“Boss expecting you?”
“Nope.”
The dumbfuck speaks into his walkie talkie, “Got some bastards here to see you.”
“Put’em through,” Ollie’s gruff voice rings out.
He knows we’re an enemy he doesn’t need. We ride through the maze of crushed cars and piles of scrap metal, weaving through the wreckage and debris until we reach his trailer in the back.
Ollie sits in his broken-down recliner weighing a good three fifty. Bet he’s not seen his dick since he hit puberty. A shotgun propped up next to him and a pistol in his lap. You don’t sell drugs unless you’re willing to pay the costs. Spitting a wad of tobacco onto the cement porch, he shifts to sit straighter and taller. “What brings you boys by? You come to scrap them scooters?”
Hound growls.
“We still good on our agreement?”
“Not sold to your men or any school kids if that’s what you’re asking.”
“What about Cloud Nine? You been running that?”
“Nope.”
“You know who’s bringing it in? Gotta be bad for your bottom line having that competition.”
His beady eyes narrow. “I don’t like your tone.”
“Yeah, and I just plain ol’ don’t like you, but I tolerate your presence.”
“We got a problem between us?”
“Not as long as you remember our arrangement. You start pushing Cloud Nine then I’ll burn this shit hole you call home to the ground with you in it. Got me?”
“Don’t know shit all about no Cloud Nine. I hear something I’ll give you a ring.”
“You do that.”
“Now if that concludes are business get the fuck off my property. Don’t bode well for business you sniffing around my lot.”
“Let’s go,” I tell Hound and East. We ride out. East veers off to go home. Hound stays with me till we get to the Devil’s Playground. “Prospect,” I boom as I walk through the door.
“Yeah, Prez?”
“Time to prove your worth. Head to the Kitty Kat and talk to the girls. Find out what they know about the dead girl and where she was scoring. I want names. Get with Viking. I want a pop-up drug test done on every single one of them. Any of them try to get out of it tell them to pack their shit and get gone. And, Rio?”
“What?”
“You aren’t there to stare at no tits and ass. You fuck this up and you’re good as dead.”
“You can count on me.”
“Good that’s what I like to hear, son. Now get the lead out.”
Chapter Three
I finish running my flat iron through my hair, then touch up my makeup. I sense his presence and glance to the doorway through the mirror.
“You cut your hair?”
“You like it?”