“What’s your name?” I asked.
He remained silent.
I was tempted to punch him in the head, but I suppose I was feeling generous, so I decided a verbal threat would do. “Look, you’re already having a bad day. Would you like to add a bullet in your head to it?” I pressed the gun a little harder into his back. “Now, what’s your fucking name? And remember, I already got your wallet, so ain’t no sense in tryna lie.”
“Johnny Brooks,” he said.
“Okay, Johnny, open this bitch up!” I commanded.
“I–I–I can’t,” he stammered.
“Why the fuck not?” Denny came closer and pressed the barrel of his gun against Johnny’s temple.
“It’s got some kinda digital safe attached to it. You gotta have a code. I don’t have the code.”
Denny looked it over and nodded his head. “He ain’t lying. This shit is high tech as hell for a beat-up old truck like this.”
I glanced over at Denny and motioned for him to come beside me. With my gun still pointed at Johnny, we had an impromptu meeting to discuss the situation.
“What’s the hold up? Let’s get the fuck outta her,” Denny whispered.
“Before we go, I wanna know what the fuck is in that damn truck. Think about it. If Lex is offering us two hundred grand, whatever’s inside’s gotta be worth a couple mil. We might be playing ourselves and getting the short end of the stick. You know how Lex is.”
Denny shrugged. “I hear ya, but we might not be able to get rid of whatever the fuck is inside like Lex can. Let’s just get the fucking truck to Lex and get our money, man.”
I walked back over to Johnny. “What’s in the truck? And don’t fucking lie!”
“I . . . I don’t even know. My boss don’t tell me shit. I just pick up and drop off. That’s it. But he’s fucking crazy, and if y’all don’t kill me, either way I’m still a fuckin’ dead man, and so are you,” Johnny said, hunched over and clenching his stomach.
“What do you think is in it?” I peered at him.
“I honestly don’t know, but the only way to describe it is contraband,” he said.
“What the fuck is contraband?” Denny asked.
“The kinda shit you don’t report to the police when niggas like us steal it from you,” I explained, then signaled for Li’l Al. He raced over and took the keys from me, then climbed into the truck. I snatched Johnny away and tossed him to the opposite side so he wouldn’t get run over. Then, Denny and I ran to get into the van.
“Watch your back!” Johnny shouted after us. “Those crackers are gonna kill us all!”
“What the hell is he jibber-jabbering about?” Denny asked.
“Nothin’. Call Lex and tell him we got the truck,” I told Denny as we waited for Li’l Al to turn the truck around to follow us. “And tell that Israeli bastard that we don’t want a hundred grand a piece anymore. We want two hundred grand.”
Denny turned and looked at me. “You sure about that?”
“I’m a man with balls the size of coconuts,” I said, imitating Lex’s accent. “Of course I’m sure.”
KD
35
I woke up to the sound of the damn rooster crowing and Tyler fucking the hell out of some broad in his bedroom, which surprised me. He usually didn’t bring those heifers home. Ah, what the hell. It was his house too, and he was a grown-ass man, so he could fuck whoever he wanted.
I got out of the bed and took my morning dump before heading to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. While I was waiting for it to brew, I took out some taters, some eggs, and a slab of that thick country bacon for Patrick to cook for breakfast. I usually enjoyed my first cup of coffee while reading the New York Times on my tablet to see how the fake news had smeared our great president, but before I could even pull up that liberal piece of shit, I was hit by a notification that damn near gave me a heart attack.
“Shiiiiit,” I mumbled, looking down at my tablet again to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. It only took me a second or two to realize they weren’t, and I hauled ass to the back of the house.
“Tyler!” I burst up into his room. I’d caught the boy on the downstroke, but I didn’t rightly care—at least until I saw that he wasn’t just fucking some gold-digging piece of white trash. He was fucking . . .
“Lizbeth!”
“Hey, KD.” Elizabeth covered herself, but she didn’t look embarrassed. In fact, I think she was kinda glad I knew they were fucking.
“Daddy, what is wrong with you?” Tyler yelled.
“I’m deeply sorry to have walked in on you two like this,” I said in my sincerest voice, “but Tyler, our truck’s gone missing. The damn GPS is off again.”
“You mean the truck going to New York and to that Greer fella in Connecticut?”
“That’s the truck.”
“Fuck, Daddy!” Tyler climbed out of bed and found his boxers, slipping them on. “Did you call Johnny?”
“No, but I’m gonna call his ass right now.” In my haste to tell Tyler, I hadn’t even thought about calling Johnny. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and found his number in my contacts. The fucking thing went straight to voicemail.
“I’m gonna kill that black son of a bitch,” I grumbled.
“You think he’s out getting some pussy again?” He glanced over at Elizabeth and tried to clean it up. “I mean . . . going to see that woman again? Sorry, Liz, I’ve got work to do.”
“Don’t be. You boys handle your business. Me and you have plenty of time to have fun in the sheets.” She got out of that bed naked as the day she was
