Run For the Money Read Online Free PDF

whole journey. Luckily, he passed them before the rim started sparking.
    The rain was letting up. Could have been the eye of the storm. The wind was still pissed off about something and taking it out on the trees and anything not bolted to the ground.
    Slick aimed the truck for an empty lot next to a paint store. The curb cut bounced him in his seat when the bare rim made it over. He parked the truck under a tree and left it. He left the shotgun too. No sense drawing attention to himself now that he had a change of clothes. He slid on his new stolen coat and headed out to the deserted streets.
    Slick had never hot-wired a car in his life so he ruled that out. It was after midnight and traffic, such as it was, would only get slower. The darkness, the rhythmic tapping of the rain, the soreness from the crash and the comedown from the adrenalin high of the diner came over him like a tranquilizer. He could slip into a dumpster, tuck up in the sacks of garbage and sleep for a week. Being wet again didn’t help. Even the light drizzle got inside his collar, soaked through the jeans and made the sores on his wrists and ankles throb.
    Down two blocks past a YMCA, a ninety-nine cent store, a place that did custom rims and a psychic – all closed – he spotted a welcome beacon of hope. The telltale yellow of a cab stood out in the rain. The taxi – lights on, exhaust spewing steam – sat idling on the side of the road outside a Subway sandwich shop; closed as of five minutes ago. The interior light was on, the cabbie reading a paper in between sips of coffee.
    Slick jogged diagonally across the street, against the punishing wind, and came up on the cab from behind. He pulled on the handle of the rear door but found it locked. He stepped up to the passenger door and knocked on the glass. The window motored down six inches, not exactly inviting, but better for Slick. His face had been known to start any conversation off on the wrong foot and the less noticed he was, the better.
    “Hey there, can I catch a ride?”
    The cab driver spoke like he had a porcupine caught in his throat. Pot belly, five-pack-a-day habit, remnants of his sandwich still lingering in his stubble that grew half way between a beard and “I don’t give a shit.” He gargled out, “Can you read, asshole?”
    Slick leaned closer to the slit in the window. “What?”
    The cab driver swallowed down his oversized bite. “I asked if you can read. Maybe I should ask if you can hear too.”
    “What’s your problem?”
    The window slid down six more inches, letting out a little more of the fart-and-mayonnaise aroma. “Look up there.” The cabbie punched the roof of his cab three times. Slick lifted his head and saw the illuminated OFF DUTY light on the cab’s roof.
    “Hey man, it’s raining like hell out here. I’m just looking for a ride. I got money, not like I’m asking for a favor.”
    The cab driver was sitting on years of people asking for one more ride, one more fare across town after his shift. Rainy nights were the worst. People tried to appeal to his better nature, of which he had none. Enough.
    “Go fuck yourself. Off duty means off duty, you ugly son-of-a-bitch. I bet you had to sneak up on your mom’s tit to get a drink, didn’t you?”
    He punctuated his insult with a rumbling snort of his nose, a raucous clearing of the throat and deep swallow of phlegm. The window went up. Slick regretted leaving the shotgun behind. He rapped on the window again, hard. The slit was only three inches this time.
    “Hey, what the fuck, man?”
    “Are you that shit-all stupid? I’m not taking any fares. Now fuck off.”
    Up went the window again. Slick took his argument to the source. He stepped around the front of the cab to the driver’s side window and pounded with a fist, rattling the glass. The wind, sensing Slick’s anger, picked up with powerful gusts.
    The door opened, knocking Slick in the shin as it did. Slick hopped backwards on one leg.
    The