The Next Sure Thing Read Online Free PDF

Hardy stood and shrugged and straightened his jacket with both hands. Then he leaned forward on the table toward me. His eyes were hard. I could smell cigar smoke and wine. He put one knuckle under my chin and lifted my head. I heard the goons step up behind me.
    “Call me your proud new papa, Cree. I paid your rent. I’m footing the bill for your first cd and video. You want new gear? You got that too, because I got you a gig at the Purple Onion starting next week. You’ll need a bigger amp, and me, I figure the blues sounds best on a Gretsch semi-hollow body with a nice stack of Fender amps behind it. Red, maybe. I like red. What you think, Jerry?”
    “Red is good, Win. Real good,” Jerry said from behind me.
    “And if you do ever decide to get cute, Cree? Call your folks on the rez. Ask ’em how they like the new truck. Ask your sister how she likes having her tuition paid for. I own all of them. Not just you. So your moves are their moves now. Remember that next time you think you can quit on me. Vic? Give him tomorrow’s form.”
    He let my chin go, grinned at me and gave me a light playful slap on the cheek.
    “He’s a good kid. Green, but good,” he said to Vic and Jerry. Then he turned and walked away.
    Ashton and I sat there in silence. I was stunned. “Can it get any worse?” I asked.
    “Yeah,” Ashton said. “It can.”
    “How’s that?”
    “I didn’t tell you what else he does for Scalia.”
    I looked at him. He looked sad and scared. “Are you kidding me?”
    “No,” he said. “He’s a collector. A knee-breaker.”
    I suddenly felt like drinking the wine. All of it.

CHAPTER NINE
    A s it turned out, Hardy’s people had been to the reservation. They’d arrived in a row of three black suvs and made a big display of friendship. My family was told that Hardy was my boss and that I was working as an investment counselor. I was doing such a bang-up job that he wanted to reward me as much as he could, and helping to take care of my family was the way he had chosen. Somehow he talked the chief and his councilors into giving my family a house of their own. He furnished it too, as well as parking a new half-ton pickup truck in the driveway. All of this was fine with my father. When I’d walked away to pursue the vague dream of being a blues musician, he hadn’t been thrilled. But with the arrival of Hardy’s people and the outlay of goodwill cash, he seemed more willing to believe that I was actually worth something in the world.
    “You work hard for this man,” he said over the telephone. “He can obviously do a lot for you.”
    I couldn’t tell him what the real score was. He had the new house, the truck and furniture, and my sister had her tuition paid for at the college where she was studying nursing.
    “They left a thousand dollars that they said you would earn back in no time too,” my father said. “That kind of man is someone you hold on to. Anyone can see that.”
    Ashton just looked at me blankly when I told him later at the coffee joint. He hadn’t said much since the encounter with Hardy and the knife at his ribs. I was worried about our friendship.
    “There’s got to be a way to get out from under all this,” he said. “I just don’t know what it is.”
    “I’m sorry, Ash,” I said.
    He shook his head.
    “It wasn’t your fault. These guys look for people to trap all the time. They don’t have the skill set or the brains to do anything themselves. How were you to know the guy was bad?”
    “I should have been more careful.”
    “You were doing what you do. There was never any inkling that it would go sour.”
    “Well, it has. Now he has my family in his pocket. They all figure he’s the best thing that ever happened to me. But what scares me is how much he knows about my life and how much of it he controls now.”
    “He’s got your back to the wall. What bothers me is the threat.”
    “Yeah. Everything I do, win or lose, means someone close to me will get