by Ray Garton
His face relaxes when he laughs. He hunkers down in front of me, smiling. “Hell, no, I’d never ask you to do something like that, Clark. I’m not askin’ you now.” He lowers his voice, almost to a whisper. “I’m tellin’ you. I don’t think you realize how easy it’d be for me to put you behind bars for a long time, Clark. That fire? Those deaths? All them people walkin’ around lookin’ like dog vomit on two feet? I could pin all that on you and make it stick. I’m a cop, remember? I work the law from the inside. I can get you out of a jam . . . or put you into one.” He’s still smiling, and his voice becomes little more than a breath. “And just in case that don’t work—it would, don’t worry, it would—but just in case, I can always come into your house in the middle of the night, tie you up, and make you watch while I fuck your wife and daughter. Then I’ll kill ’em, and make you watch me fuck their corpses. By the time I get around to killing you, you’ll thank me for doin’ it.”
Wylie stands so suddenly that I gasp in surprise.
“But that ain’t gonna happen,” he says. “Because, like you said, we’re friends. And we’re gonna do the right thing. And the right thing is getting ridda them cocksuckers.” He takes a swig of beer, then turns and goes back to the porch’s doorway. “I gotta get home. Hey, tell you what. Why don’t you come over tomorrow night for dinner. Deeny’s gonna fix a big stir fry, and there’s always way too much. Bring Melinda and the girls can run off shopping after dinner. That’s all they ever wanna do is shop.”
My mouth still hangs open as I watch him go down the steps.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Clark,” he says. Then he disappears into the darkness that presses close against the screened-in porch.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Rhonda Blackmon Walton, Karl Hexean Sumner, Latrice and Kenny, Karen Leonard, Steven Spruill, Jane Naccarato, Ed Kurtz, Cheryl Burcham, Joe Parks, Julie Hamilton, Paul Heinze, Jr., Saranna DeWylde, Hal Bodner, and my agent and friend, Richard Curtis.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 Ray Garton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
PINNACLE and the P logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7860-3407-9
First electronic edition: May 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3408-6
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3408-4
