Page 21 of Wall

“I don’t know.” I pick up that pretty glass water pipe. Excellent workmanship. A one-of-a-kind piece.

What kind of person can’t be bothered to vacuum the carpet and spends hundreds of bucks on a bong? A connoisseur, I’d say. I dangle the pipe over the coffee table and cock my head.

“He’s crashing here. In Shady Gap. At his woman’s place on Main Street.” Tommy wheezes and whimpers through his confession as he holds up his hands. “I can show you where. Put it down, man.”

I let it fall. Glass shatters. He cries out. First time he’s sounded human.

“Take him to the cabin,” I tell Grinder. “But drive him down Main Street first. Have him point out the girlfriend’s place. He gives you any trouble, let the prospect use him for target practice.”

“Oh, gee, boss, seriously?” Mikey’s stroking the launcher. It’s gonna be hard to pry that out of his hands.

“We’ll see.” Forty slaps him on the back. “What should we do with the witnesses?”

The two friends are huddled on the sofa, makin’ themselves as small as possible. We got a procedure for bystanders and eyewitnesses that along with our reputation, has served us well.

“Do you know who we are?” I ask the guy who pissed himself.

“Yeah. Yes. Your S—”

I hold up my palm. “Uh, uh, uh. No names. Did you see anything?”

“No. No, sir.”

“What about you?” I ask the one that’s turning an alarming shade of green. Back in my firefighting days, I would have been calling for a barf bag.

“Nothing. Sir.”

I hold my hand out. “Wallets, please.”

They don’t move immediately, so Grinder hoists his tire iron. There are two wallets on the coffee table a split-second later.

I dig out the licenses and snap a pic of their home addresses. Both are local boys. One’s a cousin to Creech, I believe.

“Okay, we’re gonna leave now. You two are gonna stay here until this house is clean.Pristine.Hang that door back up. And for chrissake, pick up every single beer can from that front porch. Capisce?”

The guys nod enthusiastically.

“Mikey, why don’t you and the RPG stay to supervise. Think you can handle that?”

“Absolutely.” Mikey flops down on an easy chair and props the weapon on his shoulder, using the back of the chair as a brace.

“Ain’t that a picture,” Grinder says.

“Our boy.” I slap Grinder’s back as Forty and I stroll out the hole where the front door used to be.

Forty heads for his Jeep so we can move it into the garage and load Tommy up unseen. It’s almost six o’clock. I need to shower and shave before I head over to Shady Gap. My stomach rumbles, and my cock aches. This was fun, but my heart ain’t in it anymore.

“Can you take care of this from here?” I ask.

Forty nods. “I’ll talk to Heavy. He’ll want to move on Eckels. Dude seems to have a thick head. Might need to be cracked open.”

“It can wait until tomorrow, yeah?”

Forty’s our VP, so if he decides this needs handling right now, that’s gonna leave me in an uncomfortable position. As it is, my jeans have been chafing my stiff dick all damn day.

“Yeah. It can wait. You headed over to Mona’s?”

“After I clean up.”

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