Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(57)
Iso lifted his hands in a surrender pose. Real fear was in his eyes now, finally. “Okay! Okay! I got the code, all right? Jesus. I was having a bad day. I was bored being stuck in your nerdy little incubator house with those dweebs all day long. Why should I be punished for icing a wetback? That’s all in a day’s work, my friend! Helium Head was a dime a dozen. As for your old lady, I still take no credit for having handcuffed her and beaten—”
Lytton’s finger squeezed the trigger before his brain had even told it what to do.
It was amazing how quickly consciousness vanished from Iso’s eyes. The silencer was amazingly effective. Over the idle of the big truck’s engine, Turk and Ford might not have even heard the shot. Blood and grey matter like a dozen smashed snails splattered the driver’s window, like an air bag that had exploded.
Iso was buried. Now he was just a scummy, smelly outlaw whose time had come—had probably come a long time ago.
Lytton had to place the piece in his lap in order to unscrew that signet ring from Iso’s hammy hand. Thinking of June’s two pitch black eyes and her broken jaw, Lytton jammed the ring onto his own thinner finger so it went easily onto the first knuckle. He connected such a lightning fast jab to Iso’s stupid cheekbone, he could readily see the imprint of the shield and eagle’s head left there. He shoved the ring carelessly back onto the tip of Iso’s finger.
He didn’t want to linger. He didn’t know how to drive an eighteen-wheeler, so he stuck the pistol in his waistband and dragged Iso’s body off the driver’s seat. He shuffled in the paperwork on the console until he found a bill of lading with the name A Joint Effort typed in the “ship to” box. Jamming this into his jeans pocket, he tore out the last page of the log book that was open on the console before leaping out the passenger door.
He passed the Sig Sauer to Turk as he walked by the men. “You can handle an eighteen-wheeler, can’t you?” he said to Ford.
“Sure can.” It was not his imagination that there was newfound respect in Ford’s eyes. The two men shared a brief glance that conveyed so much in just a fraction of a second. Time was of the essence, though, so Lytton continued on into the dispensary while Ford climbed into the driver’s seat, yelling at Truitt and the other guy to get in, too.
Toby was standing in the back hallway gaping and guffawing. “Unreal! I hid in the computer room, but that dickhead Saul was just wondering why there was so little medicine on the shelves. Of course we couldn’t admit to having the load jacked last week, so Turk was coming up with all sorts of lame explanations, like mold in the last batch. Then he got desperate and mentioned aphids and beetle borers. Thank God Saul picked up Madison’s call. Worked like a charm. I almost feel sorry for the guy panicking, thinking his wife was hit by a car. Then I remember he’s a corrupt toolbag.”
Lytton barely paused as he breezed past his business partner. “You might want to erase the past half hours’ worth of security footage while you’re at it.”
Slushy was still in the locked storefront, safely in the zone of plausible deniability. Just to pass the time, he was obliviously chewing on a brownie from a box clearly labeled “Make Me Happy.” He shook his head with pity when he took note of Lytton’s stance, his regal bearing. Slushy had worked for the Ochoa cartel before coming to work for The Bare Bones. He’d seen plenty newly-minted members of the “Filthy Few” in his time.
“I knew the second I saw you, you were nothing but bad news.”
Lytton said, “Those Cutlasses were going to serve us with a truckload of China White. I just refused the shipment.”
Slushy gulped his brownie so he could tsk-tsk without a full mouth. “I take it that’s ‘refused…with extreme prejudice.’”
Lytton shouldered the security guard aside. “I’m going to the hospital now to be with June. Send me the carwash bill.”
Slushy gave a thumbs up while nibbling the crumbs off his other palm. “Will do, hot stuff.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JUNE
To celebrate the removal of the arch bars from my teeth, we closed down The Bum Steer to the public.
I’d had a bilateral mandible fracture that had left a couple of teeth dead—we didn’t notice that until the arch bars were removed. I was beyond ashamed that I had to appear in public still puffy with both eyes slightly blackened, as though I’d looked through some nerd’s high school microscope that was dusted with black chalk.
Lytton was closing up at The Joint System. That was an amalgamation of the two stores. Physically it was A Joint Effort’s storefront—Doug Zelov had backed out of the medical marijuana business, given up the Entwistle Street property after being stuck with a load of poisonous pot and no product from Leaves of Grass. Oh, and maybe losing his sergeant-at-arms to a traitor among the Dotards, some idiot named Truitt, had something to do with it. All I knew was that when I was discharged from the hospital, Lytton had cut all ties with The Cutlasses and abandoned his idea to open a rival dispensary. The two brothers had banded together and triumphed in some intra-club rivalry. I was beyond ecstatic that Lytton and Ford were finally on the same side.
We sat at a couple of tables near the bar. A few hang-arounds ran The Bum Steer now, although a decade ago it was The Bare Bones’ clubhouse, before they moved to the Citadel. Madison had told me a couple of horror stories about stopping by here back when it was their clubhouse, something about a box of adult diapers, so I’d pretty much been scared off of ever entering the premises until now. This was supposed to be a party for me, so I had to come.