Page 82 of JoyRide

On the far side of the room, Virgil was asleep on one of the sofas. Probably drunk. He didn’t wake up when I came in.

I heard the back door open, and Harlan pounded down the hallway past the bedrooms. I pulled my gun and got ready to get the party started.

“Down on your knees. Hands on your head,” hollered Harlan.

The guy who let me in looked a little surprised, but he assumed the position and let Harlan cuff him. Maybe he’d had practice. Looked like it.

Harlan found one other guy sleeping in a bedroom. He rousted him and shoved him into the living room. The kid stared at us through glassy eyes but was so high he didn’t realize what was going on.

We secured the first two in the squad, then did a search and seizure inside the trailer. A lot of drugs when we checked the bedrooms—drawers and closet shelves. More in the kitchen cupboards.

I checked under the kitchen sink and behind the toilet tank. Favorite spots. We bagged all of the drugs and a couple of knives. No guns on these guys.

When all that was done, marked for evidence, and stashed in the hatch of the squad, it was time to get Virgil.

Harlan had a hard time waking his brother up. He pulled him up and made him stand on his one good leg while he cuffed Virgil’s hands behind his back.

Virgil moaned and flopped back on the sofa, and he wouldn’t get up again. “Go away, Harlan. Piss off and leave me the fuck alone.”

Harlan grabbed Virgil’s arm and dragged him across the dirty floor of the trailer, out the door and he never slowed down at the wooden steps. Bounced Virgil down those steps letting his head hit a couple on the way down.

I locked the trailer door and sealed it with yellow tape, then slid behind the wheel of the squad.

Harlan rolled Travis’s bike out from under the sagging carport and straddled it when he got to the road. He hollered to me before he started the engine. “I’ll meet you at the station. We’ll have to move people, Tam.”

“Yep. We can do that.”

“I need gas. Have to stop.”

I worried about him riding with only one good arm, but I gave him thumbs up and got going myself. Max and Sarge were yipping in the hatch and complaining about riding back there.

They knew Virgil was family and they wanted to be closer to him. The dogs weren’t always the best judges of character.

Lucky for me, Virgil was too drunk to talk and say mean stuff to me. He slept all the way back to Coyote Creek.

Sheriff’s Office. Coyote Creek.

I got to the office first and didn’t try to get any of the prisoners out of the squad by myself. Max and Sarge would’ve helped me, but it was better to wait for Harlan.

I lit up a smoke and gave it to Virgil and then lit another one for myself. We sat in the squad waiting for the Harley rumble to catch up with us.

Virge and I were smoking our second cigarette when Harlan rolled in and parked Travis’s bike next to the squad. He set the stand, hopped off and opened my door. “You getting out?”

“Better to wait for you. You go do the shuffle, then we’ll bring these guys in. When that’s done I’ll go get them some food before we go home.”

“Copy that.”

Harlan unlocked the back door of the station and propped it open. We’d be making several trips in and out.

Tammy was right not to go into the run by herself and open up any of the cells with this many prisoners on hand. She could’ve gotten herself into some serious trouble. The last thing I wanted was for my sister to get hurt. Too many people in my family on the DL already.

Two more druggies coming in and they could share a cell, but I’d have to find them an empty one first. Easiest way to do that was to move Kyle’s father in with him and his buddy, but I had no intention of making things easy for Mister Smollett. He was a supreme prick and a would-be cop killer.

Instead, I locked him up with the drug slingers from Conrad East—Simon and Jeff. They might enjoy Mister Smollett’s company—or not.

I hope they beat the piss out of him.

With the taser in my hand, I motioned for Smollett to go into the slingers’ cell and slammed the door. He was hesitant at first but eyed the taser and moved to the other cell without incident.

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