Frag Box Read Online Free PDF Page A

means I don’t have anybody I report to or any damn procedure I have to follow. Think about that for a minute.”
    Number three continued to crowd in on me, and the momentum started going the way I had hoped to avoid. Oh, well.
    I made a sudden jerky movement, as if I were trying to get away from the guy. He took that as an invitation, which it was, to stick out an arm and lunge for me. I grabbed the arm and pulled him in the direction he was already moving, only a lot faster than he wanted to go. As he lurched by, I kicked his legs out from under him, letting him sprawl on the ground in front of me. Then I put one foot on his neck, hard, swung Lefty’s .38 up into full view, and pointed it at the guy who had been moving in from the other way.
    “Five guys, six bullets,” I said. “I can make that work. Or you can all split an easy twenty bucks and get the hell out of here.” With my left hand, I waved the torn bill in front of me. “Your choice. You don’t look stupid to me. How do you want to play it?” And I gave them about two seconds of a totally phony smile.
    “Cool,” said the big one with the other half of my twenty.
    “Cool what?”
    “What I says is we all play it cool, man.” And he held up his hands, palms toward me, and backed away half a step.
    “I think you’re smarter than your buddy under my foot here,” I said. “So how about cop and the kid?”
    “Yeah, okay. They come by here, jus’ like you say. Then they take a cab.”
    “What the hell does that mean?”
    “Somebody in a big black set of wheels come by and picked them up, is what.”
    “What kind of wheels?”
    “Big, is all I know. Not a stretch, but a 98 of some kind. One of them high mothers.”
    “Like a SUV? Escalade, maybe?”
    “Yeah, maybe. I dunno.”
    “Was the kid in cuffs?”
    “Nah, they was tight, man. Wasn’t no bust or shit goin’ down. Them rims come for them, is all.”
    “And which way did the rims go?”
    “That way.” He pointed toward the gulch, deeper into Railroad Island.
    “You’re sure? They didn’t head back into town?”
    “What I said, man. Back that way. That enough?”
    “We’re getting there. Now tell me why you asked me about Cee Vee’s pitch.”
    “She-it, man, that’s the flavor of the day. First a couple of suits come by askin’, back this afternoon, a dude and a broad. Broad was bad, too, but she didn’t bust a move or nothin’ and they didn’t pay us. They just flash around these fancy ID cards an’ all, wasn’t even real badges.”
    “Feds?”
    “Maybe, some kind.”
    “And who else?”
    “Short, fat dude with a big overcoat and a funny hat, maybe two, three hours ago. He didn’t have no fancy ID, but he gave us fifty presidents.”
    “And what did you tell him?”
    “You got fifty, man?”
    “I already told you I don’t. We’re almost home free, man. Let’s make it work, here.”
    “Yeah, well, we didn’t really have no cipher to give him, no how, so we made up some shit. Kinda like the shit we tole the suits. Tole them Cee Vee’s box was down under the viaduct, whatever the fuck that is, ‘cause that’s what he allus use to say. An’ we tole them the viaduct was down in Sheeny Gulch, which who the hell knows?” He hooked a thumb in the general direction behind his back.
    “So, what did they all do?”
    “Do? What you think, man? They all go down there, is what they all do.”
    “What about the guy with the ramrod up his ass?”
    “Who?”
    “Aw, hell, and we were doing so well there.” I stuffed the half of the twenty back in my pocket.
    “Oh, you mean that dude, the one we was talkin’ bout when you come up? Looks like a jarhead with a cheap suit? He got out of the wheels.”
    “The wheels that picked up the—”
    “Yeah, yeah, that one.”
    “And you weren’t going to tell me about him?”
    “I thought I’d keep the story short, you know? He didn’t talk much, no how. I s’pose he coulda been making sure nobody followed the wheels.