Tats Too Read Online Free PDF

the living room and before I even knew what I was doing, I strutted back out onto the front porch. I broke into a run across the front yard and straight up to the van. I grabbed the sliding door handle and pulled, but it was locked. I pounded on the side of the van with both my fists, yelling, “Open up! Whoever the hell you are, open this fucker up before I break through the window!”
    The door slid open and two pair of huge hands grabbed me under the arms and by my dreads and pulled me inside.
    The door slammed shut behind me, and I was tossed to my hands and knees in the back of the van. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dark and a lot longer than that for my brain to adjust to what I saw.
    One whole side of the van was all these computer screens and wires and hi-tech gadgets and blinking lights. The monitors showed split-screen views like in those old Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies. Each view was a different part of my house.
    One screen showed Vivian asleep in our bed with Georgia in her arms.
    And there was our kitchen, our living room, the hallway, Georgia’s room. Everywhere in our house there was a smoke alarm except the bathroom and the laundry room. My first thought was thank God they weren’t watching me while I was on the toilet. My second thought I said out loud to the two dark shapes hovering over me. “Who the hell are you people?”
    “I have a better question,” said a deep voice with a Yankee accent. “Who the fuck are you and what’re you doing with Mrs. Perelli?”
    “That’s actually two questions,” I replied, buying time because my mind was spinning out of control. “Let’s try again. Who are you guys?”
    The answer to my question came in the form of a backhanded slap. It was hard enough to snap my head around and throw me onto my side. I tasted the sharp, tinny tang of blood, but I didn’t give them the satisfaction of showing it hurt.
    “We ask the questions,” said the other man.
    They both sounded like they were from the east coast somewhere. Yankee accents. They looked like Italian mobsters. Like they could have been extras in that movie Goodfellas .
    “Then ask,” I said, sucking back a mouthful of blood.
    “Where’s the diamond?” the first guy asked. His breath stank like he’d been chewing on CornNuts.
    I shook my head. “I don’t know anything about a diamond.”
    He drew back his arm to hit me again, but the other guy stopped him with a raised hand. “She’s telling the truth,” he said. He stared me down. “You ever heard of Cheech Perelli?”
    I shook my head again.
    “That’s his wife you’ve been sleeping with.”
    I decided to play tough gal. Okay, it wasn’t exactly a decision, it was more like I blurted. “I’ve slept with lotsa wives. What’s so special about this one?”
    That time I got another slap on the other side of my face. That one was harder to get back up from. “What was that for? I’ve never fucked your wife.”
    At least I don’t think I have . I quickly shut my eyes, sincerely hoping I didn’t get hit again. A couple of seconds went by with no fresh pain, so I opened them again.
    “You can have the bitch,” he said. “Cheech don’t give a shit about her. It’s the diamond he wants.”
    “I’ve never seen any diamond. How do I know you’re not making this shit up?”
    “Vivian was his runner,” the Goodfella explained. “Running dirty money from Rome into London and delivering it back all clean. One day she takes off with the money and an uncut diamond that she was supposed to take to Townsend to fence.”
    “Charles Townsend?” I asked. It was all beginning to make sense now. That must’ve been how Vivian hooked up with the man she called Prince Charles who chased us all over hell and half of Oklahoma. The same guy who met his untimely death when he kidnapped me and Viv. The same Prince Charles who put a .45 slug through my left lung.
    “Yeah,” he answered. “But Mrs. Perelli never showed in London. She