Mother Puncher Read Online Free PDF Page A

that, man? I got Bowie on speed dial.”
    “You little fucking shit!” Ed yelled, jumping up and knocking his chair over.
    His three friends flinched at the sudden outburst.
    “You call Bowie and I swear to fucking God, you’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of your miserable little life!”
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy there, big guy. Is that anyway to talk to a friend? To your number one fan? I’m doing you a favor, remember.”
    “Some favor,” Ed muttered, trying to control his temper. “I hope you get caught in those projects, Drizzle. I hope some fucking gang catches you skulking around and skins you alive.”
    Drizzle laughed. “Ok, then. Talk to you later, Champ. The chick could burst any second and I have to get some Mother Puncher down here. I wanted it to be you, but oh well. The only other one I know is Bowie, so—”
    “Alright, already,” Ed yelled. “Shut the fuck up and give me the fucking address.”

 
    5
     
         Half an hour later, Ed was pulling his Trinidad in behind Drizzle’s beat-up old Pinto, which was parked in a park-and-ride a few blocks from the place where the woman was having the baby. Drizzle had insisted they only take his car to the building because Ed’s would stick out like a sore thumb in that neighborhood. Ed didn’t argue too much. He was more than happy to not have his truck in a shitty neighborhood, though part of him wished he’d taken Ash’s car instead of his own. That way, if the fucking thing got stripped, it would serve her right. After all, she and her fucking new car were part of the reason he was here in the first place.
    He climbed into the passenger seat of the Pinto, feeling the little car lean under the weight of his bulk.
    “Glad you could make, my man,” Drizzle said, smiling.
    Ed silently chewed a toothpick and wished it was this scrawny twerp’s body.
    “Sounded like you had company.”
    “I did.”
    “Oh, yeah? A party?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Sorry to interrupt,” though Ed didn’t think he sounded sorry at all. “This’ll be worth it, though,” Drizzle said, starting the engine. “Remember. Five hundred bucks.”
    Ed didn’t bother to ask where the five hundred bucks would be coming from. Drizzle had once told him that his father or his uncle or some damn body was a congressman’s aide or some shit. Ed knew the kid had connections of some sort, but he didn’t care to know the specifics. He figured, the more he was kept in the dark, the better.
    Drizzle drove them down a dark street lined with tenements. Ed was somewhat surprised that he saw no pedestrians but didn’t think too much of it. These kinds of places were dangerous at night, even for the gangs that ran them.
    “Well, here it is,” Drizzle said, parking in front of a puke-green three family house.
    “I thought you said the projects. This is just a house.”
    “Not this house,” Drizzle said, pointing. “That one.”
    Ed looked at where Drizzle was pointing and groaned. The place looked like a bomb had recently gone off inside it. There was crap all over the front yard, if the patch of dirt could even be called a yard. Rusting hulks of two cars, a broken rocking chair, a shit load of broken toys and empty cans and who knew what else.
    A few of the steps leading up to the front door were broken; the railing was gone completely.
    “People live there?” Ed asked, amazed and disgusted.
    “Top floor. See the light?”
    “Holy shit. Drizzle, I can’t go in there and bust some chick’s chops. She probably can’t afford a hospital.”
    “Not what her daughter told me. She said she’s just having the kid here so the Mother Punchers will think exactly what you’re thinking, if any of them were to catch wind of it. Said she’s got plenty of money, just doesn’t want to pay