. The neighbor kids were sitting at their kitchen table in swimming suits, watching him through the glass. Frank ran for the front gate, unlatched it, and slammed it behind him, right in front of the yap-dog, which was snarling like the devil himself had just run by. Lucky for Frank he’d had a head start. One more step and the thing might have launched a full-out attack on his ankles.
    Frank ran down the driveway and out into the street. The Nova was at the far end of the street, barreling in his direction.

3
Sam
    FRANK WAVED, TRYING to get Tony’s attention, worrying about some kid riding out into the street or running after a ball because there wouldn’t be any stopping. But Tony didn’t see Frank and turned at the street half a block down.
    Farther back, the Nissan squealed round the corner.
    Frank looked around for a projectile. There was nothing but fences and lawns and curb. Never a good-sized stone when you needed one. Nothing but the annoying mutt from the yap patrol that sounded like it was working on an aneurysm. Too bad it didn’t have more heft. He would have happily used it to smash Ed’s windshield. Then he spotted a row of white bricks across the street. They were standing up at a diagonal, acting as a border between a lawn and flower bed full of puffy orange marigolds. He raced over to the yard, yanked two bricks out, and charged down the street at Ed and Jesus in their Nissan.
    He was about half a house away when they reached the corner Tony had taken. Frank hurled the first brick as hard as he could, followed with the second. The bricks arched high. Ed and Jesus squealed around the corner. The first brick sailed completely over the car. The second struck the Nissan in the panel over the rear tire, made a huge clunk, and fell to the ground.
    Jesus put on the gas, and the Nissan bolted forward, racing after Tony.
    So much for bringing bricks to a car fight.
    Frank ran out into the middle of the road and watched the Nissan speed down the street. Tony was heading south, probably trying to lose them in the residential streets on the east of the cemetery and then get out to the belt route. But he wasn’t going to outrun them, not in that Nova. And where would he go once he got out of the neighborhood?
    Tony! What had he been thinking!
    Probably exactly what any man with a speck