Hyenas Read Online Free PDF Page A

standard desks in the front row. Kelly put the garbage can back in place by the teacher’s desk, said, “Well.”
    “We reckon you’re right,” Leonard said. “Those people Donny is running with, they’re not up to any good, and that means neither is Donny.”
    “Can you do something about it?”
    “Maybe,” I said. “But here’s the thing. We do what we’re talking about doing, you might not be safe. You might not want to go home for awhile.”
    “How long’s awhile?”
    I shook my head.
    “I see,” he said. “And you can get Donny out of this?”
    “You can’t make a man believe what he doesn’t want to believe,” I said. “But we can try and show Donny that things aren’t as good as he might think. In fact, they’re really worse than we thought.”
    “How?” Kelly asked.
    We told him about the dead man in the car, what we suspected. When we finished, Kelly found a desk and sat down. He said, “Shit, how does stuff like this happen?”
    “Humans,” I said.
    “Yeah,” Leonard said, “they can be pesky.”
    “So,” I said, “What we’re asking is, do we go ahead with things? Cause if we do, it might make it hot around the old hacienda. Meaning, you need to not be there. And the job here, I don’t know how safe it keeps you.”
    Donny nodded slowly. “I got some place I can go for awhile. I mean, I can figure that out. But the job, I need this job. I need it bad. I can’t just walk away.”
    “We can’t guarantee your safety, you stay on the job,” I said. “We don’t recommend it. We didn’t have any trouble getting to you, and if they decide to find you, it won’t just be to talk.”
    “I’ll leave the house,” Kelly said. “But I’ll stay with the job. Go ahead and do what you need to do.”
    “We’ll need a photo of Donny,” I said.
    “I can do that, after work,” Kelly said. “But, you will try to save him, won’t you?”
    “We’ll do what we can,” Leonard said, “and more often than not, that’s a lot.”

    MARVIN WAS OUT of it now, and we didn’t work in shifts after that. We just drove over together and parked down the street from where Kelly lived. Every now and then we would move the car to a new position, so no one in a house nearby would call the law on us.
    Kelly had followed our advice and found a new place to stay. We told him not to tell us where. That way we didn’t have information we didn’t need and wouldn’t want to accidentally spill.
    We also had something else. A last gift from Marvin. Having been a former cop, he had good connections. He got us information on Smoke Stack. Once he knew where he lived, and what his car license was, it wasn’t so hard. Marvin wasn’t sure about the other guys, but he was sure about Smoke Stack. The license led to the car, and that led to a description, and that led to a rap sheet. I had that with me. And a grainy photo that had been faxed to Marvin and that he gave to us. Smoke Stack’s real name was Trey Manton.
    Leonard had a small flashlight on and he was using it to look the photo over again and read the rap sheet. We had already done that, but it was a way to pass the time. Leonard spent a lot of time looking at the bad photo. He clicked off the light and closed the folder and put it on the seat between us, said, “Man, that guy looks like he tried to roller skate in a buffalo herd.”
    “I’m going to guess the buffalo may not have turned out so well. And he’s done time for drugs, and he is, shall we say, a violent person, as his prison time shows.”
    “We are violent ourselves,” Leonard said. “But we’re the good guys.”
    “I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” I said.
    “Rather us as tough guys, than people like Smoke Stack as tough guys.”
    “And yet another way of looking at it.”
    Leonard gave me Smoke Stack’s photo. I looked at it again just to have something to do. I gave it back, and took the photo of Donny and looked it over. He looked like the usual,