Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(56)
“What?” Oh, Iso was good. He was probably so accustomed to lying that the innocent face was second nature to him. Now he laughed. “What, did something happen to Helium Head? Fucking hell, here’s the truck finally. I’m going to tell Zelov how long Truitt took. We’re not using this * again.”
This truck was a tractor trailer, and Truitt had a hell of a time even turning the front wheels into the alley. Lytton could see traffic was already backing up, drawing attention to them. Iso ran toward the truck, Lytton following.
Iso tore open the driver’s door. “Get the f*ck out! I can drive this thing.”
Lytton did the same on the passenger’s door, yelling at the beaner to “Bájese! Bájese!” For once, things were going his way. This would work out perfectly.
He swung himself up into the seat as Truitt, down on the ground, cried, “I’m not used to these things! You wouldn’t believe how many cars were piled up behind me on one-seventy-nine!”
“Great,” fumed Lytton, channeling his rage onto Truitt. “Yet more attention drawn to this f*cking shipment. And they had to pick a truck that says ‘Grass Magic Fertilizer’ on the outside?”
Iso frantically ground through several of the truck’s gears. “It’s a legitimate dispensary load. Nothing illegal about this weed, aside from the pesticides. Oh, and the pallet of heroin in the back.”
Lytton’s blood ran cold. “What.”
Iso grinned manically, obviously proud of himself for this crowning touch. The truck crawled into the alley. “Yeah. The Mexicans aren’t making enough money selling us pot anymore. Legalization in the States means prices have fallen and there’s barely any demand since we can grow it domestically. You know that.”
“I know that.”
“So in Mexico everyone’s planting opium poppies instead of pot. At the last minute we decided to throw a couple kilos of ‘Golden Triangle White’ into our shipment. Genius, huh?”
It took every shred of restraint Lytton possessed to refrain from burying Iso right then and there. His fingers were itching at the grip of the Sig Sauer, just as The Bare Bones patch holder’s fingers had itched an hour ago with the urge to punch Lytton. So now, without consulting Lytton, they’d gone and thrown some heroin into the mix? The sentence for heroin possession was way more severe than for possession of banned pesticides. It wasn’t even illegal to sell marijuana that had been drenched to hell and back with pesticides. Nobody regulated that. Nobody cared. It would just get A Joint Effort shut down for awhile.
And this had all been as a result of Lytton’s beef against Ford, not a Cutlass beef. They had no right to go behind his back and throw some H into the truck.
But Iso was maneuvering the trailer into the alley, and the back door of A Joint Effort blew open.
“Whoa,” breathed Iso, braking with a jerk for the inspector.
Saul Goldblum jogged to his government vehicle just as Turk and Ford appeared at the door. Saul yanked open his car’s door and threw himself into the cage. He practically took off with the door still open, sashaying down the alley, hitting garbage cans with precision like Detective Frank Drebin of Police Squad.
Aha. The call had finally worked.
Iso whined, “What’s up with that guy? He’s not going to get a chance to bust them with this heroin. And I didn’t even see him looking into the Dumpster like you promised he would.”
Lytton placed the barrel of the silencer against Iso’s temple. It was amazing how calm he suddenly was. His hand didn’t shake one iota. “Tell me, Iso. Tell me how you thought you were going to get away with it.”
Iso still played dumb. “With what?”
“You didn’t succeed at killing my old lady. Just permanently scarred her for life. She told me what you did.”
“What are you talking about? I left right after you left yesterday. If something happened to someone, it must’ve been one of The Bare Bones come to get revenge for jacking their weed. Or one of the Ochoas getting revenge for that driver. I saw that van heading up the hill, remember?”
The rage was unbelievable, spilling out through Lytton’s very pores. The angrier he became, the calmer. It was strange. Some sort of testosterone had taken over, some fight or flight instinct, one of those situations where the mother lifts a school bus off her child. Lytton felt he could move a mountain, the power surged so strongly through him. “Too bad your f*cking prints are all over that bloody hammer that was used to crush Helium Head’s skull.” Lytton didn’t know that. He just assumed they would be.
Ford and Turk had come into the alley by now. They were standing just below the truck cab looking up, arms crossed, as though absorbed in a good movie.
Iso actually chuckled. “Helium Head needed some more air in his brain.”
Lytton cocked the trigger without even thinking. That sobered Iso up a bit. “So you did get the security code before bashing him to death?”
Iso licked his dry lips. “What do you mean? What security code? What hammer?”
Lytton stretched over the console and jammed the silencer into Iso’s forehead. The guy reeked of every body odor known to man. Lytton hadn’t noticed him take a single shower while staying at his house, and he was still probably covered with the blood of Helium Head and others too painful to think about. “Motherf*ck! I saw you kill that driver beaner in cold blood, you scum-sucking rat bastard! Now just f*cking tell me you got the security code from Helium Head!”