whole
street ritual was half the fun… finding your source, negotiating the
price, passing the green, slipping the buy into your pocket, and drifting away,
feeling cool ‘cause you scored clean once again. Getting it legal seemed
so damn… ordinary. Like being a citizen.
Irritably he wrenched the radio
power knob to off. What was the goddamn world coming to, anyway?
Had to calm down. He felt like an
overwound spring, ready to go ‘sproing!’ and bounce all over the
inside of the truck. He wanted to get this over with.
Easy enough to baby-sit a package:
Snake drops him off, you spend a few days to a week cooped up in a rented house
keeping him blindfolded and tied to a bed; a couple times a day you feed him
and take him to the bathroom. And when the money’s paid, you let him go
and leave the house behind. Simple.
But this… actually doing the
snatch. This was a whole other deal. He had a sudden vision of half a dozen Metro
squad cars, lights flashing, sirens screaming as they screeched to a halt all
around him, doors flying open and a swarm of steely-eyed SWAT dudes, all armed
to the teeth, pointing their Glocks and shotguns in his face.
Paulie shuddered. He didn’t
like guns. He didn’t even own a .22. I’m a lover, not a fighter, as
he liked to say.
And he wanted to reach thirty. What
was that old expression? Do it by the time you’re thirty. Well, he was
just about thirty and he’d just about done it all.
Grew up mostly alone—his
mother working two jobs to keep food on the table while his lard-assed dad
shacked up rent free with some bimbo on the other side of town and didn’t
contribute a goddamned penny because he was “disabled.” Yeah,
right. An ambulance chaser and a coked-up quack had got him declared totally
and permanently disabled after a car accident. But not disabled enough to keep
him from lifting weights in his girlfriend’s garage. The only thing total
and permanent about his father was that he was an asshole.
But before Paulie left home for
good, he’d made an honest man of his dad. Waited for him in the parking
lot outside his favorite bar. Got him with a Louisville Slugger as he was
unlocking his car. Never knew what hit him. Took his wallet to make it look
like a mugging and left him with a ton of broken bones.
Now you’re totally and
permanently disabled, you son of a bitch.
He got something out of his system
with that. Pretty much the first and last totally violent thing he’d done
in his life.
But he’d done just about
everything else. Steal, cheat, swindle, lie, threaten, do second-story work;
he’d be a mule, a numbers runner, a courier, or a wheelman. You need
something done, you call Paulie Dicastro. He’ll take care of it.
But not anymore. Not after this
gig. With the money Mac was paying, he wouldn’t need to work for a looong
time.
And besides, Poppy had had it with
this life. She’d changed after the last baby-sit. She’d started
exercising and eating vegetables and that sort of stuff. And to tell the truth,
she was looking damn good.
Not that she hadn’t turned
heads before. He still remembered the first time he saw her. He was sitting at
the bar at The Incarnate Club on Avenue A in Manhattan when she walked in. She’d poured herself into this slinky tight black
latex outfit that showed off every curve of her not-too-thin-but-no-way-fat figure.
Tall—had to be pushing five-ten—with nice hips, long sweet legs,
and a real nice set up top.
He was made helpless, completely ga-ga
by the way her purple China-doll hair swung back and forth when she walked, the
way her black-lined blue eyes stared out from under those heavy bangs that
looked like they’d been sliced with a scalpel. The eyebrow ring, the
nostril stud, and some cool tattoos: a red heart on each upper arm, with glory
inside the one on the right and 89 in the one on the left. He bought her a
drink, found out she’d come in to hear the goth-industrial battle of the
bands the club was
street ritual was half the fun… finding your source, negotiating the
price, passing the green, slipping the buy into your pocket, and drifting away,
feeling cool ‘cause you scored clean once again. Getting it legal seemed
so damn… ordinary. Like being a citizen.
Irritably he wrenched the radio
power knob to off. What was the goddamn world coming to, anyway?
Had to calm down. He felt like an
overwound spring, ready to go ‘sproing!’ and bounce all over the
inside of the truck. He wanted to get this over with.
Easy enough to baby-sit a package:
Snake drops him off, you spend a few days to a week cooped up in a rented house
keeping him blindfolded and tied to a bed; a couple times a day you feed him
and take him to the bathroom. And when the money’s paid, you let him go
and leave the house behind. Simple.
But this… actually doing the
snatch. This was a whole other deal. He had a sudden vision of half a dozen Metro
squad cars, lights flashing, sirens screaming as they screeched to a halt all
around him, doors flying open and a swarm of steely-eyed SWAT dudes, all armed
to the teeth, pointing their Glocks and shotguns in his face.
Paulie shuddered. He didn’t
like guns. He didn’t even own a .22. I’m a lover, not a fighter, as
he liked to say.
And he wanted to reach thirty. What
was that old expression? Do it by the time you’re thirty. Well, he was
just about thirty and he’d just about done it all.
Grew up mostly alone—his
mother working two jobs to keep food on the table while his lard-assed dad
shacked up rent free with some bimbo on the other side of town and didn’t
contribute a goddamned penny because he was “disabled.” Yeah,
right. An ambulance chaser and a coked-up quack had got him declared totally
and permanently disabled after a car accident. But not disabled enough to keep
him from lifting weights in his girlfriend’s garage. The only thing total
and permanent about his father was that he was an asshole.
But before Paulie left home for
good, he’d made an honest man of his dad. Waited for him in the parking
lot outside his favorite bar. Got him with a Louisville Slugger as he was
unlocking his car. Never knew what hit him. Took his wallet to make it look
like a mugging and left him with a ton of broken bones.
Now you’re totally and
permanently disabled, you son of a bitch.
He got something out of his system
with that. Pretty much the first and last totally violent thing he’d done
in his life.
But he’d done just about
everything else. Steal, cheat, swindle, lie, threaten, do second-story work;
he’d be a mule, a numbers runner, a courier, or a wheelman. You need
something done, you call Paulie Dicastro. He’ll take care of it.
But not anymore. Not after this
gig. With the money Mac was paying, he wouldn’t need to work for a looong
time.
And besides, Poppy had had it with
this life. She’d changed after the last baby-sit. She’d started
exercising and eating vegetables and that sort of stuff. And to tell the truth,
she was looking damn good.
Not that she hadn’t turned
heads before. He still remembered the first time he saw her. He was sitting at
the bar at The Incarnate Club on Avenue A in Manhattan when she walked in. She’d poured herself into this slinky tight black
latex outfit that showed off every curve of her not-too-thin-but-no-way-fat figure.
Tall—had to be pushing five-ten—with nice hips, long sweet legs,
and a real nice set up top.
He was made helpless, completely ga-ga
by the way her purple China-doll hair swung back and forth when she walked, the
way her black-lined blue eyes stared out from under those heavy bangs that
looked like they’d been sliced with a scalpel. The eyebrow ring, the
nostril stud, and some cool tattoos: a red heart on each upper arm, with glory
inside the one on the right and 89 in the one on the left. He bought her a
drink, found out she’d come in to hear the goth-industrial battle of the
bands the club was
Similar Books
