Redemption For Two Read Online Free PDF Page A

else and he grumbled in his head about it, squinting behind his sunglasses out there in the sun. He thought about it, realizing that he hadn’t asked to do anything else, either. Maybe that hadn’t been too bright, after all.
    The job took three hours and a little bit, and in the old days, Mickey would have made seventy-five bucks in that time. Ponz made him shift a couple of more things and then gave him a crinkled twenty and a five and two ones from his own pocket.
    “What’s up with you, Mickey? You always figured this kinda shit was too good for you, didn’t you?”
    “Not doing it for me,” Mickey said, straightening the money and folding it carefully into his pocket.
    Ponz grunted, hearing that. “You still got your CDL?”
    Mickey has had a commercial driving license since he was seventeen. “I got it,” he said. “Not doing me much good these days, though.”
    “You want to do a delivery down to Miami for me on Friday?”
    “Same pay, Donnie?”
    Ponz shrugged. “Nah, we can beat that, Mick. I can’t pay the going rate, but I can kick it up some. How about fifteen an hour for the trip? Be five hours or maybe six by the time you unload down there and get back.”
    “Sounds like a hundred bucks, cash money.”
    “Yeah, you fucking gold brick, it does,” Ponz said, laughing. “Be here at seven.”
    Mickey knew it was a cheat. Ponz would send him down for a hundred bucks, but whoever it was in the shop who didn’t spend all day in Miami traffic in a rattle trap truck would be working in the shop, so Ponz made more money paying Mickey out of petty cash and keeping his boy’s nose to the grindstone. So be it. A hundred bucks was a hundred bucks.
    While he was getting on the bike, Darrel Jones waved him over and he put the side stand back down and went to see what he wanted. Jones had always been a good guy back when they worked together.
    “Hey, Mick, you fuck head,” Darrel said with a grin.
    “How’z it?” Mickey asked.
    “You still diving?”
    Mickey shrugged. “I got the gear, that’s about all I can say.”
    “You want to pull some props for me?”
    “Sure.”
    “Three boats,” Darrel said. “One here in Riviera Beach, two out on the island.”
    The island meant the island of Palm Beach proper, where the big yachts lay. Pulling propellers for cleaning and repair was one of Darrel’s side jobs. Clean a few bottoms, wire brush the running gear on people’s yachts, change anodes. And pull dinged propellers, take them in for repair, and then put them back on. It saved the owners having to haul their boats.
    “How much?” Mickey asked.
    “Twenty-five apiece.” He grinned at the look on Mickey’s face. “Hey, don’t blame me, pal. The economy is in the fucking tank.”
    “Why you asking me, Darrel?”
    Jones shrugged. “Saw you doing the side job out there for Ponz. Thought if you’re doing that, you might be up for something else. Man’s got to make a living, right?”
    “You’re killing me,” Mickey said. “Twenty-five bucks. What kind of shit is that? You get ten dollars per inch of diameter for prop work.”
    “Going rate,” Jones said with a shrug.
    “Twins or singles?”
    “All three of them are twins. That’s a buck fifty to you.”
    “You’re gonna pull, what, fifteen hundred on those three jobs, and you want to give me a hundred and a half? You think I’m stupid?”
    “A pair of twenty inchers, and a pair of twenty-threes,” Jones said. “The Palm Beach one has thirty-twos.”
    “So, that’s fifteen hundred on the button, you fucking pirate.”
    “I’m giving you ten percent as a favor, dick weed.”
    “Twenty five,” Mickey said.
    Jones laughed.
    “Make it twenty,” Mickey said, letting it slide a little.
    “Fifteen,” Jones said. “You don’t have a leg to stand on, Mickey.”
    “Twenty and you pay for gas and air fills on the scuba tanks.” Mickey grinned at him. “That’s a freebie, Darrel, and you know it. Cost you three hundred and