Drive Me Crazy Read Online Free PDF

leopard fur around the collar. My eyes went to her left hand, my way of reminding her that she wore a five-carat emerald-cut in platinum. She cranked up a harsh smile as she came toward me and Arizona, got close enough for me to see the cleavage that pimped out the curves in her upgraded boobs. Head to toe, wedding ring to thong, everything on her was paid for by Wolf.
    Arizona stayed at my side. She was alert, body ready like a warrior. That let me know she had some enemies out there, the kind that could roll up on her at a moment’s notice.
    When the owner of the Hummer was closer, I licked my lips and said her name. “Lisa.”
    Lisa held up a few feet away, stared at Arizona, dissected her, then glowered at me.
    “Whassup, Playa,” she said, her voice small, tight, and cold.
    “My name is Driver. Same name your husband calls me.”
    “Is that right, Playa?”
    Lisa’s thin nostrils flared.
    I told her, “You just missed your husband. We had a couple of beers and he left. Said he was on the way home before it got too late.”
    Her eyes cut deep. Lisa’s father used to be chief of police in Compton, then mayor of the same city until a stroke took him out of office and sent him to a convalescent home. Her old man lived in Compton but she grew up in Ladera with the Black and the Bourgeois.
    Lots of people were around. Too many for anybody to act a fool without notice.
    Lisa did an about-face and went back to her Hummer, sat there in the darkness.
    Arizona asked, “What was that all about?”
    I shrugged, told her that Lisa was my boss’s wife. They were having problems.
    “That grenade has a loose pin.” Arizona glanced Lisa’s way, then turned back to me, read my face, said, “Pretty woman. Worn around the edges, but pretty.”
    I diverted where she was taking the conversation, asked, “You strapped?”
    She reached into her purse again, showed me her switchblade. It was the kind that you flipped open when you gave it some wrist action. She put it back inside her bag.
    An engine revved, lights flashed, a horn blew. We moved away from the middle of the aisle. Lisa zoomed by us. Behind her angry eyes I saw the edges of her dark side glowing.
    I swallowed the regret in my throat, asked Arizona, “You following me home?”
    “Three things about me, Driver.”
    “Okay.”
    “I’m not a stripper. Two, it takes more alcohol than that to impair my good judgment.”
    “Uh huh.”
    “Third, I’m not a whore. I might look young, but I’m not easy or naive. ”
    My lips moved up into a one-sided smile. Hers did the same.
    Checkmate.
    I asked, “It’s still early. Barely after midnight. What time you have to get up?”
    “Hustlers set their own hours, you should know that.”
    “That’s bull. I’m a hustler.”
    “You’re a working man. True hustlers don’t have a nine-to-five. Real hustlers never think about getting a nine-to-five. We’re too busy trying to take a nine-to-fiver’s money.”
    She pulled out a bar napkin from her cute little purse, wrote down a phone number in red ink and handed it to me. Area code 818. Hollywood and parts of the San Fernando Valley.
    She told me, “I have connections with access to flat screens. Fifty-inch. Electronics for twenty-five percent. Jewelry for twenty percent. A referral gets you a small kickback.”
    She sounded as smooth as a politician. I’d bet that everything she had on had fallen off a truck. Her connections made her the woman to know. I handed her my black and gold business card. It was actually one of Wolf’s business cards with my cellular written in at the bottom.
    She said, “Want to help stimulate economic growth in our depressed economy, hit me.”
    “What about stimulating other things?”
    She waved the business card I had given her. “Then I’ll hit you.”
    Her tight eyes were devilish, her skin innocent, almost angelic under the streetlights. She traced her fingers over my chest, down my shoulders, to my biceps, over my forearms, then