Edge (Gentry Boys #7) Read Free

gently suggested that if he has enough green on hand to pay for his habit then he ought to settle up with my buddy.” 
    Kilt raised a bushy red eyebrow and withdrew a wad of cash.  “He got the hint and swore on his mother’s life that he’d find the rest of what he owes you by Sunday.” 
    I took the money, which I didn’t really give shit about because I already had more than I knew what to do with.  Sure I would have gone after Culver sooner or later but that was more about respect than a need for cash.  A few nights ago I’d creamed his pus-pimpled ass in a street race.  It wasn’t much of an event; spontaneous, small stakes, no crowd.  I’d rehabbed a classic GTO over the past six months and it made short work of Culver’s lousy Chevy pickup but I didn’t grab him by the throat when his pockets turned out to be empty.  I’d known him for a few years and he seemed all right; worked as a mechanic a few blocks away and sometimes got in over his head.  Now it made perfect sense that he was hanging around looking for some cheap crystal.  Habits like that made guys desperate enough to make shitty choices.  And betting against me while driving that rusting hunk of junk was betting against sanity. 
    Kilt had been there and seemed equally entertained and irritated when I didn’t pound Culver into a greasy spot because he couldn’t cough up the proceeds on site.  On the drive home Kilt had grumbled something about ‘going soft as a grandpa’s cock’ but he let it go when I didn’t argue. 
    Maybe it was true.  Maybe I was going soft.  Maybe I was tired of the stink of a world that only promised blood, prison and maybe an early grave. 
    Kilt elbowed me on his way out the door.  It was really more of a gentle nudge but because Kilt was rock solid it bruised a little. 
    “How about some breakfast?” he suggested.  “Your treat since I chased down your profits for you.”
    “Sure,” I agreed.  “Let me go shower off first.”
    “You do that,” he said, heading toward the stairwell.  “You fucking stink.  I’ll be waiting across the street at Pancake Palace.”
      “Don’t you need to shower, tough guy?”
    He turned around and flashed me a wooly mammoth kind of grin that managed to be charming.  “No need.  My shit smells like a fucking rose garden.” 
    He didn’t wait around to hear any smart remark from me.  Sometimes Kilt reminded me of Creedence, one of the Gentry triplets who still assumed that they were my cousins and nothing more. 
    Since elevators were for pussies and the main one was out of order again anyway, I jogged up the stairs.  The stairwell was bleak, dark and smelled like a public restroom.  Last year some poor confused junkie had pitched headfirst from the fourth floor railing and fell to his death.  Some people swore he haunted the hotel ever since but they weren’t the kind of people anyone with half a brain would take seriously.  Right now, looking up at the dimly lit stacks of stairs I could almost believe that a ghost really was watching.  I shook off the macabre feeling and quickened my pace.
    The sixth floor had seventeen rooms but at the moment my buddies and I rented them all because we had the cash to burn and because we didn’t feel like fucking with anyone who might have something to prove.  We’d all taken our lumps and understood each other well enough by now to make a comfortable space.  It wasn’t heaven but it was good enough.   
    The whole floor was quiet.  I passed the small lounge just to the right of the old elevators where Jackson was sprawled on a couch, taking a nap beside a bottle of Jim Beam. 
    A few months back Kilt had done some strong arm favors for the owner of a local furniture store and in gratitude the man had sent over a set of three Italian leather couches and a seventy two inch plasma television.  That quality leather was rather wasted on a pack of animals like us who fucked and smoked all over it but the