Broken Highway: A Thomas Highway Story Read Free Page A

need your help on a job I got.”
    “I told you before, I don’t need your
charity.”
    “Bullshit you don’t,” Willis said. “I’ve
been down to that cave you call a home. You need all the help you
can get, brother.”
    “I’ve got all I need down there.”
    “Don’t give me that crap, Highway. You’re
killing yourself down there, one day at a fucking time. It’s just a
matter of when, and you know it. One of these days I’ll come
looking for you and find nothing but a body and gun and a red stain
on the wall.”
    I didn’t disagree with him. There was no
reason to. He was right. We both knew it. I just chose not to think
about it.
    “Besides, it’s not charity,” Willis said.
“It’s work. The kind of stuff you used to do. The kind of stuff you
were good at.”
    “Whatever it is, I’m sure you can handle
it.”
    “Normally I could,” he said. “But my back’s
been acting up again. I’m due for surgery in a couple of days and
my doc said not to do anything strenuous. And this job is shaping
up to be strenuous as hell.”
    “Then call it off,” I said. “Give it someone
else.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I said I’d do it.”
    “So now tell them you can’t,” I said.
    “Not going to happen, Highway. You know
that.”
    I sighed, closed my eyes, and shook my head.
Freaking Willis and his misguided sense of honor. The dude had no
issues with sleeping with a different girl every night or putting
someone in the hospital for looking at him wrong, but going back on
his word? It would never happen. People were always saying their
word was their bond and all that shit but Willis was the only
person I knew who actually backed it up. Every time. Well, except
for me of course. The difference was I rarely agreed to do
anything.
    But I knew I was going to agree to help
Willis out in this case, even though I didn’t want to. I just
couldn’t leave him hanging, not after all we’d been through.
Especially not for selfish reasons. Which was what they were.
Selfish reasons, and stupid ones, when you got right down to it: I
just didn’t want to care. About anything. And if I had a job to do,
a purpose, then I’d be forced to care, at least a little bit.
    “Come on, Highway. Do it for me. As a favor.
I’ll do all the dirty work. I just need you to cover my ass.”
    “Fine,” I said. “Anything to stop your
begging. But I’m not taking your money.”
    “Who the hell said I was going to pay
you?”
    I laughed. Willis did the same.
    “So what’s the job?” I asked.
    “We’ll get to that in a bit,” he said.
“First, we’ve got some people we need to meet.”
    “People? What do you mean, people? I didn’t
agree to meet any people.”
    “Trust me,” Willis said. He was grinning
like the Chesire Cat. “You’ll like these people. I promise.”

 
     
    3
    He was right. I liked them. A lot. Or what I
could see of them, anyhow. Which was all the important parts.
    We were sitting at a table in the corner of
Shooter’s Restaurant in downtown San Diego, in the heart of the
Gaslamp District. Shooter’s was known for its waitresses—gorgeous
twenty-something females flashing lots of skin—and the vast
majority of the middle aged men sitting at the tables came in
strictly for the scenery. Despite the copious amounts of beer and
food at each table, their sly glances were proof of their true
intentions. Or dreams, more like it. Because none of these sad
sacks had any chance with the ladies at this place. Well, none
except Willis. And by extension, me.
    “Tori! Come on over here girl,” Willis
bellowed to the blonde honey standing at the bar with roller-skates
on her feet in lieu of shoes.
    “Hey Willis, what do you want?” Tori said in
a southern twang as she rolled up. She had on tiny jean shorts that
barely covered her ass, along with a cut-off t-shirt and no bra.
She also wore a wide, sultry smile that momentarily took my eyes of
her large, perfect breasts.
    “Bring us a