Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(81)

THE DOOR to the house opened, and a blond woman with big Texas hair stuck her head in the garage and said, in her Texan drawl, “What the f—” before Deese hit her in the face and knocked her on her ass and back into the house. Harrelson shouted,” Hey!” and Cole stuck the gun in his face.

Harrelson asked, “What? You’re gonna murder me in cold blood?”

Deese said, “Fuck, yeah, and enjoy the shit out of it,” and pointed the gun at his head.

Harrelson didn’t flinch, and Cole said to Deese, “Remember the money,” and Deese said, “Okay,” and shot Dopey in the hip, the discharge sounding like a cannon in the enclosed space. Cole jumped, Dopey screamed, and Harrelson shouted, “Stop it, for Christ’s sakes. We’ll give you the money.”


GLORIA HARRELSON was crawling across the kitchen floor, dripping blood from her nose and coughing. Deese wagged his gun at Harrelson and said, “Get in the house,” and Harrelson walked past Cole and into the house and said, “We gotta get an ambulance for Dopey.”

Deese: “Fuck him, let him die.”

Dopey’s hair was scraped back into a ponytail, and Deese said to Cole, “Put your gun on this asshole,” meaning Harrelson, and when Cole did Deese backed up to Dopey and grabbed his hair and dragged him, screaming, into the house and dumped him on the floor. Gloria Harrelson was still crawling toward the kitchen, and Deese asked, “Where do you think you’re going?” and kicked her in the ass and she went flat on the floor and began weeping.

Harrelson said, “One more thing and I’ll be on you like white on rice.”

“And you’ll be a fuckin’ dead hero,” Deese said.

“And you won’t get one penny, you piece of shit!” Harrelson shouted.

Cole said, “We’re gonna need that money. Where is it?”

“I got my roll, and there’s more money in the safe,” Harrelson said. “Don’t mess with Gloria anymore.”

“Gimme the roll,” Cole said.

Harrelson dug in his pocket and pulled out his roll of bills, mostly hundreds, and Cole thumbed them and said, “Maybe three grand.”

“Not enough, nowhere fuckin’ near enough. I’ll tell you what, we don’t get enough money, I’ll take it out in pussy,” Deese said to Harrelson.

“Don’t do that,” Gloria wailed from the floor.

Cole said to Deese, “We’ve been here too long. Cut the bullshit. We want the safe open. And if we don’t have it in a minute and thirty seconds, I’m gonna kill them and we’re getting out.”

“Don’t do that,” Gloria cried. “Safe’s in the family room.”

Deese kicked Dopey and said, “Gimme your cell phone,” and Dopey groaned and said, “I’m bleeding real bad,” and Deese said, “Give me the fuckin’ phone or I’ll kick you to death.”

Dopey fumbled the phone out of a blood-soaked pocket and Deese stomped on it. The he waggled his gun at Harrelson and said, “The safe.”

As Harrelson and Gloria led the way to the family room, Deese leaned close to Cole and said, “I’m pretty fuckin’ good at this.”

“Man . . .” Cole just shook his head.

The safe was concealed in the side of a cabinet in the bar. Harrelson pulled open the cupboard-style door to reveal a four-foot-high steel box with a combination dial. He spun the dial a couple of times, then leaned closer and stopped sequentially at four different numbers. He popped the safe open and stepped back. Cole said to Deese, “If he tries to fuck with me, shoot him.”

Deese pointed his gun at Harrelson, and Cole got down on his knees and began pulling drawers out of the safe. He dumped a lot of jewelry on the floor—gold chains, a couple of diamond necklaces and rings, some emeralds, a sparkly gold Panther brooch by Cartier. Cole slipped the brooch in his pocket. The bottom drawer turned up a stack of cash. Cole fanned the cash out and said to Deese, “Maybe six or eight.”

Deese pointed the gun at Gloria’s head and said to Harrelson, “Where’s the money, asshole? Where’s the money? We know you got it.”

“In a safe-deposit box, dummy,” Harrelson said, “Downtown. In the bank.”

“We know you used to keep it in your car.”

“Everybody in town knows that and it’s bullshit, and always has been. I was never stupid enough to do that. How much did you hear? Three million? Five million? I bet it was five million, right? Well, think about it. You gonna drive around a town full of assholes with five million in cash? You get rear-ended and there’s a fire? A junkie breaks in? You’re out three million. Or five. Whatever you heard, it’s bullshit.”

Cole: “Let’s go.” And to Harrelson: “We need the keys to that Lexus.”

Deese: “Ain’t got enough money.” He shoved Gloria Harrelson in the chest, hard enough to knock her back on a couch. “Listen to me, bitch. Where’s the money?”

She began crying again, then choked out, “In the bank, in the box. Honest to God, that’s the truth. It’s in the box.”

“Fuck it, you’re coming with us.”

Cole: “What?”

“She’s coming with us,” Deese said. He turned to Harrelson. “We want two million in cash tomorrow morning when the bank opens. You don’t get it to us, I’ll kill her. You call the cops, I’ll kill her. If we gotta run with her, I’ll kill her. But first we’ll bang her so hard they’ll probably find her pussy lyin’ in the street.”