One of the Wicked: A Mick Callahan Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

crotch. I'll find a way to get the money together. In the meantime, Mick, you can help put my mind at ease by promising me you'll look after the girl. Just in case anything bad happens. If they can't get to me and my wife, they may go after her. Okay?"
    "Wow."
    "Like I said, I'll find a way to make this right. Do this thing, Callahan. Please. I don't want to have to worry about Brandi, too."
    "She already got sober, right?"
    "More than a year ago."
    "I know a lot of women in the program."
    "She doesn't really go to those meetings much anymore."
    "Just a backup plan. I'll ask a friend to keep an eye out, maybe." I patted the photograph in my pocket. "Okay, Bud. If anything happens, I'll help her out. You have my word."
    He sighed with relief. "Thanks, Mick. You have no idea how much better I feel."
    "Bone, what are you going to do?"
    "I'll figure something out."
    "Like what?"
    He stared at me. Something in his eyes said he was enjoying himself more than he was letting on. Warriors always have a hard time packing it in. They want to recapture living on the edge. Hell, I was more that way myself than I wanted to admit.
    "Never mind," I said. "Way better I don't know."
    "True."
    I looked around the room, thought for a moment, leaned closer to Bone and whispered in his ear. He nodded, slammed his fist on the bar. "Well, I got to piss like a racehorse. I'll call you next week, tell you what's up."
    "You do that. Take care of yourself, Bone." We slapped palms.
    Bone wandered off, in search of the toilet. I slid off the bar stool and considered my options. Cowboy was waiting for me, grinning like a possum licking peaches off a wire brush. His friend was probably right outside, maybe in the bushes by the trash cans. I checked my watch, thought about things, and decided to just get it over with.
    I walked straight past Cowboy without looking back, paused briefly in the doorway, and then went outside. The night air was crisp and welcome after the stench of the bar. I listened carefully, heard the guy in the windbreaker quietly change positions in the brush.
    After a long moment, I moved further out into the parking lot. Heard the door open and close again behind me.
    "I thought we were straight," I said, still facing the other way.
    Cowboy belched and chuckled. "Guess I lied."
    He rushed me from behind, boots in deep gravel, while Windbreaker clanged past the metal trash cans to jump me from the right. Things slow down a bit when you can see the fight coming. I tend to feel pretty calm.
    I dropped low, spun around, and my shoulder hit Cowboy in the lower belly. He gave up a whinny and a burst of foul breath. Tried to grab at my face, gouge my eyes. I straightened up, got my knees into it, and brought him high into the night before slamming him down on the pavement. When he hit, I heard the air whoosh out and something go CRACK, maybe the plastic handle of a hidden gun. I kicked his head, made sure he was down and out for a while.
    I turned slowly, looked. Windbreaker lay facedown in a pile of trash, writhing in pain. Bone had slipped out the front of the bar, jogged down the alley, and ambushed him for me. My friend removed a pair of brass knuckles, shook his fingers. We stood, chests heaving, staring at each other under the stars. Bone grinned.
    Kind of like old times.

Three

    One hour later, I was in my small house in the San Fernando Valley, talking to my sponsor, Hal Solomon, via Tag World. The connection was especially good.
    "What I want to know," Hal said from the computer screen, "is how you manage to create so much drama without even breaking a sweat."
    My best friend, virtually always in a suit and tie, currently wore a thick pair of red pajamas that somewhat robbed him of intrinsic dignity. His silver hair was freshly washed, almost sparkling. The camera showed me a large bed and part of a rustic executive suite in the background. If memory served, Hal was at a lodge somewhere in Canada, ostensibly to learn how to fly fish.