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Back Dead of Winter Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
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“He sound like some wannabe British bad boy. Or Irish. Scottish. Shit, I don’t know! Mothafuckas all sound the same!” Low Rider said. “I axed him if he was the boss and he gets all mad ’n shit. Points a finger at me and says, ‘Your business isn’t who the boss is, mate! You take the money, you do the job! Simple enough, eh?’”

“And you don’t know anything about a middle-aged white guy named Sloane?”

“Mothafucka, I done told you I don’t know no damn Sloane! And you broke my fuckin’ nose!”

“I did?” I said innocently enough. “Let’s see?”

Low Rider held his head up for me to take a look at his broken and bloodied nose.

I hit it again with the butt of my gun.

“Now, then,” I said. “Is this Chinese/English/Irish gentleman here? In Detroit?”

Through his pain, Low Rider laughed. “If he ain’t, he sho as hell will be if you keep pokin’ yo nose into business that ain’t yours!”

“And what business would that be?”

“Who buyin’ what property for whatever reason in this beat-to-shit city,” Low Rider said.

“You’re from Jersey,” I said. “Watch your fuckin’ mouth.”

“You don’t even know ’bout your moneybags hometown hookup!”

“And who would that be?”

“Fuck you,” Low Rider said before spitting blood at me.

Duke Ducane was right—what “better angels”?

After a sixty-second pistol-whipping that left Low Rider a few teeth short and with a busted and bleeding left ear, he finally consented to tell me who the hometown connection was. And it wasn’t Vic Bronson.

It was my turn to be wide-eyed and gobsmacked.

“Thanks for the rotten memories, punk,” I said before bringing the butt of my Glock down hard on the back of his head. He collapsed face forward, unconscious. I took out newspaper clippings citing the three real-estate-related murders from my inside coat pocket and let them flutter through the brisk air until they found Low Rider’s back. With a gloved hand, I grabbed his gun and burner phone from his pants pocket and dialed.

“Nine-one-one,” the operator said. “What’s the nature of your emergency?”

I fired off the last three rounds from his gun, then dropped it and the still-connected phone onto Low Rider’s back.

Then I walked out of the shed, into a wicked cold early morning.

16

16

I’ve given up on football.