Run For the Money Read Online Free PDF Page B

cab driver stood up faster than a man of his heft had a right to. He extended his right arm, lifting the gun; a snub nose .38.
    “You wanna talk? Okay, let’s talk.”
    Slick stumbled and spun on one leg making an awkward retreat. The Cabbie drove forward like his brakes were cut. The rain began to pick up again. Wind blew shot glass sized raindrops sideways and flopped the cabbie’s combover onto his forehead and down into his eyes.
    Slick regained his balance and stood, hands raised. “Woah, woah, woah! Take it easy.” A long damn time since someone got the drop on Slick. He didn’t like it one bit, but didn’t see a way out of it yet.
    “Won’t take no for an answer, huh?” The .38 was leveled at Slick’s face. The cabbie didn’t notice the rain, the hair in his face or the cold. As hard as the wind blew the steadiest thing in the street was his right arm and the gun at the end of it.
    “I’m leaving, man. I’m out of here.” Slick hated the feeling. He was outdone. It happened rarely, but if his natural features failed to intimidate someone the way they usually did, he always had backup of the guns and knives he liked to carry. Without them he was weak, easily spooked. His offense was great, his defense sucked.
    It was what he feared most about prison. He would have no weapons and those guys didn’t intimidate easy. Ugly was par for the course and there would be guys who were bigger, meaner, uglier and had connections. Going to prison would have been like starting over in the fifth grade, only with a lot more sodomy.
    He never told his fears to Emma. Never would have told Bo anything to make Slick seem less badass. Prison time he could handle. The repetitious days he could do. He’d be happy with three square meals and satellite TV. It was the inability to scare people he dreaded.
    The Cabbie turned to sarcasm. “No, get in. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” The offer seemed less than sincere with a pistol pointed at your head.
    “Really, man, I’m sorry. I’ll get out of here.” Slick stopped short of turning his back on the crazed cab driver.
    “Y’know maybe it’s time for someone to give me a goddamn ride.” Oh shit, thought Slick, now he’s on a mission. “No one ever takes me anywhere. I got to waste my life taking you dumb shits all over town for your lousy dollar fifty tip? Well, fuck you, citizen.”
    Slick wished he would fucking shoot already rather than to have to listen to his manifesto.
    “Y’know I don’t come to your job and—”
    His words were cut short by a street sign. Yield. It tore loose from a pole half a block down and the wind carried the flat skipping-stone shape and spun it, Frisbee-like, on the air, gathering speed as it cut through the rain.
    It landed, a fierce metal edge, in the cab driver’s neck. Such a thick side of beef, he wasn’t decapitated, but the yield sign tried. His meaty head tilted to the side until his right ear touched his shoulder, the inside of his thick neck exposed and drinking in rain. The square of metal crashed to the street and the cabbie fell on top of it, spraying blood which spread in the wind and mixed with rain.
    The body landed and spasmed twice. His neck splayed open, an anatomy lesson lit by the cab’s headlights. The body convulsed one last time and his gut contracted sending bile and a not-yet-digested Subway sandwich up his esophagus and out the gaping hole in his neck. The vomit quickly turned red, colored by the pumping blood streaming from the wound.
    Slick moved quickly, stifling a gag. He stepped forward, bent down and snagged the gun from the cab driver’s hand, stepped up to the taxi, leaned in and took the cigar box on the center console that held the night’s fares and kept walking.
    He ran fast down the street like it was made of hot coals. Two blocks later, after the smell of fresh stomach bile had been washed out of his nose, he thought how stupid it was to leave a running vehicle behind. He stopped