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Back Reckless Abandon Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. 1
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  9. 9
  10. 10
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  30. 30
  31. 31
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  33. 33
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  40. 40
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  53. 53
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  56. 56
  57. 57
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  60. 60
  61. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  62. AUTHOR’S NOTE

“Put it in your car and drive it up here,” Stone said.

“Or in your airplane.”

“Forget that. I’m not getting involved. I have a law license to protect.”

“Do it while you’ve still got a badge to flash,” Lance said, “in case you’re stopped by a highway patrolman who wants to search your car.”

“I’ll think about it,” Holly said. She turned to Stone. “Can we go home now?”

“Sure.”

Dino spoke up. “I want to go with you to Vito’s place tomorrow.”

“Why?” Stone asked.

“You’ll be better off with me there.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Good with me,” Holly said.

“And don’t you go into that store until I say so.”

55

STONE AND HOLLY were having breakfast the following morning.

“I don’t like this,” Stone said.

“What don’t you like?”

“Before, when we went into that apartment with Dino, we had a SWAT team ahead of us, and there was shooting. Now we’re just supposed to walk into Vito’s grocery store and walk out with Trini? It doesn’t add up, and if it did, I still wouldn’t want to go in there like that.”

“What do you suggest?”

Stone called Dino.

“Bacchetti.”

“I don’t like it, Dino.”

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Stone, dummy. You don’t recognize my voice after all these years?”

“What don’t you like?”

“I don’t like walking into that grocery store with no SWAT team and no backup.”

“Vito’s your backup.”

“The last time I saw Vito he was backing me into a freshly dug grave.”

“You don’t trust him?”

“Why should I trust him? Because he didn’t kill me?”

“That’s a start.”

“That was because he was afraid of Eduardo.”

“Because he respected Eduardo.”

“Whatever. He didn’t back off because he’d suddenly taken a liking to me.”

“Maybe he liked Holly.”

“He was going to kill her, too.”

“You got a point.”

“Of course I do. The point is, what’s going to happen when we walk in there? If we walk in there.”

“You’ll be with me.”

“You’re not big enough to hide behind.”

“He respects me.”

“Why, because he saved your skinny little ass from bullies when you were ten?”

“No, because I saved his fat ass from a long time upstate, and he appreciates that.”

“Okay, that takes care of you. What about Holly and me?”

“It’s transferable.”

“What?”

“The respect.”

“Look, these goombahs are murdering people they respect all the time, you know? The respect seems to kind of vary from day to day—one day you’re a prince of a guy, the next you’re in a fifty-five-gallon drum of lime in a New Jersey swamp, waiting for Judgment Day.”

“Stone, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so nervous.”