Mason by Thomas Pendleton Page B

wasn’t sure exactly what approach to take with Dusty. A simple threat wasn’t likely to do any good against the meth-head. Looking around the guy’s house, he saw little of value to take in repayment. Even the sound system was dirt cheap. A pawnshop wouldn’t give him more than ten bucks for it. Dusty had a car, but transferring the title would require paperwork, and Gene didn’t want a paper trail linking him to such scum.
    He’d gone to great trouble to keep his affiliation with his employees a secret. He didn’t want to see all of that effort wasted. Secrecy was important. It was imperative. Gene only conducted business with Hunter face-to-face or via Instant Message. No way to trace the communications. When they did meet, it was brief, like their meeting in the bathroom of Frank’s. Gene traded off the product for payment and walked away. Hunter distributed to Dusty, Lump Hawthorne, and Ricky Langham.
    It was all quite perfect. Until Dusty decided to cook up the profits.
    Dumb-ass hick .
    Now, someone had to step up to take responsibility.
    Hunter had said something about a new girlfriend. A skank, he called her. Is she here? Gene wondered. Is Dusty ?
    Gene checked his gloves. Latex. Boosted from thedrugstore months ago. They made his hands appear white and ghostly.
    He walked through the messy living room, thought about turning off the sound system, but then thought the noise might help. He wandered into the kitchen but only stayed a moment. The sink was filled with dirty dishes. Flies buzzed over the plates and glasses, searching for bits of filth to dine upon. Three roaches scurried over the countertop and disappeared beneath an old chrome toaster with a dented side.
    Gene found Dusty in a small room off of the hall. Dusty was supermodel skinny, with sunken cheeks and long blond hair that fell away from his face. His ribs showed as if they lay beneath a thick layer of dust rather than skin and muscle. He was sprawled on the bed, wearing a pair of dirty cargo shorts and one white sock. On the sole of the sock, dark patches of dirt, the shape of his foot, were ground into the fabric. Small squares of aluminum foil with dark charred circles at their centers, checkered the mattress around him. And lying on top of a pile of discarded sheets was a wooden baseball bat with someone’s signature burned into the tapered handle. Gene let his gaze linger on the bat. It was the only thing in the room that didn’t seem broken, stained, or rotten.
    Hunter was right. Dusty’d gone on a bender. Itwasn’t the first time, Gene knew. What made this particular lapse in judgment so heinous was the volume of product at stake. Dusty’s last order had been ample. Was any of it left?
    And now Dusty was crashed, sleeping off God knows how many days of wired wakefulness. He could be unconscious for days.
    Gene wasn’t that patient. He kicked the bottom of Dusty’s foot hard. “Hey,” he said.
    Dusty didn’t move.
    Gene pulled the 9 mm Beretta out of his pocket, aimed the gun at Dusty’s face, and worked it through the air, just tracing over the unconscious man’s eyebrows and nose with its muzzle.
    â€œBang,” Gene whispered, before returning the gun to his pocket.
    He slapped Dusty’s cheek. Then he slapped it again. Dusty’s eyes opened and then closed. Gene cocked his arm and delivered a cracking backhanded slap to his face, and that woke Dusty up.
    â€œWha…?”
    â€œOh good,” Gene said, his voice twinkling with false good nature. “You’re awake.”
    â€œHey, dude,” Dusty said, his eyes glazed and darting from side to side. “Why you treating me like a bitch?” Dusty rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Scratched hishead, sending the long blond locks into his face. “Not cool, dude. Damn. Not cool.”
    Gene kept on smiling, even as his rage simmered in his throat. His whole body fed off the fury. His