Pickup and Delivery E-Book

Eric Beckstrom

• Herausgeber: Wildside Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 25

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

In this kind of life, killing you quickly is the last nice thing somebody might ever do for you. With everything to lose but time, a low-level pickup and delivery guy sees two options. Put the bloody mess back together, drop it into a nice leak-proof bag, and deliver it. Or make the choice even he couldn’t have anticipated.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

PICKUP AND DELIVERY by Eric Beckstrom

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2017 by Eric Beckstrom.

Originally published in Passport to Murder.

Published by Wildside Press, LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

PICKUP AND DELIVERYby Eric Beckstrom

Tommy the Curb is the kind of guy who’s always telling you he knows where your mother or your sister lives. That’s how he keeps you in line. I don’t blame him for it. In fact, it’s kind of nice of him to give a guy fair warning. He’s really just stating a fact, after all—“I know where your mother lives”—and just supplying you with useful information when he tells you things like that.

Because, sure as death and Mondays, the Curb is the kind of guy who would go find your ma or your sister or your girlfriend if you fell out of line. I’ve seen him do it. Or at least seen the results. So it’s actually pretty thoughtful of him to let you know ahead of time. I know you probably won’t understand this, and maybe you’ll think it’s crazy, thinking it’s so kindhearted of him to drop awful hints like that. But take it from me, I know guys who on purpose don’t give you fair warning. Instead they just go out and do something to somebody a guy cares about, and do it slowly, without giving a guy the option of preventing it. I mean, it’s effective. It gets the job done, ya know. It gets you in line. But the Curb’s way is more humanitarian, if you know what I mean. In that kind of life, killing you quickly is the last nice thing somebody might ever do for you.

I should tell you why they call him the Curb. It’s because of the time he made a whole bunch of bad guys go away, just him by himself. I mean, they’re all bad guys—heck, I guess I’m a bad guy, too—but the definition of “bad guy” my employers used was somebody from a rival gang or family. Somebody who was “impeding commerce,” the Curb would say.

That always used to crack me up: “impeding commerce.” And it always cracked the Curb up that it cracked me up. The Curb was mean, but he was nice, if you know what I mean.

So anyway, one time the Curb—only back then they still called him by just his first name, Tommy—so Tommy is standing on the side of the street in front of the head honcho’s club—standing on the curb, get it?—and this whole carload of bad guys drives up thinking to make some trouble. Maybe mess up some of our guys, or act edgy so as to scare off customers, and generally impede commerce. And so Tommy, he squares his shoulders, steps up to the very edge of the curb, right up to their car, and folds his arms all confident-like.