Page 118 of Half Baked

The man in charged commanded the room, all eyes on him…until I walked in. When he saw me, he grinned, releasing a little chuckle as he swept an arm toward me. “Hereshe is.”

“What happened to her?” the gray-haired man asked, outraged. He took a step toward me, but Murphy and the guy I’d barfed on pointed their guns at him.

“She gave my guys a little trouble,” said the man in charge. “But she’s perfectly fine. Completely alive.”

The gray-haired man was still pissed. “She’s covered in blood, Kipsey!”

Was the gray-haired man George? How did I know him?

“It’s a minor head wound, George,” Déjà Brew man—Kipsey—said. “They tend to bleed. She’s fine, and I suggest we keep her that way. It’s time to get down to business.”

Some of the anger faded from George’s face. “What do you want?”

“You already know what we want.”

His anger was back. “I ain’t dealing with stolen cars. I can’t. The police are already breathing down my neck. I’ve seen them parked down the street, watching me.”

“We can probably back off with the cars,” Kipsey said, extending his hands in a sign of peace. “See? I’m not totally unreasonable, but we can still work with the junkers you ship to Dallas. All you need to do is add a little extra cargo and we’re all good.”

“By extra cargo, you mean you want me to cart your drugs for you.”

The man in charge gave an exaggerated shrug. “Semantics.”

“And if I agree?”

“Then Andrea’s little girl gets to live her life. And if you don’t, she doesn’t.”

George’s face paled. “What did you just say?”

Kipsey’s eyes lit up. “Andrea. Andrea Baker. Wasn’t she your girlfriend?”

George started to say something, then his gaze shot to me and then back to Kipsey. “How do you know about Andrea?”

“My brother told me about her,” Kipsey said. “I think you knew him.” When George didn’t take the bait, he said, “Billy Hauser. Ring any bells?”

I didn’t think it was possible, but George looked even more shocked. “Billy didn’t have any brothers.”

Kipsey laughed, but it sounded wrong.

George licked his bottom lip and shifted his weight. “Okay. Fine. Done. You didn’t need to take her to get me to agree to this, Joe.”

“Funny, I’ve been trying to get you to agree for months now, so I figured I needed to step it up a notch.”

“Point taken,” George said. “Now that that’s settled, how about we let her go and you and I can work out the details.”

“I could do that,” Kipsey said, taking several steps toward me. “But where would be the fun in that? I wanted to see your face when you saw me hurt her.”

I gasped and tried to take a step back, but the two men holding me kept me in place.

“But I agreed to your deal!” George shouted.

Pure evil radiated from Kipsey’s eyes as he approached me. “I said she’dlive. I never said what shape she’d be in.”

I gritted my teeth and spat out, “If you try to touch me, you’ll regret it.”

Kipsey chuckled. “Oh? You think you’re going to hurt me? You’re a fucking mess.”

“Why are you doing this, Kipsey?” George pleaded. “I said I’d do it, and I won’t break our deal. I swear.”

---